Ah, the kiss? Yes. The kiss - the strange ritual of pressing lips together, exchanging breath and a small amount of spittle while clicking teeth and touch tongues. Sounds disgusting, but many love to do it. So, do you think you know lots about kissing? Pucker up and find out.
1. DEFINITION
Wikipedia defines a kiss as the touching of one person's lips to another place, which is used as an expression of affection, respect, greeting, farewell, good luck, romantic affection or sexual desire. The word comes from Old English cyssan "to kiss", in turn from coss "a kiss".
2. BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION OF KISSING
Taken from Wikipedia:
The scientific study of kissing is called philematology.
Anthropologists have not reached a consensus as to whether kissing is a learned or an instinctive behavior. It may be related to grooming behavior also seen between other animals, or arising as a result of mothers premasticating food for their children.[1]
Kissing allows prospective mates to smell and taste each other's pheromones for biological compatibility. Women are subconsciously more attracted to men whose major histocompatibility complex portion of their genome is different from their own, leading to offspring with resistance to a greater number of diseases due to heterosis, and thus having a better chance of survival.[2] [3] [4]
Non-human primates also exhibit kissing behavior.[5] Dogs, cats, birds and other animals display licking and grooming behavior among themselves, but also towards humans or other species. This is sometimes interpreted by observers as a type of kissing.
The physiology of kissing
Kissing is a complex behavior that requires significant muscular coordination; a total of thirty-four facial muscles and 112 postural muscles are used.
3. WHY DO PEOPLE KISS?
* as an expression of affection
* as a greeting or farewell
* as an expression of desire
* as an expression of good luck
Chip Walter reports that up to 10 percent of humanity does not touch lips, according to human ethology pioneer Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, now head of the Max-Planck-Society Film Archive of Human Ethology in Andechs, Germany, writing in his 1970 book, Love and Hate: The Natural History of Behavior Patterns. Fisher published a similar figure in 1992. Their findings suggest that some 650 million members of the human species have not mastered the art of osculation, the scientific term for kissing; that is more than the population of any nation on earth except for China and India. Click here to read the article "AFFAIRS OF THE LIPS : WHY WE KISS."
4. SOME FAMOUS KISSES
The Upside Down Kiss of Spiderman
Did any of you out there ever dream of swinging through the streets of New York city on a web and then kissing the love of your life while hanging upside down? Helps to have a bit of rain and the right attire!
Watch it at Youtube.
The first kiss on film
The first kiss to be recorded in a motion picture happened in 1896 in a film by Thomas Edison. The film was aptly named The Kiss, and was between John C. Rice and actress May Irwin. The running time was under 30 seconds as it was filmed for display in a nickelodeon. Not the most attractive couple, more than 30 seconds would have been bad.
The first homosexual kiss on screen
The first homosexual kiss on the silver screen was performed by Peter Finch and Murray Head whohave the distinction of performing it in the 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday, directed by John Schlesinger, a medium close-up shot was filmed of the two men kissing, which was at first planned only to be only an embrace. Someone screamed at a director’s screening of the film, much to John Schlesinger’s consternation. It turned out to be Finch’s wife. Finch was later asked about the kiss and replied, “I did it for England.”
The first kiss in fairy tales
Sleeping beauty, a timeless fairy tale with a timeless kiss first appeared in Charlies Perrault’s version of the fairy tale in 1697 in “La Belle au Bois Dormant.” In earlier versions of this tale, the prince isn’t so charming when he rapes her before leaving the scene!!!
Thankfully the fairy tale has been modified to the more romantic version we are familiar with. Benevolent fairies remove the curse of death upon Princess Aurora and change it from death to a deep sleep from which Aurora can be awakened only by love’s first kiss. Romantic, climatic and perfect timing make this a kiss to remember. Photograph by Barry Wallis.
From this chamberShe shall wake
When true love’s kiss
The spell shall break.
The Most Expensive Kiss
Ruth van Herpen visited an art museum in Oxford, England in 1977. She made the mistake of kissing a painting by Jo Baer and left a lipstick smear in her wake. She was ordered by law to pay the restoration costs of $1,260. She claimed to kiss the “cold” artwork in order to cheer it up. Others saw this as an excuse for art vandalism.
