Any touch can be erotic, depending on the context. That's why I'm skeptical about kissing being special. People have sex with their entire bodies, not just using genitals.
Holding hands may also be from when babies latch on and don't let go because of the necessity of holding on to the parent. My friend's 2 year old grabbed my hand recently and it reminded me of their iron grip.
Kissing is so weird. You can make up a thousand just-so stories. You can imagine it meant totally different things through time and across cultures.
For me it just seems like yet another culturally-defined signal of intimacy. Like showing ankles or chests or saying this or that. Seems to me trying to make everything some hard wired evolutionary thing is a dead end.
The researchers found a common ancestor of many different species that all conduct non-functional kissing. The surprising thing about the research is that it specifically implies kissing is not cultural!
Do hunter gatherers kiss near-universally? I think that would answer the question of whether it is nature or nurture.
I’m allowing for it to be suppressed at times by culture, but I would expect the instinctive behavior to win the majority of the time unless the instinctive behavior is somehow harmful in an environment different from the organism’s classic environment.
Dogs are a special case. Humans are part of their soil, the soil they evolved in. They must have features (physical, behavioral) to manipulate humans into treating them like part of the group.
Think of the environment dogs evolved in. Small homogenous groups of humans. They aren’t even human, and humans still treated them as part of the in group, while at the same time killing people outside of their clan who looked and acted almost exactly like they did, certainly well within the bounds of what would today be a single nation or region within a nation.
Dogs and empathy towards them are totally compatible with human xenophobia or whatever we call it, there is no contradiction or hypocrisy here.
I assume kissing comes from a parent chewing up food and then transferring it to the baby.
This is innate “caring” behavior.
Similarly, mammary glands are for providing milk/nutrition.
These get associated with primal needs and therefore the amygdala, and so is associated with strong emotion.
Chew your meat for you, pass it back and forth In a passionate kiss from my mouth to yours I like you
One hacker to another says "I'm lucky to've met you."
What a terrible day to have basic literacy skills and an imagination.
The song is 34 years old my friend.
It was a terrible day 34 years ago.
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You think your ancestors were monkeys.
I think my ancestors were something like monkeys.
We are not the same.
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> you think your ancestors are whatever researchers tell you they are
Actually it was revealed to me in a dream.
you misinterpret your dreams
You misinterpret researchers. We’re descended from apes not monkeys.
Monkeys have tails
and pigs
Or, kissing is just a subset of skin to skin touching, using sensitive body parts. Not so different from holding hands.
Yes, there's also the "Eskimo kiss" in Inuit culture. Rubbing noses together, as a climate adjusted habit. From Wikipedia:
> Rather, it is a non-erotic but intimate greeting used by people who, when they meet outside, often have little except their nose and eyes exposed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_kiss
Any touch can be erotic, depending on the context. That's why I'm skeptical about kissing being special. People have sex with their entire bodies, not just using genitals.
Holding hands may also be from when babies latch on and don't let go because of the necessity of holding on to the parent. My friend's 2 year old grabbed my hand recently and it reminded me of their iron grip.
And choking fetish naturally stems from the desire to strangle an annoying baby.
/s
I think it’s a lot simpler. It’s touching parts of the body that have a lot of nerve endings. Lips, fingers and hands, genitals, noses etc.
> humans and Neanderthals may even have smooched one another
More than just "smooching," if DNA has anything to say about it...
Kissing is so weird. You can make up a thousand just-so stories. You can imagine it meant totally different things through time and across cultures.
For me it just seems like yet another culturally-defined signal of intimacy. Like showing ankles or chests or saying this or that. Seems to me trying to make everything some hard wired evolutionary thing is a dead end.
The researchers found a common ancestor of many different species that all conduct non-functional kissing. The surprising thing about the research is that it specifically implies kissing is not cultural!
Do hunter gatherers kiss near-universally? I think that would answer the question of whether it is nature or nurture.
I’m allowing for it to be suppressed at times by culture, but I would expect the instinctive behavior to win the majority of the time unless the instinctive behavior is somehow harmful in an environment different from the organism’s classic environment.
Except that as the article says many animals kiss, not just humans.
Really funny on a farm when you see young calves "kissing" i.e. stick their noses/mouths together and lick each other's noses.
No, kisses tingle, even completely emotionless ones. Lips have a lot of nerve endings.
OK, now date the last one :)
I just smooched my wife and reset the timer.
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I'd rather kiss my dog, whom I love, over a random person that I have little in common with. Is that somehow weird to you?
The internet is an amazing place.
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Insufficiently analytical take.
Dogs are a special case. Humans are part of their soil, the soil they evolved in. They must have features (physical, behavioral) to manipulate humans into treating them like part of the group.
Think of the environment dogs evolved in. Small homogenous groups of humans. They aren’t even human, and humans still treated them as part of the in group, while at the same time killing people outside of their clan who looked and acted almost exactly like they did, certainly well within the bounds of what would today be a single nation or region within a nation.
Dogs and empathy towards them are totally compatible with human xenophobia or whatever we call it, there is no contradiction or hypocrisy here.