There are as many types of a kiss as there are people to pucker up, and who doesn’t love a good kiss? Whether it’s a quick friendly peck on the cheek between friends, or a long, passionate tongue-lashing between new partners. Kissing Day celebrates this most enjoyable of activities and the part it plays in cultures throughout the world. If you haven’t shown your partner just how much you enjoy them, maybe Kissing Day is your chance to remind them with a toe-curling kiss!
- One of the most surprising things about this holiday is the research that revealed that 5% of people over the age of 45 are locking lips at least 31 times a week!
- A kiss isn’t only romantic – it’s a sign of affection that reminds people that you care. 40% of people say that their television screen is their main companion, so a kiss is more necessary than ever.
- Weirdly, and wonderfully, kissing can burn up to 6.4 calories per minute.
- In some cultures, kissing a cheek may date back to Christian rituals.
- In Ireland, the custom of kissing the Blarney Stone has existed for centuries and is said to bestow the kisser with the gift of eloquence and persuasiveness.
- Another medieval tradition that hopefully has been extinguished is the practice of kissing the feet of royalty or those in power.
- A similar act of kissing includes kissing the ring of someone to show fealty.
- Which leads to hand-kissing. While this gesture suggests loyalty to someone, it has a friendlier connotation than that of kissing feet. For some, it’s a sign of respect and affection.
- 1500 BC: First record of kissing. Vedic Sanskrit scriptures, which are foundational to the Hindu religion, hold the earliest mentions of kissing in human history.
- 1st Century AD: Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss. A sad situation, this kiss is recorded in three gospels in the New Testament of the Bible and is believed to be the way that Judas indicated who Jesus was, at a price of 30 pieces of silver.
- 1595: Romeo and Juliet’s famous kiss is written. Shakespeare, the versatile writer of comedy and tragedy, takes his turn at romance with the famous kissing scene between Romeo and Juliet
- 1896: First kissing scene is released on film. May Irwin and John C. Rice appear in a short film called “The May Irwin Kiss” or simply “The Kiss”, which is the final scene from a play they were putting on.
- 1973: The band “KISS” gets its start. Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley form the rock band, choosing to wear makeup that “symbolizes and embodies” them as individuals.
- A Hershey’s kiss contains 26 calories, which takes five minutes of walking–or about four minutes of kissing–to burn off.
- The longest kiss ever. Over the course of three days in 2013, a Thai couple locked lips for 58 hours, 35 minutes, and 58 seconds, to be exact. Ekkachai Tiranarat and Laksana Tiranarat started kissing on February 12 in Pattaya, Thailand, and didn’t stop until Valentine’s Day. The smoochfest took place at an event hosted by Ripley’s Believe It or Not and was recorded by the Guinness World Records. The title was a prize in itself, but the two diamond rings they also walked away with were probably a welcome bonus.
- The longest on-screen kiss ever. Slightly less time-consuming was the record for longest movie kiss ever recorded, the 3-minute-and-24-second liplock between two ladies in the 2010 movie Elena Undone. They broke the record previously set in 1941 in the film You’re in the Army Now, which lasted 3 minutes and 6 seconds.
- Approximately two-thirds of people tip their head to the right when they kiss. Some scholars speculate this preference starts in the womb
- Are police actually handing out citations in Iowa or Indiana to men with mustaches kissing women in public? Probably not. But that law is on the books in those states.
- So is the law against men in Colorado kissing a woman while she is sleeping or kissing her at all on a Sunday.
- And in Florida, kissing your wife’s breast is a no-no.
- The science of kissing is called philematology.
- Fear of kissing is a legitimate phobia known as philemaphobia (philema is the Greek word for kissing).
- “Basorexia” means an overwhelming desire to kiss.
- The term “French kiss” came into the English language around 1923 as a slur on the French culture which was thought to be overly concerned with sex. In France, it’s called a tongue kiss or soul kiss because if done right, it feels as if two souls are merging. In fact, several ancient cultures thought that mouth-to-mouth kissing mingled two lovers’ souls
- “Kiss” is from the Old English cyssan from the proto-Germanic kussijanan or kuss, which is probably based on the sound kissing can make.
- The insulting slang “kiss my ass” dates back at least to 1705.
- The most important muscle in kissing is the orbicularis oris, also known as the kissing muscle, which allows the lips to “pucker.”
- French kissing involves 34 facial muscles. A pucker kiss involves only two.
- It is possible for a woman to reach an orgasm through kissing
- The Kama (desire) Sutra (type of verse) lists over 30 types of kisses, such as “fighting of the tongue.”
- The lips of both men and women resemble the lips of the vagina.
- Kissing at the conclusion of a wedding ceremony can be traced to an ancient Roman tradition where a kiss was used to sign contracts.
- Polls consistently list the kiss between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in the 1946 film Notorious as one of the sexiest kisses in cinematic history. Because the Hays Code allowed on-screen kisses to last only a few seconds, Alfred Hitchcock directed Bergman and Grant to repeatedly kiss briefly while Grant was answering a telephone call. The kiss seems to go on and on but was never longer than a few seconds.
- The average person spends at least two weeks of their life kissing.
- Kissing someone for the first time causes you to experience an increase in your dopamine level.
- Kissing someone makes your heart beat faster and pumps more oxygen to your brain.
- Kissing causes your pupil to dilate, which is why you mostly tend to close your eyes when locking lips.
- kissing a person you want to kiss has been shown to be healthy by lowering cortisol, reducing stress, increasing confidence and boosting happy hormones.
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