Why do we kiss eachother to show affection. I mean, why don’t we rub noses, or mash forheads, or bump bellies, or kick em in the shins to show our affection? Who started the kissing thing, and why has is persisted?
This has been discussed before:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=127376
(and see links therein)
This thread was instructive, to be sure… but leaves so many things unanswered.
Passing cud from mouth to mouth would be a more satisfactory explanation if kissing were a universal practice. But it isn’t, by any stretch… some cultures, I believe, only rub noses (which has given rise to a theory that kissing is a way for a couple to smell each other). What would a map look like of kissing practices, both now and in times gone by? Can we hazard a guess as to where the first kiss happened?
And social mores around the kiss are constantly evolving. They are different in Europe and America. We’ve all seen films from the USSR where Kruschev is kissing astronauts on the lips, as they get ready to go into space. How does the meaning of this gesture evolve, so that it’s a quasi-erotic and rather private thing one place, and almost like a deep handshake elsewhere?
Enquiring minds want to know.
I dunno if this’ll help you at all, but I learned in Physical Anthropology last month that many other primates (for example: Bonobos, one of the great apes) kiss. It adds to group cohesion, much like it does with us (unless it’s your boyfriend kissing your best friend - that could definately dissolve a group).
Sorry if that wasn’t any help, but at least it shows that it probably wasn’t something that one group of humans came up with and passed on down the line. Anyone else have a clue?