Done this one before but Rebecca Reid of the Independent discussing Adriano Lameira's ideas that kissing evolved from grooming.
Interesting the writer is struggling with disgust over this.
I've blogged before on the observation that the first thing that sexual desire does is turn off "disgust." What is normally disgusting like spit and mucus. And quite right to protect us from infection, consider sharing someone's knife and fork. But suddenly all that goes out of the window with sex. And I'm sure this is linked to taboo also which is normally "disgust" but that same response gets turned off by sex. Clearly psychological adaptations there to aid reproduction.
Pretty sure if they measured oxytocin levels in grooming animals and humans you would get the same responses. Studies already showed that chimps are more likely to help the chimp that most recently groomed them. So the whole physical basis of bonding probably all feels the same to human and animal. Next question do these responses exist in non social animals like cats... that's a weird one eh?
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