Sex and relationships - What's in a kiss

Heather Little-White, PhD, Contributor

Kissing, an age old form of social or intimate expression, may be good for you. At a time when everyone is seeking health benefits, you may want to kiss more for better health. A simple peck on the cheek uses two muscles and a passionate kiss uses as much as 34 muscles in the face. The more you kiss, the more your face will get a rigorous workout.

Your overall health will benefit from kissing as research has shown that kissing improves skin, aids circulation and may even relieve headaches. Kissing releases the same feel-good neurotransmitters in the brains as parachuting, bungee jumping and running.

Kissing trivia

Kisses may be short or long, probably as long as the longest kiss in movie history between Jane Wyman and Regis Tommey for three hours and five seconds. Other trivia indicates:

• The average person spends 366 hours of their life kissing.
• Two out of every three couples turn their heads to the right when they kiss.
• The average woman kisses 29 men before she gets married.

Timing

You may be wondering when is the right time to kiss your mate. If you are on a date, you may not be so sure if the person you are with would welcome smooching, you may end up bumping and mumbling during the date. You have to look for the signs from your date such as eye contact and standing closer to you than a friend or business colleague would. This indicates that you could try to get closer yourself and attempt a kiss.

If your date shows no sign of wanting to kiss, then you should make the move to get closer and rub your arm against his or hers. Face your date with open arms, smiling with an expression that you want to kiss as an indication of a good time together and your admiration of the person. Your facial expression should show how happy you are to be in the person's company and this will help them to warm to you and give you the kiss you desire.

Feel-good factor

You may be shy to kiss in public and if you are unsure of your date's intention towards you, you may hold back on the passionate, fireworks kiss. The more intense your kisses are, the more it will signal the brain to produce the hormone oxytocin that produces a feel-good feeling to the extent that your knees feel weak. As you feel good, more hormone is produced and you feel better and love drugged. For the chemistry of the hormones to work, you want to be in a comfortable, safe place so you can really relax and enjoy the time with your partner.

At every level of sexual intimacy, eye contact is important because kissing with eyes closed cause you to miss out on so much more. It is said that the eyes are the window to the soul and it's amazing what you can read in another person through the eyes. Eye-to-eye contact at the start of the kiss is an establishing moment between two people. If you believe Rene Yasenek, kissing is a means of getting two people so close together that they cannot see anything wrong with each other.

Less talk

It was Ingrid Bergman who said that "a kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous". Talking too much between kisses can kill the mood, so you should stick to one-liners which will rev up the sexual chemistry, according to Michael Christian, author of The Art of Kissing. Great one-liners include:

"You're such a good kisser."

"You're so beautiful."

"You're so hot."

"I never want to stop kissing you."

When you are at that stage of personal connection, you will want to continue to a greater connection that both of you will discover over time. However, in the heat of the moment, you may be tempted to place your hands on the other person's body, especially the buttocks, neck and shoulders. This can easily turn off your mate and they may have to tell you upfront that you are a lousy kisser, creating a huge blow to your ego and killing the chemistry you had created. You certainly would not want to be remembered for a bad kiss.

Is kissing dangerous?

There may be some reluctance in kissing because you believe that kissing is dangerous. During your teen years, you were warned about whom you should kiss with caution to prevent being infected. In the 1960s when mononucleosis, commonly known as 'mono' or the 'kissing disease', was raging, persons were very careful about kissing too many people.

The hysteria behind kissing was caused by the infection of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) to create mono. After exposure to EBV, persons may become fatigued and develop a headache, muscle or joint aches, fever, enlarged lymph nodes and sore throat. While the virus may be shed in the saliva and can be transmitted through kissing, mono is not a highly contagious illness and it can be transmitted through coughing or sneezing as well. Preventing the spread of EBV is not easy since very often there are no symptoms.

Herpes simplex

Kissing allows for the exchange of body fluids, so there is a risk of transmitting infections. But the body's defence mechanism is such that some infections are resisted. Many viral infections like herpes simplex, that causes cold-sore blisters, are passed through kissing. Some infections like HIV are harder to transmit through kissing but when it occurs there may be sores in the mouth allowing exposure to blood not just saliva. If you are in a relationship with one partner, you will reduce the risk of being infected.

See! the mountains kiss high heaven,

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the Earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea: -

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Love's Philosophy

Send comments/questions to heatherl@cwjamaica.com.