The Most Famous Sculpture of a Couple Kissing is by Francois Auguste Rodin
The passionate love of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta was a theme which Rodin used to inspire The Kiss. Originally intended to be part of the Gates of Hell, Rodin did notdeem it fit and removed the figures to make them an individual statue. The embracing couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of reliefs decorating Rodin’s bronze portal The Gates of Hell, commissioned for a planned museum of art in Paris. The couple were later removed from the Gates and replaced with another pair of lovers. Rodin described his sculpture as follows, “complete in itself and artificially set apart from the surrounding world.”
Famous Songs About Kissing
* Casablanca
* He'll Have to Go
* Kiss Me Goodbye
5. DANGERS OF KISSING
A woman apparently acquired the AIDS virus from deep kisses with an infected man, Federal health officials said yesterday. They said the case was the first reported transmission of H.I.V., the AIDS virus, through kissing.Both the man and woman had gum disease, factors that apparently facilitated transmission of H.I.V. Transmission most likely was through the man's blood, not saliva, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said in its weekly report.
Click here for the full report.
Kissing can also spread herpes simplex (cold sores or oral herpes).
- Muslims may kiss the Black Stone during Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).
- In Ancient Rome and some modern Pagan beliefs, worshipers when passing the statue or image of a god or goddess will kiss their hand and wave it towards the deity (adoration).
- In the gospels of Matthew and Mark (Luke and John omit this) Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss—an instance of a kiss intertwined with betrayal. This is the basis of the term 'the kiss of Judas'
- The holy kiss or kiss of peace is a traditional part of most Christian liturgies, though usually replaced with a handshake today in Western cultures
- The pope will kiss the ground on arrival to a new country.
- Visitors to the pope traditionally kiss his foot. (The ring of a cardinal or bishop, hand of a priest.)
- Jews will kiss the Western wall of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, and other religious articles during prayer such as the Torah, usually by touching their hand, Tallis, or Siddur (prayerbook) to the Torah and then kissing it. Jewish law prohibits kissing members of the opposite sex, except for certain close relatives. See Negiah.
- Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christians often kiss the icons around the church as entering, they will also kiss the cross and / or the priests hand in certain other customs in the Church, such as confession or receiving a blessing.
- Catholics will kiss rosary beads as a part of prayer, or kiss their hand after making the sign of the cross. It is also common to kiss the wounds on a crucifix, or any other image of Christ's Passion.
Finally, one of the most difficult novels that I have ever read in my life (apart from Ulysses by James Joyce) is Kiss of the Spiderwoman.
Extracted from Wikipedia
Recommended Reading: Put Your Sweet Lips by Keith ThomasKiss of the Spider Woman (Spanish: El beso de la mujer araña) is a 1976 novel by the Argentine writer Manuel Puig.
The novel tells the story of two prisoners, Molina and Valentín, and their relationship in prison. Molina, an effeminate and openly homosexual window-dresser, is in jail for "corruption of a minor," while Valentín is a political prisoner who is part of a revolutionary group trying to bring down the government. The two men, seemingly opposites in every way, form an intimate bond in their cell, and their relationship changes both of them in profound ways. The novel's form is unusual in that there is no traditional narrative voice, one of the primary features of fiction. It is written purely as dialogue, without any indication of who is speaking, except for a dash (-) to show a change of speaker. Due to the absence of an "authoritative" narrator, the reader is required to participate more actively in the interpretation of the story and, therefore, becomes part of the telling of the tale. In addition to the conversations of the prisoners, there are other features in the novel that help tell the story. For example, the author includes official reports as well as a long series of footnotes on the psychoanalytic theory of homosexuality.
The novel can be read as an indictment of a disengaged aesthetic perspective in the context of a world where people have to take sides. Molina tells a long story of an old Nazi film, a French woman falls in love with a noble Aryan officer and then dies in his arms after being shot by the French resistance. The film is a clear piece of Nazi propaganda, but Molina's inability to see past its superficial charms is a symptom of his alienation from society, or at least his choice to disengage from the world that has rejected him. In contrast, Valentin has risked his life and willingly endured torture for a political cause and his example helps transform his cell-mate into a "man," someone who will enter the world.
The novel was adapted for the stage play by Puig in 1983 (English translation by Allan Baker). It was also made into a film (1985) and a Broadway musical (1993).
I had great fun preparing this post and hope you had fun reading it!
Have a good day folks!
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