SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2010


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Wedidn’t have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City.” —Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), talking about 1960s school integration in his home town in an interview with the Weekly Standard.


Sealed with a kiss — and neuroscience A


BY SHERIL KIRSHENBAUM


kiss at midnight to ring in the new year. That’s what Friday night should bring, right? It’s tradition, compulsion, festive duty.Anexcuse tomake


a bold move with someone new, a reason to be anxious about finding a date or a chance to celebrate with a longtime love. And there’s pressure to get it right. There ia a scientific basis for those


high stakes. Whom you kiss can set the course for a good year. Really. It’s not magic—it’s chemistry and neuroscience. And nomatterhowpainstakingly you set the scene, in the end chemistry trumps mood music. From a scientific perspec- tive, a kiss is a natural litmus test to help us identify a good partner. Start the first moments of 2011 with the right one, and you’re beginning the year on a natural high. Just what is it that makes kissing such


a powerful and significant part of the human experience? A kiss influences important chemicals


in our brains and bodies responsible for promoting social bonding. According to the work of Rutgers University anthro- pologist Helen Fisher, kissing evolved to facilitate three essential needs: sex drive, romantic love and attachment. Each is involved in promoting reproduction, and kissing bolsters all three. In that view, locking lips helps us find partners, com- mit to one person and keep couples together long enough to have a child. Humans have evolved to use a number


of signals — including taste, smell and possibly silent chemical messengers called pheromones — to help us figure out whether someone is a suitable part- ner and a good person to reproduce with. A kiss means getting close to someone— close enough to suss out important clues about chemistry and genetics. At this range, our noses can detect valuable information about another person’s health and perhaps even his or herDNA. Biologist ClausWedekind has found, for


instance, that women are most attracted to the scents ofmenwith a different set of genetic coding for immunity than their own. This is probably because when there is greater genetic diversity between parents in this area, their children will have more versatile immune systems. The assessment occurs at a subconscious level, yet a bad initial kissmay be a result of a genetically star-crossed pair. (Which issomething else to worry about during a new encounter: “What if the girl of my dreams rejectsmy genes?”) During a passionate kiss, our blood


vessels dilateandourbrains receivemore oxygen than normal. Our breathing can become irregular and deepen. Our cheeks flush, our pulse quickens, and our pupils dilate (which may be one reason that somany of us close our eyes).Along, open-mouthed exchange allows us to sample another person’s taste, which can reveal clues about his or her health and fertility. Our tongues — covered with little bumps called papillae that feature our 9,000 to 10,000 taste buds — are ideally designed to gather such informa- tion.


When we kiss, all five of our senses are


busy transmitting messages to our brain. Billions of nerve connections are firing awayanddistributing signals around our bodies. Eventually, these signals reach the somatosenory cortex, the region of the brain that processes feelings of touch, temperature, pain and more. Our brains respond by producing chemicals that help us decide our next move. A good kiss can work like a drug, influencing the hormones and neu- rotransmitters coursing through our bodies. It can send two people on a natural high by stimulating pleasure cen- ters in the brain. The feeling has much to do with a neurotransmitter called dop- amine, which is responsible for craving and desire and associated with “falling in love.” When it’s really pumping, dop- amine spurs us to take things further. Kissing also promotes the “love hor-


mone,” oxytocin, which works to main- tain a special connection between two


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people; kissingcankeeplove alivewhena relationship has survived decades, long after novelty has waned. In other words, kissing influences the uptake of hor- mones and neurotransmitters beyond our conscious control, and these signals play a huge part in how we feel about each other. A bad kiss, alternatively, can lead to chemical chaos. An uncomfortable envi- ronment or a poor match can stimulate the “stress hormone” cortisol, discourag- ing both partners from continuing. Evo- lutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup of the University at Albany reports that 59 percent of men and 66 percent of women say they have ended a budding relation- ship because of a kiss that did not go well. Whether it’s magic or a disaster, there


is one thing that a first kiss is very likely to be: unforgettable. Psychologist John Bohannon of Butler University and his research team surveyed 500 people to comparetheir recollections of a variety of significant life experiences — such as a first kissandthe loss of virginity—to find out what made the most dramatic im- pression.Afirst kisstrumpedeverything: It was the most vivid memory in the minds of those being surveyed. In fact, when asked about specifics, Bohannon reported that most people couldrecallupto90percent of thedetails of the moment — where they were, who made the first move — no matter how long ago the exchange took place. Which is not to say that sharing aNew


Year’s Eve kiss with someone new will necessarily be a memory worth savoring for a lifetime. If midnight’s buss is a bust, remember that you can’t control every- thing about the situation and that your body (or your partner’s) may be saying something very important: Look else- where. If the chemistry is wrong, there’s notmuchyou can do. But take heart. Val- entine’s Day is less than two months away.


