First Kiss More Important to Women than Men
November 4th, 2006 Posted by: Dr. Cox
Researchers in the United States say men and women have dramatically different attitudes to the first kiss of a new relationship, while men consider the kiss is just a means to an end, for women it is a crucial element in finding a partner. A study of 1041 students at New York State University, published in Evolutionary Psychology, found women place more importance on kissing than men do and are more likely to evaluate their partner’s kissing ability on factors like smell of breath and appearance of teeth. She uses it, the study suggests, to assess a “rich and complex exchange” of romantic and chemical clues that pass between partners as their lips touch.
A kiss may contain potentially important information about your kissing partner, says George Gallup at the State University of New York, Albany, US. He said said kissing evolved as an adaptive courtship strategy used differently by the sexes. “We suspect that overall, women place a greater importance on kissing not only to make more judicious mate assessments, but for those in committed relationships, kissing is used (wittingly or not) to update, monitor, and assess the status of their partner’s continuing commitment (or lack thereof).
In the longer term the woman treats kissing as a means to induce bonding and to help her assess whether her partner has remained faithful and interested. The fact that men show a greater preference for tongue contact when kissing could have its basis not in eroticism — although the study showed that men found kissing more erotic than women — but science.
For men the kiss is much less important. It might be a source of hormonal information but it’s mostly regarded as a preliminary to sex. A man tends to regard a good kiss as one in which he’s allowed to use his tongue and is rewarded with moans of pleasure, the study found.
“The exchange of complex information that occurs during a kiss, in terms of olfactory cues and chemical cues and tactile cues and postural adjustment, may tap into primitive, evolved mechanisms that make a determination about instances of potential genetic incompatibility,” Professor Gallup said. He says the bottom line is that a good kiss doesn’t make a relationship, but a bad kiss can kill a relationship.
Men were more willing to have sex with someone without kissing, and have sex with someone they considered to be a bad kisser. There was also a difference in the sort of kisses that men and women preferred, with men liking wet tongue kisses more than women.
Researchers made their findings after analysing three surveys of a total of 1,041 college students, most of them aged 18 to 25. This study provides evidence that romantic kissing may have evolved as an adaptive courtship strategy that functions as a mate-assessment technique, a means of initiating sexual arousal and receptivity, and a way of maintaining a bonded relationship.
The study was conducted by academics from the University at Albany, the City University of New York and Albright College, all in the United States.
