All\nthe making out facts you were afraid to ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Making\nout. Puckering up. Smooching. Snogging. Lip-locking. Tongue-wrestling. Rounding\nfirst base. Sucking-face. Whatever you call it, kissing is one of our favorite\nparts about falling in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We’ve\nalready given you the scoop on what the ladies really think of kissing, dished\non the secret health benefits of kisses, and given you invaluable tips on how\nto kiss and make out. Now, we’re taking it one step further with an impressive\nlist of eyebrow-raising facts about kissing and interesting tidbits about\nsmacking lips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consider\nit your introductory Philematology 101 class (which, you’ll come to find out,\nis the scholarly study of kissing).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1.\nYour kissing style originates in the womb.\u200b<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n See\na kiss in any Hollywood movie, painting, or sculpture and more often than not,\nyou’ll see couples leaning in to the right. Why is that? <\/p>\n\n\n\n A German researcher\u00a0observed over 100 couples and noted that\u00a0two-thirds of them tilted their heads to the right. The scientific community at large theorizes that this instinct originates from the womb when we naturally tilted our heads to the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2.\nKissing takes serious muscle power.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One\nkiss requires 146 muscles to coordinate, including 34 facial muscles and 112\npostural muscles. A team of British researchers \u2014 Elaine Sassoon,\nAnnabelle Dytham, Robert Scully and Professor\nGus McGrouther from the Rayne Institute in University College, London\n\u2014 studied kissing couples under an MRI scanner and found that a kiss mostly\ninvolves the orbicularis oris (the muscle around your mouth).<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Not only do you use your facial muscles in kissing, but approximately 112 postural muscles as well,”\u00a0Professor\u00a0McGrouther\u00a0said to\u00a0The Telegraph<\/em>. Yikes, sounds like a serious facial workout!<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3.\nOur love of kissing comes from rats.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Kazushige\u00a0Touhara\u00a0and colleagues at the University of Tokyo\u00a0believe that\u00a0our affinity for kisses descends from an ancient rat. Mice and men have a surprisingly similar genetic makeup\u00a0\u2014 sharing a common ancestor that lived sometime between 75 and 125 million years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This\nancient rat-like creature went by the name\nof Eomaia scansoria (Eomaia, Greek for “ancient\nmother,” and scansoria, Latin for “climber”). The science\nteam theorizes that this creature would rub noses with a mate to sample his or\nher pheromones and signal desire. So, basically, human kissing is really rodent\nbehavior. Who knew?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4.\nThe history of “X” behind XOXO traces back to the Middle Ages.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We\nuse “XOXO” as an affectionate afterthought to our signature all the\ntime in cards and love letters, but not many people know its origin\nstory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Historians trace\nit back to the Middle Ages when most people couldn’t read or write. The\npeasants used to mark “X” as a stand-in signature and then kissed the\ndocument as an added gesture of sincerity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5.\nA king once decreed that kissing be outlawed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On July 16, 1439,\u00a0King Henry VI banned kissing in England.\u00a0His reasoning? It was to curtail the spread of disease in the kingdom. Duly\u00a0note that his mental breakdown around 1453 required his wife, Margaret of Anjou, to assume control of his kingdom. (So that’s the level of crazy we were dealing with at this time.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n This\nwent on to spur a lot of other weird smooching bans all over the world. Later\nin 16th Century Naples, not only was kissing in public banned, but it was\npunishable by death as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6.\nFrench kissers caused commuter headaches.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, the French. Apparently in the early\u00a020th\u00a0Century, so many French commuters were getting frisky on the train that\u00a0they had to\u00a0ban kissing altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So\nwhenever you feel the train slow to a stop and hear the conductor’s drone voice\ncall out over the intercom that the train has stopped “due to a sick\npassenger aboard the train ahead,” you might have an idea of what’s\nup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7.\nThe luck of the Irish comes with a kiss.