Researchers examined 168 cultures around the world and found that a majority of those cultures—91 of them (54 percent), to be exact—do not engage in “romantic-sexual” kissing.

You won’t be surprised to hear that ardent smooching is common in most North American, Asian, and European cultures. It’s even more common in the Middle East, where all cultures indulge in the romantic-sexual kiss.

But you’d be hard pressed to find willing, tender lips in parts of Central and South America, or in sub-Saharan Africa.

Indeed, socio-sexual ethnographers observed no passionate lip-to-lip contact whatsoever in Sub-Saharan Africa, New Guinea, and Amazonian foraging cultures.