Sharpen up those kissing skills, boys and girls, because that is all a new study says is needed to assess a mate.
According to the study from the University at Albany, evolution along with subconscious thinking have a lot more to do with kissing than people think.
The study, conducted by researchers Gordon Gallup Jr., Susan Hughes and Marissa Harrison, surveyed 1,041 college-aged students and found that men and women kiss for very different reasons.
According to the study, women use kissing to examine their respective mate. Through the kiss, women determine whether a partner is healthy and if the male will stick around for the long haul.
Men, on the other hand, see kissing as a means to garner sex or to reconcile with a partner and don't put as much importance on the kiss as women do.
"It is perfectly, biologically normal to kiss," said John Krigbaum, an assistant professor of anthropology at UF. "But there is also a certain Darwinian logic to what is being selected for as we kiss."
The study argues that this is all due to human evolution, and while most college-aged students aren't thinking about this while they grab a cute partner to kiss at Midtown, people are still unintentionally thinking this way.
"I think girls kiss boys in bars because they like having that feeling of a boyfriend even if it is only for a night at some bar," said Lene Staertzel, a UF marketing junior.
Guys seem to kiss girls at bars for different reasons.
"It's a test," said Matt Rossheim, a UF economics junior. "If a girl will make out with you at a club or a bar, she is more than likely to put out."
Biologically, men are wired to spread their DNA to as many women as possible. The consequences for women and sexual intercourse are much higher, according to the study. The insemination process is only the beginning for women and the end for men.
And according to the study, that is the reason why women are so much shrewder in picking their mate and why kissing plays such a big role in the process.
Women put a much larger emphasis on kissing than their male counterparts during all stages of a relationship. While most women said they wouldn't have sex with someone they deemed a bad kisser, a lot of the men surveyed said they would.
Men are also more likely to skip to doing the deed as well. According to the study, 53 percent of males surveyed would have sex with a mate without kissing while only 15 percent of women said they would.
The males on the UF campus seem to agree.
"It's bonus points if you can get a girl in bed without kissing her," said Steve Emery, a UF accounting junior.
One of the few things that this study said men and women both agree on is the first kiss can be a deal breaker.
According to the survey, 66 percent of women and 59 percent of men said they had lost attraction for their mate after a bad first kiss.
