Faktrum tells how it happened.
1. Only 46% of human societies practice romantic kissing, according to a new study based on data from 168 world cultures. Scientists did not take into account the kisses of parents and children and focused exclusively on those that lovers shower each other with.
2. Many hunter-gatherer societies have shown no signs of kissing (some even consider the behavior repulsive). The Mehinaku tribe of Brazil reportedly call kissing "indecent."
3. Modern hunter-gatherers live much the same lifestyle as our distant ancestors, so we can conclude that ancient people didn't kiss either. Researchers argue that such behavior is rather a product of Western civilization, passed down from generation to generation.
4. Kissing as we know it appears to be a relatively recent invention. The oldest mention of an act similar to this action is found in Vedic texts over 3,500 years old. Kissing has been described as "breathing in the soul of another person." At the same time, Egyptian hieroglyphs depict people standing close to each other, but not touching their lips.
5. Primatologist Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has repeatedly observed chimpanzees hugging and kissing after an argument. For chimpanzees, a kiss is a sign of reconciliation, which, by the way, is more common among males. In other words, there is nothing romantic here.
6. Relatives of chimpanzees, bonobos, kiss more often and even with tongue. This, however, is not surprising, because bonobos are animals with increased sexuality. When two people meet, they can shake hands. Bonobos in this case have sex (the so-called “bonobo handshake”). In addition, they use sex in many other life situations, so their kissing also cannot be considered something particularly romantic.
7. People's sense of smell is very dull, so we just need to get closer. Smell is not the only factor influencing the choice of a suitable partner, but research shows that it plays an important role in this process.
8. A paper published in 1995 found that women prefer the scent of men who are genetically different from themselves. Male and female mice react to odors in the same way: this is rational from an evolutionary point of view, since mating with someone who has a different set of genes more often leads to the appearance of healthy offspring. And kissing is a great way to get close enough to smell genes.
9. Researchers discovered in 2013 that males emit their own version of the same pheromone that female wild pigs find attractive. It is present in men's sweat. When a woman feels it, her arousal level increases slightly.
10. In some cultures, the “sniffing” procedure was transformed into touching lips to lips. It is difficult to determine exactly when this happened, but we kiss in order, like animals, to smell the pheromones we need, scientists say. So if you're looking for your soulmate, you can skip the kissing and just start sniffing people. You will have the same chances of finding a suitable partner, but you will get half as many bacteria. True, you need to be prepared for the fact that people will suddenly start looking at you strangely.
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Now it’s clear: it wasn’t us, humans, who invented kissing. A new zookeeper at the San Diego Zoo walked into a chimpanzee's cage on his first day on the job. The chimpanzee “lady” reached out to him with her lips. It was very clear that she wanted to kiss. He offered her his cheek. But she clearly wanted more. She grabbed the poor servant forcefully by the neck and kissed him passionately on the lips. Monkeys are one of those animals that actually kiss. And chimpanzees do it best. Maybe because they make love in the “classic” human position. But even a male mouse licks the female's lips before getting down to business.
Sea lions rub their heads while flirting. Before the act of love, elephants “kiss” with their trunks, placing them in each other’s mouths, etc. and so on.
Kissing pair of gourami (Helostoma temminickii)
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In the 1930s in Japan, it was planned to include Auguste Rodin’s great sculpture “The Kiss” in some exhibition. It was not possible to do this: the work was considered indecent.
The authorities did not object to the nudity of the people depicted, but demanded that their heads be covered somehow, to which the exhibition organizers, of course, did not agree. In Japan, where sex was never strictly taboo, the very act of kissing was considered obscene and offensive to public morals. You can read about this amazing incident, as well as other interesting facts illustrating, to put it mildly, the shy attitude of the Japanese towards kisses in Donald Richie’s book “The World Japanese Style”.
Not that until contact with European civilization Kiss was completely unknown to the Japanese. But it was perceived as a kind of sexual quirk, lying somewhere on the border between sophistication and perversion in sexual love. And “everyday” kisses, indeed, did not exist at all: the shogun’s envoy, who visited America in 1860, was shocked that “gaijin” publicly kissed friends, relatives and children. In one early Japanese translation of a European novel, the phrase "to take a kiss from your lips" was translated into "to lick your lips." Even now, to denote a kiss, the Japanese most often use the word “kisu” (a distorted English kiss), although there is also an original Japanese word - but it is not quite decent.
Around the world
One might think that the problem lies in the inhabitants of the country of Yamato, known as great originals. But upon closer examination, it turns out that if anyone is the original, it is us, representatives of the Judeo-Christian civilization. The kiss is unknown to many African peoples, who treat it with disgust; Eskimos and Malays, expressing love and tenderness, rub their noses, and Australian aborigines press forehead to forehead.
In general, in different cultures the kiss is used - if it exists at all - in different ways, and is embedded in it different meaning. Perhaps there is only one thing in common: nowhere and never - with the exception, perhaps, of Pushkin’s poem “Anchar” - did a kiss mean something bad, hostile. It is always called upon to express positive emotions: love, passion, tenderness, delight, admiration, humility. It is not for nothing that Judas’s kiss became a symbol of meanness and sacrilege: not only did the student betray the Teacher, he also did this by violating the sacred symbolism of the act of kissing.
In the animal world
And if this is so, if the global meaning of a kiss, a phenomenon that is, of course, sociocultural, is the same everywhere, it means that its roots are still biological. There are three of them: sniffing, licking and sucking.
