Kissing enjoyed more by those who are attractive?

Kissing- we all do it. Most of us love it. And if you’ve been married ten to fifteen years you probably wish you could do it again for the first time (with your mate of course). But surprisingly, a recent Oxford University study reports that good looking people seem to enjoy it more than other people, but regardless, apparently kissing may have several purposes including auditioning a potential mate, cementing a relationship or simply making you feel good.

But why do humans kiss and not other animals? That remains a mystery to scientists who have concluded that although some higher level primates such as chimps may kiss, it’s not with the same intensity as humans.

So who enjoys kissing?

According to two researchers from Oxford’s department of experimental psychology, Rafael Wlodarski and Robin Dunbar, women enjoyed kissing more than men- duh- but after questioning an estimated 900 adults, the guys who considered themselves the most attractive and who had the highest number of girlfriends, valued kissing more than other men.

What’s the theory? Researchers concluded that better looking men and women have more options and therefore need a good way to “winnow” them down. Kissing, according to the researchers, may be the most effective way for people to eliminate “losers,” or people they believe do not have what it takes to bear and raise children.

Women in the study also viewed kissing as an important way to communicate and believed that over the long term kissing can enhance affection and attachment. Researchers also suggested that although kissing does cause arousal, arousal doesn’t seem to be what is driving people to kiss.

“When you get a highly intelligent, pair-bonding species that requires years to raise a baby, you evolve more and more brain mechanisms to weed out the losers. Mate choice and courtship in humans is complex,” Dunbar said in a statement discussing the work. “It involves a series of periods of assessments where people ask themselves, ‘Shall I carry on deeper into this relationship? Then assessments become more and more intimate as we go deeper into the courtship stages,” he said, “and this is where kissing comes in.”

Is kissing really a good discriminating method of choosing a partner?

Obviously kissing is not the best indicator or whether or not someone would make a good husband, wife, mother or father. In fact, the best kissers may be the ones who have kissed a lot of people, which should be a clear warning sign. But kissing does mean something.

Have you ever had a few great dates with someone only to find out when you kissed them that somehow it felt like you were kissing your brother? There is that inexplicable chemical attraction which is necessary to move someone from the “friend” category into possible mating territory, even if we don’t understand exactly what it might be.

According to some philematologists (those are the people who study kissing), they believe it may have to do more with scent. Some researchers believe women and men may be more attracted to the scent of others who have a very different genetic code for their immune system. Other scientists believe scent may allow their partner to subconsciously detect if the woman is ovulating.

So why do we kiss? Surprisingly, no one seems to know for sure. I’ve heard a kiss is what we want life to be. It’s that magical feeling; a moment suspended in time. And if that first kiss is bad? I don’t know what it means for your relationship, but it can’t be good.