Kissing is one of the most intimate yet socially variable gestures in human culture, encompassing meanings that range from passionate love to polite greeting. This article examines the historical, cultural, and symbolic dimensions of the social kiss
Kissing, or to give the process its grand Latinate name, osculation, is widely practised amongst humans, both young and old. But the kiss is not by any means universally adopted as a form of daily greeting.
People in some cultures are accustomed to maintaining a due bodily distance between all but close family members. Their routine salutations will thus take the form of polite bowing or curtseying at a due distance.
Alternatively, a non-touching variant is the acknowledgement that entails pressing the palms of the hands together in front of the body, in the gesture known as Namaste (literally meaning ‘I honour you’), accompanied by a slight bow of the head.
Moreover, even those who are accustomed to daily greetings that entail some bodily touching do not automatically greet one another with a kiss. There are variants of handshakes, fist bumps, and high fives, as well as back slaps, shoulder pats, and all-embracing hugs that still do not require the use of lips.
It is true that, in the late twentieth century, the social kiss as a form of daily greeting began to spread quite widely. Yet it’s also worth reflecting that this trend, on a global scale, is relatively recent.
Historical resistance to the social kiss in Britain
Historically, in British culture, for example, there was a deep-seated resistance to public kissing for many centuries. That was not the case, to be sure, in medieval times. But from the sixteenth century onwards, the spread of Protestantism inculcated a stress upon bodily dignity and the public avoidance of any ‘fussy’ and ‘Popish’ kissing rituals between adults and strangers.
In particular, many of the radical Protestant sects that developed in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – like the Methodists, for example – were hostile to all public displays of excess bodily intimacy. Some indeed were quite austere even in private with their own children, avoiding cuddling and petting their young.
Erotic kiss vs social kiss
Of course, the social kiss – or peck on the cheeks – must be differentiated from the erotic kiss. Many adults would know and enjoy sensual kisses in lovemaking. Yet conventional British traditions of reticence make it very hard to know how widespread amatory kissing was—and how well people performed. There were no guidebooks to offer instruction before Hugh Morris’s The Art of Kissing was published in 1936.
Some male lovers were solely focused on genital satisfaction. Their approach was satirically expressed in the terse formula: ‘Wham! Bang! Thank you, Ma’am! (And some men even fail to say thank you or to indicate any form of appreciation after such brisk encounters).
Vainly, their lovers may have protested that taking a bit more time will produce heightened erotic excitement. What about (say) pressing and caressing nipples? And what about the tingling sensations to be shared by using tongues and lips for mutual caresses?
However, history does not record how well or how poorly all human lovers, from the distant past to the present moment, have performed in bed. It is sufficient to note that the human species has not become extinct. (On the contrary!)
And it’s also well known that, whether or not all lovers actually kiss during their sexual encounters, the sensual pressing of lips together remains an irresistible symbol of passionate lovemaking.
Thus, the famous Ode number 5 by Catullus long ago – in classical Rome – urged: ‘Vivamus … atque amemus’ [Let us live, and let us love!] And the poem requested specifically:
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinda centum …
[Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Then another thousand, then a hundred,
Then yet another thousand, then a hundred …]
By contrast with the erotic kiss, the conventions of the social kiss did not inspire great poetry. Greeting another person with an affectionate peck on the cheek was not intended to ignite great passion. True, the social kiss did require that people put their faces close together – often with friends but sometimes with comparative strangers. Yet the ensuing gesture, while affectionate, was firmly non-sensual. Thus, the social kiss was confined to a light peck on the cheek – or sometimes simply to an ‘air-kiss’ close to the cheek but not actually touching it.
Cultural variations in social kissing
How many social kisses are required for politeness is a question that gets different answers in different cultures. For people in some communities, a single kiss is often sufficient for a friendly greeting. Yet, people in other communities prefer two people moving their heads in synchronisation to kiss on alternate cheeks. And some others expect three kisses, or even four. Cue some agreeable confusion when people from different kissing cultures meet,
Meanwhile, there are other historic variants of the social kiss of greeting. A striking custom was traditionally practised in Iceland, when its male freeholder farmers lived in a community of more or less social equals. Upon meeting, these men habitually kissed one another on the cheeks – but briefly and non-sensually.
