Story prompt

From my brain free-associating as I was waking up this morning:

Ever since a certain incident with a specific alien species, a considerable subset of xenoanthropologists have dedicated their time to the study of "What happens when we ask this culture for 'lip balm'?"

(The idea being that the incident involved kissing. Because the humans were asking for a thing that makes their lips feel good, right? And that's obviously kissing.)