Lip kissing, known more technically as
osculation (
osculate, meaning to touch, from the
Latin "
osculum", meaning kiss) is not universal. It is not common in the traditional cultures of
China or
Japan. The lip kiss is said to have been invented by the people of
ancient India, although the earliest Indian records—about 2000 B.C.—indicate that their prior custom was a
nose or "sniff" kiss. By the time the famous Indian manual of sex and love—the
Kama Sutra—was written in the fourth century, the lip kiss was well established. The practice of kissing with the lips spread westward to
Persia,
Syria,
Greece,
Italy, and eventually to the countries that make up
Northern Europe. The kiss on the lips is a practice that can be found in the time of
patriarchs (Bible). In
Ancient Greece, the kiss on the mouth was used to express a concept of equality between people of the same rank. In the
Middle Ages, the
kiss of peace was recommended by the
Catholic Church. The kiss on the lips was also common among knights.
Middle East There are also taboos as to whom one can kiss in some
Muslim-majority societies governed by religious law. In the
Islamic Republic of Iran, a man who kisses or touches a woman who is not his wife or relative can be punished such as getting whipped up to 100 times or even go to jail. Research from May 2023 found texts from ancient people in
Mesopotamia that indicates that kissing was a well-established practice 4500 years ago. According to Dr Troels Pank Arbøll, one of the authors of this study:"In ancient Mesopotamia, which is the name for the early human cultures that existed between the
Euphrates and
Tigris rivers in present-day
Iraq and Syria, people wrote in cuneiform script on clay tablets. Many thousands of these clay tablets have survived to this day, and they contain clear examples that kissing was considered a part of romantic intimacy in ancient times, just as kissing could be part of friendships and family members' relations."
South Asia On-screen lip-kissing was not a regular occurrence in
Hindi cinema until the 1990s, although it has been present from the time of the inception of Hindi cinema. This can appear contradictory since the culture of kissing is believed to have originated and spread from India. ==Types==