Why do humans kiss?

On International Kissing Day, ( July 6th) we wanted to know where this unusual act of affection came from.

Surely everyone remembers their first kiss, in all its embarrassing or delightful detail - and while kissing continues to play a big role in new romances, in the animal world, it doesn’t exist.

In some cultures it is replaced by the rubbing of noses, as with the New Zealanders and Laplanders, by the rubbing or patting of the arms, breasts, or stomachs, or by one man striking his own face with the hands or feet of another.
Of course the simplest answer is that it just feels good but surely there must be more to it.

Philematologists, the scientists who study kissing, ( There are actually doctors who only study kissing?) aren't exactly sure why humans started locking lips in the first place but the most likely theory is that it stems from primate mothers passing along chewed food to their toothless babies.
Some of the oldest evidence of a kissing-type behaviour comes from Hindu Vedic Sanskrit texts from over 3,500 years ago. Kissing was described as inhaling each other's soul.

The lip-to-lip contact may have been passed on through evolution, not only as a necessary means of survival, but also as a general way to promote social bonding and as an expression of love.

Kissing allows us to get close enough to a mate to assess essential characteristics about them, none of which we’re consciously processing. In the animal kingdom, most creatures don’t need to get so up close an personal because of a greater sense of smell and also – in some cases – extremely pungent urine.
So what’s smell got to do with it?
A study published in 1995 showed that women, just like mice, prefer the smell of men who are genetically different from them. This makes sense, as mating with someone with different genes is likely to produce healthy offspring.
As it turns out the importance of smell increases when women are at their most fertile.
So if you want to find a perfect match, you could forego kissing and start smelling people instead but curiously, this probably isn’t socially acceptable in most modern cultures.
This is all well and good but there is more to it. Our lips are packed with nerve endings, making them one of the most acutely sensitive regions of your entire body.
Kissing unleashes a host of feel-good chemicals, helping to reduce stress and increase social bonding.

We are pretty satisfied with the explanation that humans kiss because it feels good.
'HAPPY KISSING DAY!'