A Kiss Like No Other – Interesting Facts About Kissing

What can a kiss cause and where does all the tradition come from? Read the interesting facts about kissing below...

Did you know that kissing also burns calories? (Photoxpress)

You have probably heard that passionate kissing burns calories. The researchers do not agree on precisely how many calories, some of them think it is around 4,6 calories per minute while the others claim that kissing burns up to 12 calories per second. Kissing is definitely good for health. Below we present some more interesting facts about kissing which you surely haven't heard.

Facts about kissing: The history of kissing

Kissing had different meanings throughout the history. It was first mentioned in the Indian Vedas in 1500 B. C. Kama Sutra mentions more than 30 different types of kisses while the Romans knew only 3 types of kisses.  A Roman historian wrote that a cold can be cured by kissing a donkey on the nose. In ancient Rome the contract was sealed with a kiss. Kissing as the final act of the wedding ceremony also originates from this time.

Eskimo kissing originates from the tradition of the Inuit people who express love for each other by pressing the lips and nose close to the forehead or cheek of the beloved and gently inhale breath.

The letter X at the end of letters visually represents the touching of two pair of lips.

Fact about kissing: The dangers of kissing

The Japanese medieval manuscript proves that kissing can also be dangerous. The manuscript warns men about passionate kissing of women during their orgasm because the woman can bite the man's tongue off at the height of passion. One woman in China actually lost her sense of hearing because of passionate kissing - the sudden decrease of pressure in her mouth (mouth is connected to the inner ear by Eustachian tube) caused her ear drum to burst. However, the sense of hearing returned after several months. 

Partners exchange between ten millions to one milliard bacteria during kissing. Diseases transmitted by kissing are mononucleosis and herpes, while the HIV virus is not. The fact is that one woman got infected by the HIV virus in such a way - both she and her partner were bleeding from their gums and the virus got transferred by blood.

Facts about kissing: Kissing in movies

The first movie kiss was shot in 1896, but the first Hollywood french kiss had to wait until 1961. The first same-sex movie kiss already happened in the era of silent movies in the 1920s, in the movie Manslaughter (1922) by Cecil B. Demill. The kiss happened during a scene which was showing an orgy. The most kisses per movie, 127 to be exact, also happened in the roaring twenties. The credits go to John Barrymore for the role of Don Juan (1926).

In 1930 a strict legislation took effect, because the movie industry was afraid of moral decline of the American youth. The legislation was in force until 1968. Some of the rules prohibited the actors to kiss in a horizontal state, married couples had to have separate beds and if a married couple was kissing on the bed, at least one of them had to keep one foot on the floor. During this era, Alfred Hitchcock shot one of the most famous movie kisses. Because the rules also applied to the length of kissing, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman kissed a lot of times in the movie Notorious, but each time only for a few seconds which were allowed by the rules.

The first kiss between a white man and a black woman on the American TV happened in the science fiction series Star Trek in 1968, between captain Kirk and lieutenant Uhura.

Would you like to improve your kissing skills? Consult our Lover's Guide.