[HN Gopher] First kiss dates back 21M years
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       First kiss dates back 21M years
        
       Author : 1659447091
       Score  : 47 points
       Date   : 2025-11-19 01:57 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
        
       | cheque wrote:
       | I assume kissing comes from a parent chewing up food and then
       | transferring it to the baby.
       | 
       | This is innate "caring" behavior.
       | 
       | Similarly, mammary glands are for providing milk/nutrition.
       | 
       | These get associated with primal needs and therefore the
       | amygdala, and so is associated with strong emotion.
        
         | weatherlite wrote:
         | Chew your meat for you, pass it back and forth In a passionate
         | kiss from my mouth to yours I like you
        
           | doubled112 wrote:
           | What a terrible day to have basic literacy skills and an
           | imagination.
        
             | jswelker wrote:
             | The song is 34 years old my friend.
        
               | fluoridation wrote:
               | It was a terrible day 34 years ago.
        
         | weregiraffe wrote:
         | Or, kissing is just a subset of skin to skin touching, using
         | sensitive body parts. Not so different from holding hands.
        
           | jimkleiber wrote:
           | Holding hands may also be from when babies latch on and don't
           | let go because of the necessity of holding on to the parent.
           | My friend's 2 year old grabbed my hand recently and it
           | reminded me of their iron grip.
        
             | weregiraffe wrote:
             | And choking fetish naturally stems from the desire to
             | strangle an annoying baby.
             | 
             | /s
        
           | rapnie wrote:
           | Yes, there's also the "Eskimo kiss" in Inuit culture. Rubbing
           | noses together, as a climate adjusted habit. From Wikipedia:
           | 
           | > Rather, it is a non-erotic but intimate greeting used by
           | people who, when they meet outside, often have little except
           | their nose and eyes exposed.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_kiss
        
             | weregiraffe wrote:
             | Any touch can be erotic, depending on the context. That's
             | why I'm skeptical about kissing being special. People have
             | sex with their entire bodies, not just using genitals.
        
       | jvanderbot wrote:
       | Kissing is so weird. You can make up a thousand just-so stories.
       | You can imagine it meant totally different things through time
       | and across cultures.
       | 
       | For me it just seems like yet another culturally-defined signal
       | of intimacy. Like showing ankles or chests or saying this or
       | that. Seems to me trying to make everything some hard wired
       | evolutionary thing is a dead end.
        
         | omnicognate wrote:
         | Except that as the article says many animals kiss, not just
         | humans.
        
           | dachris wrote:
           | Really funny on a farm when you see young calves "kissing"
           | i.e. stick their noses/mouths together and lick each other's
           | noses.
        
       | ufko_org wrote:
       | OK, now date the last one :)
        
         | nozzlegear wrote:
         | I just smooched my wife and reset the timer.
        
       | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
       | _> humans and Neanderthals may even have smooched one another_
       | 
       | More than just "smooching," if DNA has anything to say about
       | it...
        
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       (page generated 2025-11-23 23:01 UTC)