Young Kissing Girls

Kissing in Western cultures is a fairly recent development and is rarely mentioned even in Greek literature. In the Middle Ages it was considered a sign of refinement of the upper classes. Other cultures have different definitions and uses of kissing, notes Brayer. In China, for example, a similar expression of affection consists of rubbing one's nose against the cheek of another person. In other Eastern cultures kissing is not commonly done. In South East Asian countries the 'sniff kiss' is the most common form of affection and Western mouth to mouth kissing is reserved for sexual foreplay. In some tribal cultures the "equivalent for our 'kiss me' is 'smell me.'" However, in Africa people are not familiar with kissing, as is also the case with Malays, Indigenous Australians, and many other tribes.
Nature and history of the kiss
The origins of the kiss were studied in the early 20th century by natural historian Ernest Crawley. He wrote that kissing was "a universal expression in the social life of the higher civilizations of the feelings of affection, love (sexual, parental, and filial), and veneration." According to Crawley, touch is 'the mother of the senses,' and the kiss was a tactile and specialized form of intimate contact. However, he notes that the act of kissing was very rare among the "lower and semi-civilized races," but was "fully established as instinctive in the higher societies." Yet even among higher civilizations Crawley saw differences: while the kiss seems to have been unknown to ancient Egypt, it was well established in early Greece, Assyria, and India.