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The art of kissing according to science

Kissing, anyone can do it without a manual. Yet this act of "welding together two digestive tracts", as the writer Albert Cohen so poetically describes it (1), has been widely dissected by science, which teaches us again and again that "Eros is the life".

The kiss, the cement, the super glue of beings

Research shows that the frequency of kissing reflects how satisfied a couple is. Unsurprisingly:the higher their number, the more the partners feel good together. Psychologist Gordon Gallup even reports that 59% of men and 66% of women have already ended a budding relationship because of… bad kisses. More than the "technique" of one or the other, it is a chemical reaction that eludes us, because a "saliva incompatibility" leads to a kind of chemical chaos stimulating cortisol, the hormone of stress!

This first step is so important that in a relationship, 90% (2) of people remember their first kiss vividly (where they were, who made the first move…), much more than their first sexual encounter. It is not for nothing that prostitutes do not kiss… paradoxically considering it too intimate. Kissing thus requires having desire for the other while avoiding the lips of the "client" allows them to keep their emotions away from the "work" (3).

Why do we kiss (by the way)?

Kissing allows you to "test the other biologically". The scientific literature bets on the hypothesis that kissing helps us choose the best partner and above all, serves as a big WARNING / ALERT / DON'T when it is not good for us. All the information exchanged during the kiss – olfactory, tactile and even postural – indeed triggers unconscious mechanisms that guide us to know if our genes are compatible. Reproduction hello. Basically, no need to fantasize 10 years on a guy and his alleged intellectual or physical qualities. We moderate ourselves and we wait - it's better - to embrace it before the big-lyrical-inner-obsessive-flights-of-day-like-night (yes you know what I'm talking about).

Well, small nuance, men are less picky about the kiss and tend to see it as a step towards SEX while women are immediately very attentive to the "taste" and the breath that emanates from it (they are more interested in facial and body appeal…).

Anyway, the men interviewed say they prefer when women practice wet and tonic kisses. In short, when they let go and take more initiative (decryption:stop wanting to be TOO languid).

(1) Solal , Gallimard editions

(2) According to a study conducted by psychologist John Bohannon of Butler University.

(3) According to research conducted by Joanna Brewis and Stephen Linstead found in the book Sex, Work and Sex Work .