Heterosexual male students are more comfortable kissing their friends than ever before, researchers said today.
University students now see nothing wrong with showing friendship to another man through a kiss on the lips.
Researchers at the University of Bath found that 89 per cent of white undergraduate men at two UK universities and one sixth form college said they were happy to kiss another man on the lips through friendship.
They found that 36per cent of respondents had also engaged in sustained kissing, initially for shock value, but now they occurred just for ‘a laugh’.
Daniel Eagles, an undergraduate at University of Bath, said he did not have a problem with kissing his male friends.
He said: ‘I am comfortable to kiss my friends in situations such as their birthday or when someone scored a goal or just if we are having a laugh.
‘Physical contact with your friends helps to bring you closer. I have been in a relationship with my girlfriend for more than a year and she doesn’t think anything of it when I kiss my guy friends.’
Full story: How men kissing each other on the lips is ‘no longer taboo’