Washington: Researchers in the United States have determined what many of us already knew: women think of long-term relationships while kissing, while men think of sex. Lesser known phenomena that the researchers hit on in the study, in which 1,041 US university students took part, included the fact that men like their kisses wetter and with more tongue contact than women, and that women place more importance than men on the state of their kissing partner's teeth.

Just over half the men said they would have sex with some one without kissing, compared with 15 per cent of the women who took part in the study, which was carried out using "self- reports, not direct observation or experimental manipulation." The authors of the study, conducted at State University of New York, explain the findings, and even the act of kissing in scientific terms that might put off die-hard romantics.

"At the moment of a kiss, there is an exceedingly rich and complex exchange of postural, tactile, and chemical cues," the study says. "Males showed a greater preference for tongue contact and open mouth when kissing..." the study found. "It is possible that kissing styles that maximize salivary exchange provide subtle information about a female s reproductive status since saliva and breath odour change across the menstrual cycle."

"In addition, male preference for salivary exchange could function to introduce substances such as hormones or proteins into women s mouths that may influence their mating psychology, and even make them more sexually receptive." In other words, men's pronounced taste for French kissing comes down to them wanting to bed their partner. Unfortunately for them, the study also found that women are less likely to kiss someone they think is only after sex, and that they "place a greater emphasis on kissing to induce bonding".