Body language experts explain why Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are always touching each other

If you’ve ever seen Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban together on the red carpet, you know that they like to kiss each other. But it’s not a simple smooch. Instead, the couple often go in for passionate embrace.

In some cases, they stroke each other’s faces while they kiss (like they did on Tuesday night at a gala in New York City).

In others, their foreheads are leaning in and touching.

Whatever they do, it’s rarely just a brief peck.

This kissing style is actually pretty telling, body language expert Lillian Glass, PhD, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “She’s the one who is the aggressor,” Glass says. “She’s very compassionate. There’s no question that she adores him.” While Urban is “receptive,” Glass says it’s clear that Kidman is in charge — at least when the couple is in public.

It’s particularly interesting that the couple has been kissing this way in public for years, body language expert Patti Wood, author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language & Charisma, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “Different couples sometimes have a different place that they touch, and this is their ritual of touch,” she says.

Kidman often cradles Urban’s face when they kiss, and Wood says this is a little showy. “This is her opportunity to say ‘Look what I’ve got,’” she says. “She thinks he’s the most handsome thing in the world and she cherishes him.” Of course, this is how the couple behaves in public and it’s hard to say if this is all for the cameras, Woods says. Still, it seems that “there is definitely real love and affection when they do it,” she says.

While this kissing style seems great and intense, kissing is also very intimate and personal, licensed clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula, author of Should I Stay or Should I Go?, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. And just because Kidman and Urban kiss this way doesn’t mean that you and your partner need to emulate it.

“Intimacy is a very subjective experience, and a couple has to do what works for them,” Durvasula says. However, if you want to have more intimacy in your kiss, you may want to use touch or a meaningful gaze to make the kiss more than a peck on the lips. “But beyond that, it’s really what works for the couple,” she says.

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