Biologically decoding the kiss
As an element of lovers’ foreplay, kissing triggers a veritable biological symphony. Kissing gives a sensual indication of what is to come, informing us of our desire and determining our feelings of attachment. Kissing is far from trivial.
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“Just one kiss”, begs a potential new lover. “A kiss! A kiss!” demand the wedding guests. Far less innocent than it seems, this oral embrace causes a flurry of events, both in the body and the mind.
Veritable sensual and nuptial prelude, kissing reveals both our modesty and daring under the covers, and also determines our feelings of attachment. Kissing makes a big difference!
Here’s what neurobiologist Dr Lucy Vincent, author of “L’amour de A à XY” [Love from A to XY], has to say about the biology of the kiss.
The important ‘first’ kiss
A first kiss is a bit like the first time for two lovers: there’s a before and an after. “Kissing takes things to a new level. It marks a threshold in a relationship,” explains Dr Vincent. Just a few moments before your two mouths touched, you were simply two individuals. After that first kiss, the relationship is no longer the same. Why so?
“Kissing gives the chance to experience an altogether remarkable physical intimacy, very different from the intimacy of sex”, says Dr Vincent. Strangely enough, mutual physical attraction urges us to actually taste the inside of someone else’s mouth, to overcome that natural repulsion to someone else’s saliva. Sealing, in this manner, a tacit understanding. Kissing is, in some way, the quintessence of sexual intimacy.
The hormonal ballet of kissing
Today, we are able to understand the biological language of eroticism. Kissing also has its own influential language, based around the complex reactions it triggers. Let’s first focus on the saliva we exchange, in which circulates a variety of far from anecdotal information.
A number of hormones can be found in saliva, involved both in determining sexual desire and long-term unity. They include testosterone and oestrogen. "With testosterone so highly involved in sexual motivation, kissing could well be a way of maintaining the desire to make love”, states Dr Lucy Vincent.
As for oestrogen levels, their role is just as important. Our taste for attachment, our desire to invest ourselves emotionally are determined in part by certain personality traits, and are also linked to our salivary levels of oestrogen. You might as well say that kissing is a way of announcing your intentions from the very start, both in terms of desire and length of relationship.
Your mouth: an audiovisual organ of desire
Where does desire “hang out”, you may ask? Many places, no doubt, but our mouths are essential indicators, providing a myriad of information. Our highly flexible mouths change shape depending on our feelings, with the sounds we make indicate our emotional state.
"It’s as if the other person’s personality, motivation, desires and intelligence are displayed to us mainly by the mouth," continues Dr Vincent. "It’s like the television news of what’s happening in the brain”, she adds.
Our brains receive information from the mouth, from what it tastes and says. Words of desire, language and taste from our lips and tongue are therefore of great importance. All indicate the intensity of our desire. As such, our mouths implicitly provide a sort of classification of the body’s ability to interact with its environment, including interaction with another body.
All these elements help us to understand that desire for long, greedy kisses, as is often the case at the start of a relationship, even in public. This “exploratory” kissing foreplay does indeed appear to be “the ideal way to bring two bodies and two minds together intimately, bringing them under the influence of favourable hormones”, explains Dr Vincent.
So what are you waiting for? Get kissing!
Source: Interview with Dr Lucy Vincent, October 2010
Copyright © 2010 Doctissimo
Posted 23.11.2010
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