Susan Hughes, a psychologist at Albright University in Pennsylvania, conducted the study, in which more than 1,000 college students were asked about their kissing preferences, thoughts, and other details at the optimal stage of a relationship.
The results show that men have a strong preference for wet kisses, while women do not, and the difference is especially pronounced between couples who have not been in a relationship for long. Psychologists have analyzed that men use the exchange of saliva and the feeling of wetness during kissing as a method of sexual arousal for the woman, and use it to judge the other person’s passion and receptivity, a kissing experience similar to intercourse.
It has also been previously suggested by anthropologists that men transmit testosterone to women through saliva during kissing in order to enhance each other’s sexual desire.
Women can lose favor with each other as a result of a bad kiss, and men report that they want to have sex with each other even if the other person is a bad kisser. Also, men think far more than women that kissing can lead to intercourse.
In response, Dr. Hughes argued that women often see kissing as a way to connect with a partner and assess whether he could be a future mate or sexual object, while men see kissing as a way to achieve a purpose, and that purpose is sex, and through kissing, men want to arouse each other’s passions in the first place.
The researchers also said that regardless of gender, they agreed that kissing is an extremely important and intimate communication between the sexes that can be used to measure the rapport of a relationship.