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Call it the (germ-infested) luck o’ the Irish. Over 400,000 tourists gather to kiss the Blarney Stone near Cork, Ireland, every year \u2014\u00a0dubbing it\u00a0the most “unhygienic” tourist attraction in the world. According to local legend, those who bend over backward\u00a0to kiss the stone\u00a0are “greatly” rewarded\u00a0with “the gift of the gab,”\u00a0essentially meaning flattery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So\nif you’re looking to obtain the name of sweet talker, you might want to\ntake a trip to Blarney Castle. But be warned! It’s been said that people have\nfallen to their deaths attempting the superstitious feat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 8.\nWe almost didn’t have epic movie kisses.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Titanic<\/em>.\u00a0Casablanca<\/em>.\u00a0Gone With The Wind<\/em>. Some of the greatest kisses in Hollywood history almost never happened. Why? Back in 1930, a\u00a0set of censorship regulations called\u00a0The Hays Code\u00a0prohibited acting couples from kissing in a horizontal position\u00a0(as in, lying down). Also, married couples had to sleep in twin beds on screen and, if kissing action did happen on beds, one actor had to have their foot on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh\nyeah, and they couldn’t kiss for longer than three seconds. Not exactly the\npicture of romance, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well,\ndirectors had a way around this. While filming the 1946 film Notorious<\/em>,\nAlfred Hitchcock had Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant repeatedly kiss, briefly\ndisrupted by dialogue and movement. It’s now considered one of the\nsexiest movie scenes of the time. Luckily, this pain of a ban dropped in the\nlate 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 9.\nPeople make careers out of the science of kissing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Just\nin case you were so into kissing that you wanted to make a career out of it,\nthe study of kissing is better known as philematology. And someone\nwho studies kissing wears the title of osculologist. (That sounds like a\ncheesy bro T-shirt.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 10.\nThis couple’s record-breaking kiss is incredible.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n According to\u00a0the\u00a0Guinness World Records, the record for the longest-lasting kiss goes to\u00a0Ekkachai\u00a0and\u00a0Laksana\u00a0Tiranarat\u00a0of Thailand. These champion smoochers\u00a0locked lips for 58 hours, 35 minutes, and 58 seconds. (No word on if they got bathroom breaks, but we’re thinking that would have been a mood-killer.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 11.\nKissing saves lives.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If your man isn’t big on PDA, this might convince him otherwise.\u00a0A famous study\u00a0once determined\u00a0that men who get a peck on the cheek from their wives before heading out to work lived five years longer than their kissless counterparts<\/p>\n\n\n\n 12.\nThe Italians are expert kissers. Everyone else? Not so much.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n C’mon guys, this is a depressing statistic.\u00a0According to\u00a0The Normal Bar<\/em>, only a little over half of the world’s lovers kiss passionately. Take notes from the Italians. They know their romance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 13.\nThe average person spends two weeks of his or her life kissing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Experts\nestimate that the average person will spend 20,160 minutes of his or her\nlifetime kissing. In other words, that’s your senior spring break in college.\nSo what happens in Cabo becomes a statistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 14. Looking\nfor The One? Kiss this many guys…<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s a lot of frogs to find your prince. But that’s the price of true love, right?\u00a0A British study\u00a0commissioned by\u00a0eHarmony to release with\u00a0The Rose Project\u00a0tracked the number of dates, breakups, and one night stands it takes for men and women to find lasting love \u2014 and kisses weren’t left out of the equation. It determined that it takes 15 kisses for women and 16 for men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 15.\nKissing has amazing health benefits.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Making out with your partner\u00a0is\u00a0just what the doctor\u00a0prescribed. Kissing burns calories (specifically, about two to three\u00a0per minute), strengthens your immune system, relieves aches and pains, and prevents cavities! I mean, who knew how healthy swapping spit could be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexandra\nChurchill is a digital editor based in New York City. She currently works for\nMartha Stewart Living. Her work has been featured on numerous sites including\nThe Huffington Post, Her Campus, USA TODAY College, and Northshore and Ocean\nHome magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All the making out facts you were afraid to ask. Making out. Puckering up. Smooching. Snogging. Lip-locking. Tongue-wrestling. Rounding first base. Sucking-face. Whatever you call it, kissing is one of our favorite parts about falling in love. We’ve already given you the scoop on what the ladies really think of kissing, dished on the secret […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27983,"featured_media":6100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_paywall_metabox":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-love-relationships"],"yoast_head":"\n