Kissing in public: will it make your relationship stronger?

Published 10 August 2026 · world

Name: Kissing in public. Age: Kissing is 17m-21m years old – probably older than the notion of privacy. Appearance: Romantic, uninhibited. Sounds horrible. Actually, I

Name: Kissing in public. Age: Kissing is 17m-21m years old – probably older than the notion of privacy. Appearance: Romantic, uninhibited. Sounds horrible. Actually, I think attitudes tend to vary from person to person. Well, they shouldn’t. When I go to the cinema, I want the orgy to be on the screen. In fact, public kissing is very big right now among celebrity couples. I think we have amassed enough evidence over the years to establish that celebrities simply don’t know how to behave. Dua Lipa and Callum Turner, Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet, Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz – they’re all at it, kissing and cuddling for the cameras.

No good will come of this. That’s where you’re wrong: new research suggests that public displays of affection, or PDAs, are strongly linked to higher-quality romantic relationships. I prefer the private display of affection. Also good for your relationship, according to the research. What sort of research is this? The study, published in the journal Plos One, looked at 461 people in three countries: Poland, Nepal and Indonesia. Quite a random selection. These societies all have different, though generally negative, attitudes towards PDAs. Yet subjects who engaged in more PDAs consistently reported higher relationship satisfaction across the three cultures. Why would that be? “Because affectionate behaviour is one of the ways people communicate closeness, love and emotional connection,” said the leader of the study, Dagna Kocur.

I still think it’s just showing off. And icky. You don’t think it’s ever appropriate to kiss in public? During a wedding ceremony, maybe, or at the end of a major world war, but otherwise it should remain behind closed doors. Fewer PDAs and more private displays of affection, please! You’re right, in a way: Kocur went on to point out that private displays of affection are even more strongly linked to relationship satisfaction, “so it may be worth making the time to hold hands and kiss at home, too”. At home, on the bus, in the bread aisle at Morrisons – don’t these people ever get tired of pawing one another?

A further study is now planned to include 1,000 people across nine countries. Good! We’ll finally get proof that a persistent lack of affection builds character. Actually, it can lead to mental health problems. What sort of mental health problems? A condition commonly known as skin hunger, which may cause anxiety, depression and alexithymia – an impairment of your ability to interpret emotion. Relax, Casanova – you’re not my type. A case, I think, in point. Do say: “Physical affection, wherever it occurs, is essential to our wellbeing as humans.” Don’t say: “Get a room!”