Puckering up. Smooching. Snogging. Lip-locking. Tongue-wrestling. Rounding first base. Sucking-face (ahh, gotta love ’90s lingo). Whatever you call it, kissing is one of our favorite parts about falling in love.
We’ve already given you the scoop on what the ladies really think of kissing and dished on the secret health benefits of kissing. Now, we’re taking it one step further with an impressive list of eyebrow-raising facts about smacking lips. Consider it your introductory Philematology 101 class (which, you’ll come to find out, is the scholarly study of kissing).
1. Your Kissing Style Originates in the Womb
See a kiss in any Hollywood movie, painting or sculpture and more often than not, you’ll see couples leaning in to the right. But it’s not just in the movies. A German researcher observed over 100 couples and noted that two-thirds of them tilted their heads to the right, too. Experts think this instinct originates from the womb when we naturally tilted our heads to the right.
2. Kissing Takes Serious Muscle Power
Researchers from the Rayne Institute at University College, London, studied kissing couples under an MRI scanner and found that a kiss mostly involves the orbicularis oris (the muscle around your mouth). That said, one kiss requires the coordination of 146 muscles total, including 34 facial muscles and 112 postural muscles. Sounds like a serious workout for your face!
3. There’s Such a Thing as a Kissing Career
Just in case you were so into kissing you wanted to make a career out of it, the study of kissing itself is called philematology. And someone who studies kissing is called an osculologist. (That sounds like a cheesy bro T-shirt.)
4. The Longest Kiss on Record Lasted More Than 58 Hours
According to the Guinness World Records, the record for the longest-lasting kiss goes to Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat of Thailand. These champion smoochers locked lips for 58 hours, 35 minutes and 58 seconds. (No word on whether they got bathroom breaks, but we’re thinking that would have been a mood-killer.)
5. Kissing Saves Lives
If your man isn’t big on PDA, this might convince him otherwise. A famous study found that men who got a peck on the cheek from their wives before heading out to work lived five years longer than men who didn’t. The jury’s out on whether kisses help working wives live longer—but hey, a morning kiss still can’t hurt.
6. The Average Person Spends Two Weeks Of His Or Her Life Kissing.
Experts estimate that the average person will spend 20,160 minutes of his or her lifetime kissing. In other words, that’s your senior spring break in college. So what happens in Cabo becomes a statistic
7. Looking For The One? Kiss This Many Guys …
That’s a whole lot o’ frogs to find your prince. But that’s the price of true love, right? A British study commissioned by eHarmony to release with The Rose Project tracked the number of dates, breakups and one night stands it takes for men and women to find lasting love — and kisses weren’t left out of the equation. It determined that it takes 15 kisses for women and 16 for men.
8. Kissing Has Amazing Health Benefits!
Making out with your partner is just what the doctor perscribes. Kissing burns calories (about 2-3 per minute, to be exact), strengthens your immune system, relieves aches and pains, and prevents cavities! I mean, who knew how healthy swapping spit could be?
9. Our Love Of Kissing Comes From … Rats?
Kazushige Touhara and colleagues at the University of Tokyo believe that our affinity for kisses descends from an ancient rat. Mice and men have a surprisingly similar genetic makeup and share a common ancestor that lived sometime between 75 and 125 million years ago. This ancient rat-like creature was called Eomaia scansoria (Eomaia, Greek for “ancient mother” and scansoria, Latin for “climber”). The science team theorizes that this creature would rub noses with a mate to sample his or her pheromones and signal desire. So basically, human kissing is really rodent behavior. Who knew?
10. The Italians Are Expert Kissers … Everyone Else? Not So Much.
C’mon guys, this is a depressing statistic. According to The Normal Bar, only a little over half of the world’s lovers kiss passionately? Take notes from the Italians! They know their romance.
Source: YourTango