Yes I know if feels good but why do we do it.
I mean the germs and other gumsmacks resident in ones gob make it quite a risky business but still we snog and to hell with all the nasties lurking and just waiting to leap into pastures anew, to wallow in fresh spit so to speak.
Come on dopers, somebody must have an idea why we tickle tonsils 
It beats what dogs do by a long shot.
‘It feels good’ is pretty much the reason. If it didn’t feel good, we wouldn’t have sex either.
Another component of this intriguing question is if we hadn’t seen others doing such a thing, either in real life or as depicted on screen or in some other art form, would we even have the notion to try it for ourselves?
As a youngster I can recall receiving many kisses on the cheek or forehead, but not to the lips. I saw others kissing and was curious about why they did it and what it must feel like. When I was finally presented with the experience first hand, from an aunt if I recall correctly, I was pleasantly surprised with the sensation and knew I’d like to do that some more – not just with an aunt.
I just can’t help but wonder if two young people, isolated from the rest of human contact (as in Blue Lagoon or the like), would discover not just kissing, but sex, all by themselves.
Fun thing to think about.
Because we saw our older brother/sister doing it?
Do you dig it?
Apes and chimps do something very similar. Why they do it, I don’t know.
According to Desmond Morris, it comes from mother’s chewing and placing food in thier babies’ mouths.
Maybe not the definitive answer, since mothers also used to suck their babies’ snot, and (most of us) never developed that as an intimacy. Plus, while maternal mastication is pretty universal in all traditional cultures, kissing isn’t.
Lots of things “feel good” Cap’n
Yes we would have sex even it didn’t feel good, procreation is a hell of a strong motive and I’m guessing that no matter what sex felt like we’d still go ahead and indulge.
Maybe not as often but we’d do it just to pass on our genes.
It’s kissing that I’m really curious about because really and truly it serves no useful purpose other than the feel good factor
Desmond Morris makes up a whole lot of other stuff, too. And presents it without a shred of proof.
I’ll second that opinion. He had a lot of pages to fill and not enough hard facts to fill them. But then so did Aristotle, who was still a genius.
Dude, you really shouldn’t be making out with your aunt like that.
Don’t judge too quickly. Aunts can be the same age as you are, and hot tamales.
The sense of smell is very important when it comes to attraction. Someone who smells bad doesn’t have much mate potential, after all. According to my mother, at nearly every birth she’s attended one of the first things the new mothers do is smell their babies. It strikes me as somewhat strange, but she says it’s very common. Based on how often people in the midst of attraction comment on how good the potential mate smells and how often people like to sniff babies, I assume getting your sense organs all up on somebody promotes bonding.
This is pretty much just a fluff article, but it refers to things about kissing that I’ve heard before from other sources.
Then, there’s also the fact that tasting certain foods releases seratonin. I’m not sure if kissing does the same, but it wouldn’t surprise me, considering how it makes you feel. Presumably, kissing is a cultural construct that’s derived from certain biological processes (mucus membranes are sensitive, you can smell someone while kissing them, you can taste them, etc) which is why it’s so popular.
Thanks for trying to bail me out of that one, but the aunt was my mother’s age and I assume it was her habit to kiss her children on the mouth. We were at a family gathering in a large lodge and even though the sleeping arrangements were such that the women and men slept in separate rooms, the kids had cots and bunks out in the “living room” area. My aunt was just making the rounds of tucking us kids (all boys) in for the night and (I suppose – didn’t see) kissing us goodnight.
It was not even making out. I may have been 8 or 9 at the time. Pre-teen for sure. But now that I’m thinking about it, it wouldn’t have been all that much later when I kissed my first girl, my best friend’s sister, younger than me by a couple of years.
Not exactly. Kissing can easily cause arousal, which is necessary on one side for copulation. Anything that makes sex easier or more frequent in any way is an advantage that will be passed down.
Now hold on a minute there. This sounds backwards! As I understand it, passing on our genes isn’t a conscious motive to do anything. Rather, it’s by making sex feel good that Nature “tricks” us into passing on our genes.
As for swapping germs, you make it sound like a bad thing 
, but could there be benefits to people on intimate terms sharing antibodies, hormones, etc. that occur in saliva? Anybody know?
Yes, that’s more to the point, I think. One way or another, evolution had to give us an urge to do the deed that leads to procreation…because until relatively recently in the evolutionary process, we didn’t know that the one caused the other. So, we have mechanisms that make us want to have sex…hormonal urges, sexual pleasure, etc. Now that I think about it, our scientific knowledge of how babies are made actually works AGAINST evolution, because we have figured out ways to have the one without causing the other! 
See, this is the problem with personifying evolution so much: you draw erroneous conclusions. I know you were kidding, but this is a serious issue, I think. Evolution doesn’t do anything to a species actively; evolution is the process through which individuals with more advantageous traits live longer, and hopefully reproduce more. The reproducing is the important part: that’s the only way you can pass on those helpful attributes, assuming that they’re genetically based. An organism that is driven to have sex is probably going to have sex more than, and probably have more progeny than, one that doesn’t. That’s all that matters. If the traits don’t make much of a difference, then the frequency of those traits occurring in the population won’t change.
All guaranteed non-procreative sex does is reduce the possibility of those who choose to engage in it to the exclusion of reproductory sex having offspring. If the choice to have non-child producing sex is based at least partially on genetic characteristics, then gradually there will be fewer people who do so, simply because the conditions that lead to that decision are less prevalent. On the other hand, if people who have sex without permitting pregnancy also have progeny, then there will likely be no change. If the decision not to have children is not based on inherited characteristics, then there will be no change.
The crucial thing is that it’s inheritance that really matters. If the characteristic is not passed down (either because it’s not genetically based, or because that’s the way the sperm and egg unite), or if it is passed down to few offspring, then the number of organisms with that characteristic in that group won’t increase. If the characteristic is theoretically advantageous but in practice does some organisms no good, it won’t expand. The only way for any genetically-based trait to become significantly more prevalent in a species is to aid reproduction in some way, and the only way for it to become significantly less prevalent is to hinder reproduction. Reproduction can be aided by making organisms want to have sex more, or by making them more fertile, or by expanding the lifespan and providing more time for progeny.
You can’t counter evolution; all you can do is change the influences, and perhaps change the outcome, but the same basic rules still apply.
Immune system evaluation
If your immune system can’t cope with something your prospective partner’s immune system does not kill, you will get sick. If you get better and kiss them again, they will know that your immune system works fine. Then they will be more inclined to mate.
Also, it appears that we can smell/taste antigen markers, making kissing a great way to determine if the antigens complement each other. You don’t want them to match too closely, cause that would probably mean a close relative - you know, that whole kissin’ your sister thing :eek:
Si
(I was kidding…)