It Reminds Them of Their Girlfriends?

SLATE has their "questions of the year" up. One of them is the following:


I have a little goatee. Why do people in Arab countries—I've not noticed this in Paris or L.A., for example—insist on touching my beard, then taking the same hand and kissing their fingers in a sort of "Italian, it's delicious!" gesture? When I ask, they just laugh. This has happened to me literally dozens of times.

Anybody?