The Strangest Things About Kissing Other People

There’s nothing quite like kissing the person that you love. It just provides a sense of warmth and intimacy with another human being. Sure, we live in a modern age where you can reach out and touch someone by phone, by messenger, or even through video apps. But nothing has managed to replace smooching your special person when it comes to making you feel like you’re truly connected to another person.

Despite kissing being such a major part of the human experience, most people don’t know all that much about how it works. Not on the outside, of course: we can only assume you know how to plant your lips on another person. On the inside, though, locking lips can change your life, right down to a chemical level.

How does that work? What does all of this mean, and how can you become a better kisser? Keep reading to find out!

Closing your eyes makes kissing feel better

Chances are that you close your eyes when you kiss. Most people do: it’s only natural. But have you ever wondered why it feels so natural to do this? As it turns out, your brain is trying to do you a solid. Specifically, your mind is making sure that each kiss is as enjoyable as humanly possible.

Kissing is one of the most stimulating things you can do, with or without another person. That much stimulation can send your brain into overload, which is why you almost automatically close your eyes when you start smooching: by cutting out visual stimuli, your mind has an easier time processing what is going on. As an added bonus, the kiss will feel more intense because, with your eyes closed, you’ll have an easier time focusing on the sensation of the other person’s lips.

You can, of course, deliberately open your eyes while kissing, overriding your brain’s automatic response. But we wouldn’t recommend: since closing your eyes makes smooching more enjoyable, all opening them can do is ruin a perfectly good kiss!

RELATED: How Kissing Someone For the First Time Changes Your Body

The chemicals between you

We all know that kissing makes you feel more connected to another human being. Some people find this surprising because they see locking lips as a merely physical action. How can simply connecting two sets of lips change how you feel? As it turns out, the act of kissing unleashes a wave of chemical and hormonal changes between both parties.

For example, when you kiss someone, your brain releases a chemical called dopamine and a neurotransmitter called serotonin. Dopamine makes you feel pleasure, while serotonin makes you immediately feel good. Incidentally, serotonin improves your overall mood, which is why a good kiss can make you feel like you’re on top of the world.

If that’s not enough, kissing also releases oxytocin (more informally known as “the love hormone”) into your body. This hormone can make you feel more attached to another person, so the more you kiss, the more you feel like you belong together!

Kissing spreads bacteria (like, millions of them)

Normally, it’s fun to imagine how kissing awakens all these things inside of us. Hormones and neurotransmitters are all colliding with each other, making you feel more pleasure than you could possibly imagine. However, kissing does more than spread feel-good chemicals between two people. It also spreads millions upon millions of bacteria.

It’s not like the kissing gives you bacteria. Instead (and sorry to give you the icky visual), human beings already carry tons of bacteria in our mouths at all times. When you kiss someone for 10 seconds (nothing like a passionate kiss, right?), as many as 80 million bacteria travel from one mouth to another. That’s obviously gross, but in a weird way, it gives you and your partner something else in common. The more you kiss each other, the more your mouths share the same bacteria profile. Talk about sharing your culture!

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Kissing is bad for your health (no, really!)

Is kissing healthy or unhealthy? As your relationship status might say, “it’s complicated.” For the most part, kissing is a very healthy activity: it makes you feel good, increases connection to your partner, and it can even help you live longer. At the same time, kissing (especially if you’re not careful about who you kiss) can have all sorts of unhealthy side effects. For example, if you partner is allergic to certain foods like shellfish, then kissing them after you’ve consumed those foods (even if you’ve brushed your teeth really well) may trigger an allergic reaction.

Locking lips is also the main way mono is spread. That’s why, of course, it’s called “the kissing disease.” Aside from mono, the thing you are most likely to get from kissing another person is a cold sore. If you have the flu or even just the common cold, kissing someone else may give it to them. Finally, all those bacteria that you spread through kissing other people increase your risk of developing cavities or gum disease.

The bottom line? Be sure that you and your partner are healthy when you smooch, and be wary of things like allergies and gum disease. As long as you are careful, you and your partner can enjoy all the upsides of sex and none of the downsides!