WHY CHAPS ARE SLOPPY KISSERS

A KISS is not just a kiss. In fact, the first kiss you exchange with a potential romantic partner can be disastrous.

In a recent study of 58 men and 122 women, 59per cent of the men and 66 per cent of the women said they’d ended a romance after the first kiss.

In other words, far from adding a spark to the relationship, it proved to be the kiss of death.

Why should this be so? Well, when you kiss someone for the first time, you learn a huge amount about them.

You can see them close-up and clearly, as well as smell, taste, hear and feel them.

And these messages from your senses are instantly picked up by five of your 12 cranial nerves and escorted directly to the brain.

Once there, they detonate, giving you first-hand information about the man’s health, state of mind and eating, drinking and smoking habits.

But let’s say you haven’t been repelled. Let’s say you actively enjoyed that first kiss. Then watch out — because a good first kiss may well trigger strong feelings of romantic love.

There are sound scientific reasons for this. First, any kind of novelty triggers the dopamine system in the brain.

And dopamine is associated with feelings of romance.

But kissing may also be a direct tool for seduction, because male saliva contains testosterone — the hormone of sexual desire.

Intriguingly, men tend to like sloppier kisses than women do. This may be because they’re unconsciously trying to inject them with this sexy chemical in the hope of enticing them into bed. As a final bonus, kissing boosts your pulse and blood pressure, dilates your pupils and deepens your breathing — all sexual responses that may propel you to take a relationship further.

What about if you are married? If you are still kissing your husband or wife, then good for you: your kisses are likely to bring you emotionally closer and strengthen your bonds.

This is because kissing a longterm partner elevates the activity of oxytocin, the brain chemical associated with feelings of trust, attachment and emotional union.

Kissing also reduces the stress hormone cortisol.

Oddly, however, erotic kissing — or touching lips long enough to exchange saliva — is not a universal human trait.

In fact, men and women kiss in only 40 per cent of 88 cultures recently studied by scientists.

Until Western contact with these societies, kissing was unknown among the Somali, the Lepcha of Sikkim in India and the Siriono of South America.

The Tsonga of South Africa and other traditional peoples found the very idea disgusting.

Yet in many of these cultures, it’s common to pat, suck, lick or caress the face of a beloved — as do males and females of other species.

Dogs lick one another’s lips and face. Moles rub noses. Elephants put their trunks in one another’s mouths. Albatrosses tap their bills together.

And bonobos, our closest chimp relatives, smooch with French kisses — just like us.