Sometimes I think we take the joy of kissing for granted. Like straight sexin’, it takes talent, and there are many around who somehow made it to adulthood and still have not yet figured it out. At the same time, though, we’ve always wondered… exactly what purpose does kissing hold? Sure it’s fun, and at 16 you can pretty much do it for hours on end, but for most of us adults it just gives us a hearty dose of blue… well, you know. Parts.

So it was interesting to find out that kissing actually DOES serve a biological purpose! According to a study by Colin Hendrie from the University of Leeds, kissing is actually a way for the male to dose the female with his germs, so that if she gives birth to a child, the child will be immune to any germs from the father. Or, in more science-y terms,

“Female inoculation with a specific male’s cytomegalovirus is most efficiently achieved through mouth-to-mouth contact and saliva exchange, particularly where the flow of saliva is from the male to the typically shorter female.”

Uh, yeah. Incol-awhatever and cyto-somethings. Whatever the disgusting science behind it, it’s interesting to know that kissing actually serves some strange biological purpose: to make super-immune babies.

[Note: this does not negate Commandment V: if you ain’t makin’ babies, keep your saliva to yourself. Yuck.]

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