A kiss is one of the most common gestures of affection. – but it can also be one of the most intimate and erotic. When you are testing whether you want to have a physical relationship, kissing can have a big impact on whether or not you decide to take things further. Remember those days when you couldn’t get enough of kissing each other for hours on end?
And it is the first ‘mouth-to-mouth’ kiss that is generally taken as a specific sign of the beginning of an intimate relationship. Even after this stage kissing can continue to stand as an indication of the affection between the two people concerned. Kissing allows you to tell whether the spark is there in the early stages of seeing someone. Kissing with tongues comes from an evolutionary urge to find a genetically compatible mate. Perhaps more significantly than touching and smelling, it allows us to identify the most compatible and ‘evolutionary advantageous’ partner.
Kissing helps deepen the love and connection between two people because the hormones dopamine and oxytocin get released when we kiss, especially kissing in a sensual way – think French kisses with tongues. Together these hormones make us feel good, as they decrease stress levels and increase relationship satisfaction.
According to Relate, Britain’s relationship guidance counselling organization, unhappy couples tend to stop kissing even before they stop having sexual intercourse. Many sex workers actually refuse to kiss their clients on the lips. For many people mouth-to-mouth kissing is even more intimate than sexual intercourse and is often thus reserved only for the most meaningful relationships.
Ways Of Kissing
The mouth is a highly mobile and responsive organ, allowing for great variety in types of kiss. Kisses can be anything from soft and tender to deep, passionate and, sometimes, even rough. Kisses can mimic intercourse, the tongue ‘penetrating’ the mouth, ears or vagina. The entire body can be explored with kisses.
Human beings are the only animals able to kiss in the way we do: the J-shaped muscles in the lips contribute to this purpose. This may be because evolutionary processes required the development of sexual signals on the front of the body when humans started to mate face-to-face. However, the origin of the practice of kissing mouth-to-mouth may lie not in mating but in caring for the offspring, in mouth-to-mouth feeding. Many animals feed their newborn offspring in this way, making it one of the most natural gestures of trust and intimacy. Even now the sensual side of the experience of eating is often linked to, or combined with, more overtly sexual activity.
Should you go for eyes open or closed? Kissing with eyes open can create a greater sense of closeness – though closing them can allow you to lose yourself in the sensuousness of the moment. Men tend to be more visually stimulated than woman and are therefore more likely to kiss with their eyes open. Statistically, over 90% per cent of women but only 30% of men kiss with their eyes closed.
Lips open or closed? Different kinds of kiss are appropriate in different situations. However, it has been suggested that certain types of mouth-to-mouth kiss may reveal certain character traits or attitudes to the relationships in question. For example, an unwillingness to kiss with open lips may suggest some kind of fear of intimacy, while kissing with closed lips then opening the mouth for more lingering kisses, indicates sensuousness and passion. Kissing with open lips and using the tongue suggests the desire to take things further (though too early, indicates an over-eagerness).
Other variations which make each person’s way of kissing unique include the varying degrees of rhythm, speed, pressure and moisture, the softness or firmness of the lips and tongue and the amount of movement of the lips and tongue. Sometimes the teeth can be used and kissing can include nibbling or biting. Any part of the body can be kissed, in any way.
The value of a kiss is so important because it shows passion, intimacy, desire and how much you a person arouses you. It can reduce stress and help with anxiety as well. It is very important in lovemaking and relationships. Studies have found that women who were ovulating placed a greater value on kissing, making them more likely to become physically intimate with someone who knows how to use their mouth. So, it is deeply important to your relationship to kiss and keep the spark alive.
It’s one way that couples develop a deep sense of emotional intimacy with one another. Emotional intimacy occurs when couples are able to be vulnerable, comfortable, and deeply connected in a relationship. It is a reassurance of love, a sign of true partnership, and boosts romantic engagement. Kissing is one of the most intimate things you can do with a partner. It reduces stress, boosts trust, and releases the bonding hormone oxytocin that brings you and your spouse closer together than ever.