The science of human bonding

Bonding behaviors, or attachment cues, are subconscious signals that can make emotional ties surprisingly effortless, once any initial defensiveness dissolves.
Bonding behaviors are effective because they are the way mammal infants attach to their caregivers. To survive, infants need regular contact with Mom's mammaries until they are ready to be weaned. Bonding behaviors work by encouraging the release of neurochemicals (including oxytocin), which lower innate defensiveness, making a bond possible.
In short, these generous behaviors are the way we humans fall in love with our parents and children. Caregiver-infant signals include affectionate touch, grooming, soothing sounds, nurturing, eye contact, and so forth.
In rare pair-bonding mammals like us, bonding cues serve a secondary function as well (known as an exaptation). They're part of the reason we stay in love (on average) for long enough for both parents to attach to any kids. Honeymoon neurochemistry also plays a role, but it's somewhat like a booster shot that wears off. In contrast, bonding behaviors can sustain bonds indefinitely.
In lovers, bonding behaviors look a bit different than they do between caregiver and infant, yet the parallels are evident. These potent signals include:

· smiling, with eye contact
· skin-to-skin contact
· providing a service or treat without being asked
· giving unsolicited approval, via smiles or compliments
· gazing into each other's eyes
· listening intently, and restating what you hear
· forgiving or overlooking an error or thoughtless remark, past or present
· preparing your partner something to eat
· synchronized breathing
· kissing with lips and tongues
· cradling, or gently rocking, your partner's head and torso (works well on a couch, or with lots of pillows)
· holding, or spooning, each other in stillness
· wordless sounds of contentment and pleasure
· stroking with intent to comfort
· massaging with intent to comfort, especially feet, shoulders and head
· hugging with intent to comfort
· lying with your ear over your partner's heart and listening to the heart beat
· touching and sucking of nipples/breasts
· gently placing your palm over your lover's genitals with intent to comfort rather than arouse
· making time together at bedtime a priority
· gentle intercourse

There are some curious aspects to bonding behaviors. First, in order to sustain the sparkle in a relationship these behaviors need to occur daily, or almost daily. Second, they need not occur for long, or be particularly effortful, but they must be genuinely selfless. Even holding each other in stillness at the end of a long, busy day can be enough to exchange the subconscious signals that your relationship is rewarding. Third, there's evidence that the more you use bonding behaviors, the more sensitive your brain becomes to the neurochemicals that help you feel relaxed and loving.
Fourth, some items on the list above may sound like foreplay, but in one important sense they are not. Foreplay is geared toward building sexual tension and climax—which sets off a subtle cycle of neurochemical changes (and sometimes unwelcome perception shifts) before the brain returns to equilibrium. In contrast, bonding behaviors are geared toward relaxation. They work best when they soothe an old part of the primitive brain known as the 'amygdala'.
The amygdala's job is to keep our guard up, unless it is reassured regularly with these subconscious signals. To be sure, it also relaxes temporarily during and immediately after a passionate encounter. After all, fertilization is our genes' top priority. However, regular, non-goal oriented contact seems to be more effective as a bonding behavior. This suggests that loving foreplay preceding a wonderful orgasm is great...but can send mixed messages. Perhaps these contradictory subconscious signals account for the "attraction-repulsion" phenomenon lovers often notice after their initial honeymoon high wanes.
In any case, nurturing touch not only creates a space of comfort and safety.
Bonding behaviors are a practical means of restoring and sustaining the harmonious sparkle in a relationship...even with a partner who is snapping like an alligator. Combine them with gentle lovemaking with lots of periods of relaxation (and a minimum of sexual satiety signals via orgasm), and you may find that you can sustain the harmony in your relationship with surprising ease.

The Science of Kissing!

Some statistics to start with- 67% of men don’t mind a woman’s wearing lipstick when kissing, 53% of women prefer a clean-shaven man, and 33% of people open their eyes while kissing.

Women’s favorite spot to be kissed, other than the mouth, is the neck. Ninety-six percent of women reported that they like neck kisses, while only about 10% of men do, so a guy will not even believe that a girl likes being kissed on the neck because it doesn’t really do anything for him. So I tell guys to move or slide off the lips occasionally down to the neck, and that will produce big results; we demonstrate that onstage. Similarly, women like being kissed on the ears much more than men do.

