Kissing is considered 'gross' by half the world, according to researchers

Finally, something that pre-pubescent children and half the world can agree on: Kissing is gross.

Researchers at the University of Nevada and Indiana University found that, in 54 percent of the societies they studied, people weren't interested in swapping spit in the name of "romance."

"It's a reminder that behaviors that seem so normative often do not occur in the rest of the world. Not only that, but they might be viewed as strange," the study's co-author, Justin Garcia, told The Washington Post. "It's a reminder of romantic and sexual diversity around the world. It shows how human biology interacts with different cultures to explain various behaviors humans engage in."

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Kissing is pretty normal in the Middle East — 10 out of 10 cultures there smooch those they feel a romantic attraction toward — while 70 percent of European cultures and 55 percent of North American cultures approve of kissing. But no cultures studied in Central America kiss for romantic purposes, and "no ethnographer working with Sub-Saharan Africa, New Guinea, or Amazonian foragers or horticulturalists reported having witnessed any occasion in which their study populations engaged in a romantic-sexual kiss," the researchers said.