Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Kissing:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_02_12-2006_02_18.shtml#1140030571
[1]Joshua Foer, writing in The New York Times, reports (among other
interesting things):
All across Africa, the Pacific and the Americas, we find cultures
that didn't know about mouth kissing until their first contact with
European explorers. And the attraction was not always immediately
apparent. Most considered the act of exchanging saliva revolting.
Among the Lapps of northern Finland, both sexes would bathe
together in a state of complete nudity, but kissing was regarded as
beyond the pale.
To this day, public kissing is still seen as indecent in many parts
of the world. In 1990, the Beijing-based Workers' Daily advised its
readers that "the invasive Europeans brought the kissing custom to
China, but it is regarded as a vulgar practice which is all too
suggestive of cannibalism." . . .
Vaughn Bryant, an anthropologist at Texas A&M, has traced the first
recorded kiss back to India, somewhere around 1500 B.C., when early
Vedic scriptures start to mention people "sniffing" with their
mouths, and later texts describe lovers "setting mouth to mouth."
From there, he hypothesizes, the kiss spread westward when
Alexander the Great conquered the Punjab in 326 B.C.
The Romans were inveterate kissers, and along with Latin, the kiss
became one of their chief exports. . . .
Thanks to David Tice for the pointer.
References
1. http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/698
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