10 Facts About Kissing

Smooching, snogging, lip-locking, tongue wrestling, tonsil hockey, what ever you may call it it’s kissing! How the heck did we come up with that? This strange act, when done properly, can make life worth living. 

A new book, Kisstory: A Sweet And Sexy Look At The History Of Kissing by Joanne Wannan, explores the history of kissing. Here’s ten facts of kissing from thefrisky.com:

1. The word “kiss” comes from the German word “kussjan.”.
2. The average person spends about 15 days kissing throughout the course of a lifetime. That’s a full vacation almost!
3. Making out is a good workout. Engaging in lip lock for one minute burns 26 calories. So hitting the lips for an hour is way more effective than hitting the gym for an hour, and could be cheaper!
4. Kissing messes with your hormones. A peck on the cheek can raise your hormone levels enough to shorten your life by a minute.
5. The French translation for the tongue kiss is called “roulant une pelle,” which translates to “rolling a shovel.”… there’s a new term!
6. In the 1500s in Naples, kissing in public was punishable by death. I can see if this applied today to people who are overdo it in public.
7. The first onscreen same-sex smooch happened in 1922 between two women in Cecil B. DeMille’s silent prison flick,“Manslaughter.”
8. Minnesota man Alfred Wolfman holds the record for kissing the most people. In 1990 he smooched 8,001 people in eight hours. Hopefully he used a lot of Chap stick!
9. College students Matt Daley and Bobby Canciello broke the Guiness World Record last September for the world’s longest continuous kiss. They sucked face for nearly 33 hours. How did they eat?
10. Just one kiss with tongue can transmit up to 278 types of bacteria. Those of us with OCD tendencies should try to forget this next time we get anywhere near a pair of lips.