So the odds a neck kiss will succeed on a woman are…1 in 1.04. What about men?

Men often respond most to the French kiss, whereas women often respond to a romantic kiss. Guys will say they’re not really getting excited unless there is some tongue contact, while girls will often say if you’re passionate and loving, a lip kiss is good enough. You don’t have to rush in and, you know, trigger the gag reflex with the tongue.

One girl says, “When I turn blue, doesn’t he realize it means I can’t breathe?” Another says not to use your tongue like a dart, but put some finesse into the French kiss. That’s the number one mistake guys make.

Women also complain that men don’t do enough variations in kissing, that they’re too machine-like or repetitive. Women would like a number of different kisses: the neck, the ears, “liposuction,” which is moving from the upper lip to the lower lip…be creative.

The number one mistake girls make is not opening their mouths wide enough, probably because the guy is trying to initiate a French kiss.

What are some of the more unusual kisses?

The most unusual is probably the Trobriand Islands kiss, from the South Pacific. The natives there groom each other, pull little twigs out of each other’s hair, and then they do a 3-step procedure—they begin by biting each other’s lower lip very vigorously, and then they pull their partner’s hair, and finally they nibble off their partner’s eyelashes—

I’m sorry, you said nibble off?

Yeah, they nibble on each other’s eyelashes and often they bite them off. It’s definitely different. It's a status symbol there to have short eyelashes, because it shows how popular you are. That’s probably the most unusual.

In Asia, they can be very shy. In the Japanese kiss, renamed the Shy kiss for the latest edition of my book, they just touch lips and then look left and right to make sure no one is looking.

Another very unusual kiss is the Eskimo kiss. Most people think it’s just rubbing noses, but it’s actually an 11-step procedure which includes pressing your nose into your partner’s cheek and inhaling while making a smacking noise, without kissing, to the side of your partner’s lips. What they’re doing is inhaling the hopefully delicious scent of their partner.

In a 2007 study published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, a team of researchers led by psychologist Susan Hughes examined gender differences in kissing among college students and the evolutionary foundations for those differences. What they found indicates that kissing is as much a science as an art.

Kissing Chemistry

According to the study, men and women swap more than spit when they kiss; they share important biological information as well. This is because our facial area is packed with sebum-producing sebaceous glands that are controlled by sex hormones. When we kiss, sebum is released from the glands and mixes with our saliva. Swapping sebum, the researchers suggest, may help people assess the health and hormonal conditions of their partner before they commit to sex (a metabolically expensive activity) or long-term involvement. Chemical cues also help people, particularly women, size up potential mates. Hughes and her colleagues found that women tend to base a man’s kissing ability on the smell and taste of his mouth. This is probably because foul breath and bad taste (apart from being unpleasant) are often symptoms of larger health problems.

The Wetter the Better

Gallup’s study also found that men prefer wetter kisses with more tongue action. Dr. Helen Fisher, a professor of biological anthropology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, theorizes this is because the sloppier the smooch, the more saliva—and hence, hormonal information—is exchanged. In a 2009 interview on the radio program Earth and Sky, Fisher explained that our cheek cells absorb the hormones estrogen and testosterone that are exchanged during a wet kiss. Men, suggests Fisher, may use this hormonal input to subconsciously gauge their partner’s fertility and reproductive potential. A man’s preference for extra-wet kisses may have to do with the fact that men are less sensitive than women to chemosenses like taste and smell.

Is the First Kiss Key?

The first kiss on a first date is notoriously nerve-wracking. We instinctively sense that a lot is riding on our performance. And there’s good reason—for most people, a bad first kiss can end a relationship before it’s even begun. In a separate survey, Hughes asked people, “Have you ever found yourself attracted to someone, only to discover after kissing them for the first time that you were no longer interested?” The majority of both male and female respondents answered yes. But if a bad kiss can end a first date, can a good kiss prompt one? Probably not, according to Hughes’s original study, which found that most men (69%) and women (67%) don’t believe in starting a relationship with someone just because he or she is a good kisser.

The odds a woman will kiss her partner on their first date are 1 in 1.85, or about 54%.