Animals, sniffing each other, get to know each other, in particular, find out what the counterpart is like and whether he is suitable as a sexual partner. Some monkeys go further and kiss just like humans, mouth to mouth and even passionately, exchanging saliva. They are believed to "analyze" the resulting genetic material for immune conflicts that could have a detrimental effect on the viability of the couple's offspring. In short, sniffing and kissing in animals is a recognition system, a way to separate the wheat from the chaff, the lambs from the goats, and “us” from “strangers.”
Licking in animals, oddly enough, is not always directly related to the sexual sphere - but is always associated with friendship or love. First, mothers lick their babies. Secondly, animals, when playing, lick and clean each other, and sort through their fur. Thirdly, a low-ranking individual allows the dominant male to lick him, thus accepting his subordinate status and avoiding unnecessary aggression. In this latter way, apparently, animals differ from people: with us it’s the other way around, and it’s the novice mafioso who respectfully kisses the don’s hand, and the captive, criminal or petitioner, thirsty for mercy, catches the ruler’s boot in order to kiss it.
Well, with sucking everything is obvious: each of us learned to enjoy this simple action while still an infant.
On the shelves
In the ancient world, a distinction was made between a friendly kiss, a “noble” kiss on the lips and an intimate kiss, and Indian erotic treatises describe dozens, if not hundreds, of ways and techniques of kissing. Let's try to create another classification of kisses - according to the meaning that is invested in this beautiful gesture.
1. Prelude to sex, in at least three senses. First of all, teenagers, growing up, go through the kissing stage before starting sexual activity: a favorite topic for gossip among high school girls is who has already kissed whom. Further, kisses accompany the “candy-bouquet” period of the nascent romance. Remember the “social convention” - sex only on the third date? The question is, what's on the second? - That's right, kisses! And finally, a kiss is an almost indispensable foreplay. By the way, for many - especially men for some reason - a kiss is sometimes more intimate than sex itself. Like, you can sleep with almost anyone, but kiss only a select few.
2. Expression of humility, devotion, delight and ecstasy, including religious. Muslims kiss the Koran, Jews kiss the Torah, but Christians have left representatives of other faiths far behind: they kiss the crucifix, images, the priest’s hand, and also happily kiss each other on Easter. A gentleman's kiss on a lady's graceful hand falls into the same category, because this sign of politeness is intended to symbolize admiration for a beautiful lady.
3. A sign of love and friendliness. This is how children and parents kiss, this is how girlfriends greet each other, this is how an enthusiastic animal lover expresses tenderness for his furry pets.
Visiting a fairy tale
Scientists have thoroughly studied the anatomy and physiology of kissing, calculated how many facial muscles are involved in this pleasant process and calculated how it contributes to excess weight loss. But the magic of a kiss, of course, is not in all this arithmetic, but in the fact that it is impossible to put numbers and facts into a Procrustean bed. The fact is that Ivan Tsarevich kissed the swamp frog - and she turned into a beautiful princess, the prince kissed the Sleeping Beauty who seemed dead - and she woke up. In love.
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If you think about it, kissing is a strange and a little disgusting activity: you exchange saliva and bacteria with another person, including some that are not even useful... But for some reason, it’s pleasant!
Why did this happen:
1. According to a new study based on data from 168 world cultures, only 46% of human societies practice romantic kissing. Scientists did not take into account the kisses of parents and children and focused exclusively on those that lovers shower each other with.
2. Many hunter-gatherer societies have shown no signs of kissing (some even consider the behavior repulsive). The Mehinaku tribe of Brazil reportedly call kissing "indecent." 
3. Modern hunters and gatherers lead many of the same lifestyles as our distant ancestors, so we can conclude that ancient people didn’t kiss either. Researchers argue that such behavior is rather a product of Western civilization, passed down from generation to generation. 
4. Kissing as we know it appears to be a relatively recent invention. The oldest mention of an act similar to this action is found in Vedic texts over 3,500 years old. Kissing has been described as "breathing in the soul of another person." At the same time, Egyptian hieroglyphs depict people standing close to each other, but not touching their lips. 
5. Primatologist Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has repeatedly observed chimpanzees hugging and kissing after an argument. For chimpanzees, a kiss is a sign of reconciliation, which, by the way, is more common among males. In other words, there is nothing romantic here.
6. Relatives of chimpanzees, bonobos, kiss more often and even with tongue. This, however, is not surprising, because bonobos are animals with increased sexuality. When two people meet, they can shake hands. Bonobos in this case have sex (the so-called “bonobo handshake”). In addition, they use sex in many other life situations, so their kissing also cannot be considered something particularly romantic. 
7. People's sense of smell is very dull, so we just need to come closer. Smell is not the only factor influencing the choice of a suitable partner, but research shows that it plays an important role in this process. 
8. A paper published in 1995 states that women prefer the scent of men who are genetically different from themselves. Male and female mice react to odors in the same way: this is rational from an evolutionary point of view, since mating with someone who has a different set of genes more often leads to the appearance of healthy offspring. And kissing is a great way to get close enough to smell genes. 
9. Researchers discovered in 2013 that males emit their own version of the same pheromone that female wild pigs find attractive. It is present in men's sweat. When a woman feels it, her arousal level increases slightly. 
10. In some cultures, the “sniffing” procedure was transformed into touching lips to lips. It is difficult to determine exactly when this happened, but we kiss in order, like animals, to smell the pheromones we need, scientists say. So if you're looking for your soulmate, you can skip the kissing and just start sniffing people. You will have the same chances of finding a suitable partner, but you will get half as many bacteria. True, you need to be prepared for the fact that people will suddenly start looking at you strangely.