Furthermore, that variant did not exhaust the range of options for the social kiss. For example, greetings that involve kissing the back of an outstretched hand are common in some parts of the world today. Typically, a person of ‘lower’ status greets a senior figure with a hand-kiss. For example, each morning, children in Bulgarian homes salute their father in that style, whilst he may well reciprocate with a kindly pat on the head.
Protestant Britain, by contrast (as already noted), did not generally favour a public kiss as a routine form of salutation. Yet there were some interesting variations in the tale.
At the court of Charles II from the 1660s to the 1680s, there was some social kissing as a form of salutation between powerful men. This custom was imported from Catholic France, where Charles had been in exile after the mid-seventeenth-century civil wars in Britain. Thus, there are some references to men kissing one another (non-sexually) in Restoration comedies. Nonetheless, the custom did not then gain a wider following, and it soon disappeared even in court circles, after the death of the socially permissive ‘Merry Monarch’.
Missteps and miscalculations
There was also in Britain a family custom of non-sensual kissing as a form of secular benediction. At a family gathering, a venerable senior might kiss a younger relative on the forehead to convey a blessing. One recorded case dates from 1775. Fanny Burney, daughter of the musician Dr Charles Burney, noted in her journal that, at the end of one pleasant evening’s entertainment in company with family and friends, her grandmother kissed her as a benediction, ‘according to custom’.
Burney had no objection to that. Yet she found it somewhat ‘disagreeable’ when several aunts clustered round to do likewise. And she was seriously annoyed when a young man, not a relative, gave her, in front of everyone, ‘a most ardent salute!’ The young man followed this visible pledge with a letter to her father, asking permission to court his daughter.
Charles Burney thereupon consulted his attractive young offspring. However, Fanny Burney was not at all amused. She declined to be courted by such an impertinent young man. He had badly miscalculated. And his ardent kiss had backfired.
Gestures of salutation were thus not always easy to calculate. What might please and flatter one person might seriously offend another. The social kiss, being particularly intimate, needed to be offered and given with due care. Yet it had a quiet subsidiary role within the British repertoire of salutations, especially within families and between very close friends – albeit some families continued to avoid it entirely.
The myth of Nelson’s last kiss
Famously, Horatio Nelson, when dying in battle at Trafalgar in 1805, requested of his Vice Admiral: ‘Kiss me, Hardy!’ It seemed a fittingly poignant salute to a national hero. Alas, however, recently discovered evidence contradicts that story. It may simply be a reassuring myth, which adds grace and comfort to a sadly dramatic death.
All in all, the social art of kissing is fascinating, even while it can be so complex. Or perhaps it is fascinating precisely because it can be so variegated. After a low-key history in Britain for many centuries, the social kiss is today becoming increasingly adopted – as part of a global trend. The kiss has not replaced the handshake as the most common form of greeting among international salutations. However, it is becoming increasingly important in the repertoire. Let’s hope that augurs well for international friendship!
Symbolism of the social kiss
Putting one’s face very close to another’s implies trust. Pressing the lips in a kiss on the cheek implies affection. Mwah! The gesture has some of the features of a passionate embrace. Yet the social kiss is both offered and given with social restraint.
A peck on the cheek thus does not mean ‘I love you forever.’ Or even: ‘I love making love to you right now, even though I may have lost interest tomorrow!’ Yet it does provide a closely personal way of saying a warm ‘Hello’ or ‘Goodbye’ … or, as Robert Burns put it poetically: ‘Aye, fond kiss, and then we sever …’
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
An insightful compendium of essays is available in K. Harvey (ed.), The Kiss in History (Manchester, 2005). Other relevant works include S. Kirshenhaum, The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips are Telling Us (New York, 2011); and M. Danesi, The History of the Kiss: The Birth of Popular Culture London & New York, 2013). And for the latest evidence of Nelson’s last words, see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/17/nelson-last-word-were-not-kiss-me-hardy-letter-claims.