Sheril Kirshenbaum is a research scientist at the University of Texas and the author of the new book “The Science of Kissing.”


Finally, the politics have to change.With both Republicans and Democrats using immigrationasawedgeissue, thechances are that innocent bystanderswill get hurt —soon.


T


hemost intractable problemby far involves the11millionor soundocu- mented immigrants currently liv-


ing in the United States. They are the humanlegacyofunintendedconsequenc- es and the failure to act. Advocates onone side,mostlyRepubli-


cans, would like to see enforcement poli- cies tough enough to induce an exodus. But that does not seem achievable any- time soon, because unauthorized immi- grants have proved to be a very durable and resilient population. The number of illegal arrivals dropped sharply during the recession, but the people already here did not leave, though they faced massive unemployment and ramped-up deporta- tions. If they could ride out those twin storms, howmuch enforcement over how many years would it take to seriously reducetheirnumbers?Probablytoomuch and toomany to be feasible.Besides, even if Democrats suffer another electoral di- saster or two, they are likely still to have enough votes in the Senate to block an Arizona-style law that wouldmake every cop analien-hunter. Advocates on the other side, mostly


BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/GETTY IMAGES


Supporters of the Dream Act, shown this month on CapitolHill, hoped for at least one piece of legislative progress on immigration reform. Instead, the bill’s failure capped a series of frustrations for advocates on both sides of the debate.


A lost decade for immigration reform


BY ROBERTO SURO T


en years ago, George W. Bush came toWashington as the first new president in a generation ormorewho had deep personal convictions about immigration


policy and some plans forwhere hewant- ed to go with it. He wasn’t alone. Lots of people inlotsofplaceswere ready towork on the issue: Republicans, Democrats, Hispanic advocates, business leaders, eventheMexicangovernment. Like so much else about the past de-


cade, things didn’t go well. Immigration policy got kicked around a fair bit, but next to nothing got accomplished. Old laws and bureaucracies became increas- ingly dysfunctional. The public grew anx- ious. The debates turned repetitive, divi- sive and sterile. The last gasp of the lost decade came


thismonthwhenthe lame-duckCongress — which struck compromises on taxes, gays in the military and arms control —


deadlocked ontheDreamAct. The debate was pure political theater.


The legislation was first introduced in 2001 to legalize themost virtuous sliver of the undocumented population — young adultswhowere brought here as children by their parents and who were now in college or the military. It was originally designed to be the first in a sequence of measures to resolve the status of the nation’s illegal immigrants, and for most of thepastdecade, itwasoftenpairedwith a bill for agricultural workers. The logic was to start with the most worthy and economically necessary. But with the bill put forward thismonth as a last-minute, stand-alonemeasurewith little chance of passage, all the debate accomplishedwas to give both sides a chance to excite their followers. In the age of stalemate, immi- gration may have a special place in the firmament. The United States is in the midst of a


wave of immigrationas substantial as any ever experienced.Millions of people from abroad have settled here peacefully and


prosperously, a boon to the nation.None- theless, frustration with policy sours the mood.More thana quarter of the foreign- born are here without authorization. Meanwhile, getting here legally can be a long, costly wrangle. And communities feel that they have little say over sudden changes in their populations. People know that their world is being trans- formed, yetWashingtonhasnot enacteda major overhaul of immigration law since 1965. To move forward, we need at least three fundamental changes intheway the issue ishandled. Being honest about our circumstances


is always a good place to start. There mightoncehavebeenatimetoponder the ideal immigration system for the early 21st century, but surely that time has passed. The immediate task is to clean up the mess caused by inaction, and that is goingtorequirecompromisesonall sides. Next, we should reexamine the scope of policy proposals.After a decade of sweep- ing plans that went nowhere, working piecemeal is worth a try at this point.


