Talk:Kiss You/@comment-5848758-20130918182733/@comment-1839575-20130924085557

While I do agree that some parts of human behaviour do need to be incorporated into the cats (and are in the real Warriors books) to make them more... tangible (things like winking and raising eyebrows are not beyond cats physically, they just don't communicate like that - but in a Warriors society it's plausible they would, so that seems fine to me) I have a real problem with the kissing. Cats don't kiss. In fact humans are the only animals which kiss, and here's why.

Some time between when we were apes and when we became Homo sapiens, there came a point where our DNA became so similar as a species that inbreeding was no longer an option. Vast amounts of species on Earth inbreed as a matter of course - horses are an excellent example of that, as every horse in a wild herd shares the same father, and as they grow up often the stallion will father offspring with his daughters - but for some reason, when humans started doing it we ended up with really messed up kids. So, for evolutionary purposes, there had to be something we did that stopped us accidentally having sex with a close relation. Here's where it gets gross. Through an exchange of saliva, we are actually able to tell how much DNA we have in common with another person - what percentage we share. Let me break that down for you. Siblings can share anywhere between 30% and 100% (100% is identical twins) although the average DNA shared between siblings is 50% - if you look similar to your sibling, chances are you share more. When you mix saliva with someone, by sticking your tongue in their mouth during a kiss (it's gross, I know. Don't do it, kids) your body works out how much DNA you share and then it gives you an appropriate reaction. You might have heard someone talking about a 'bad' kiss? It's entirely possible that kiss felt bad or wrong to them because they share a high percent of DNA with the person they were kissing. Usually I think the 'kiss-test' looks for people with roughly 20% shared as ideal, but anything below 50% is usually okay. Obviously some people are screwed up and they're the ones who practice incest, but I'm talking in a general term here.

In conclusion (sorry about the essay, guys) cats don't kiss because cats have no reason to kiss. Inbreeding is rife among cats and even within the Warriors universe, so it's just not a big deal. I'd suggest, in the future, using some other means of showing affection. Twining tails has been used a lot in the Warriors 'verse and it seems to be a very affectionate and almost romantic thing to do, so that could easily be an effective substitute. Try to think of other ways cats show affection to humans, too - rubbing their heads or bodies against peoples legs or hands, etc - and then translate that into a cat-to-cat version.