Democrats, would like to give a path to citizenship to as many of the undocu- mented as possible. That also seems un- likely; Republicans have blocked every effort at legalization. Beyond all the prin- cipled arguments, theRepublicanswould have to be politically suicidal to offer citizenship,andthereforevotingrights, to 11 million people who would be likely to vote against themenmasse. So what happens to these folks? As a


starting point, someone could ask them what theywant. The answer is likely to be fairly limited: the chance to live andwork inpeace, the ability tovisit their countries of origin without having to sneak back across the border andnotmuchmore. Would they settle for a legal life here


without citizenship? Well, it would be a huge improvement over being here ille- gally. Aside frompeace ofmind, an incal- culable benefit, it would offer the near- certainty of better jobs. That is a privilege people will pay for, and they could be asked to keep paying for it every year they worked. If theycoughedupone, two, three thousand dollars annually on top of all other taxes,would that be enough to dent the argument that undocumented resi- dents drainpublic treasuries? There would be a larger cost, however,


if legalization came without citizenship: the cost to the nation’s political soul of havingapopulationdeliberatelyexcluded from the democratic process. No one would set out to create such a population. But policy failures have created some- thing worse. We have 11 million people living among us who not only can’t vote but also increasingly are afraidto report a crime or to get vaccinations for a child or to look their landlord inthe eye. Much of the debate over the past de-


cade has been aboutwhether legalization wouldbe anunjust rewardfor “lawbreak-


ers.” The status quo, however, rewards everyonewhohas everbenefitedfromthe cheap, disposable labor provided by ille- gal workers. To start to fix the situation, everyone—undocumented workers, em- ployers, consumers, lawmakers — has to admit their errors andmake amends. The lost decade produced big, bold


plans for social engineering. It was a 10-year quest for a grand bargain that would repair the entire system at once, through enforcement, ID cards, legaliza- tion, a temporary worker program and more. Fierce cloakroombattles were also fought over the shape and size of legal immigration. Visa categories became a venue for ideological competition be- tweenbusiness, ledbytheU.S.Chamberof Commerce, and elements of labor, led by the AFL-CIO, over regulation of the labor market: whether to keep it tight to boost wages or keep it loose to boost growth. But every attempt to fix everything at


once produced a political parabola effect. As legislation reached higher, its base of supportnarrowed.The last effort, andthe biggest of themall, collapsed on the Sen- ate floor in July 2007. Still, the idea of a grand bargain has been kept on life sup- port by advocates of generous policies. Just lastweek, PresidentObama andHis- panic lawmakers renewed their vows to seek comprehensive immigrationreform, evenas theprospectsgrowbleaker.Mean- while, the other side has its own designs, demanding total control over the border and an enforcement systemwith no leaks before anything else canhappen. Perhaps 10 years ago, someone like


George W. Bush might reasonably have imagined that immigration policy was a good place to resolve some very basic social and economic issues. Since then, however, therhetoricaroundtheissuehas become so swollen and angry that it in- flames everything it touches.Keeping the battles small might increase the chance that each side will win some. But, as we learned with the DreamAct, even taking small steps at this point will require re- booting the discourse. Not long ago, certainly a decade ago,


immigration was often described as an issue of strange bedfellows because it did not divide peopleneatly along partisanor ideological lines. Thatworld is gone now. Instead, elements of both parties are us- ing immigration as a wedge issue. The intendedresult iscleaving,notconsensus. This year,manyRepublicans campaigned on vows, sometimes harshly stated, to crackdownonillegal immigration.Mean- while,manyDemocrats tried to rallyHis- panic voters by demonizing restriction- ists onthe other side. Immigration politics could thus be-


comeaway forbothsides tofeedpolariza- tion. In the short term, they can achieve theirpoliticalobjectivesbystokingvoters’ anxietywith the scariest hobgoblins: ille- gal immigrants vs. the racists who would lock them up. Stumbling down this road would produce a decade more lost than the last.


surorob@gmail.com


RobertoSurois a professor of journalismand public policy at theUniversity of Southern California.


PNC/GETTY IMAGES/BRAND X


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