Metallica_Band

I was wondering...why do guys have nipples??? I mean we don't NEED them...girls have them to provide milk to the babies and to make guys happy but why to guys have them??? They serve no purpose to us...just wondering...THANX
C'YA ?:-D

lafemmefatale

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_093.html

Dear Cecil:

As I understand it, the appendix at one time assisted in our digestion. Today it is useless. Our wisdom teeth, I have learned, helped our ancestors chew tough herbs and raw meat. Today they are a nuisance. But there is a third biological mystery for which I have no answer. So please explain, Cece: why do males have nipples? --Susan L., Los Angeles

Dear Susan:

To tell you the truth, nobody really knows. The best explanation I've been able to find (and frankly it doesn't explain very much) is that nipples aren't a sex-linked characteristic. In other words, nipples are just one of those sexually neutral pieces of equipment, like arms or brains, that humans get regardless of sex.

As you may know, every human being gets a unique set of 23 pairs of chromosomes at conception. These fall into two categories. One pair of chromosomes determines sex--the XX combination means you become female, the XY combination means you become male.

The other 22 pairs, the non-sex chromosomes (they're called autosomes), supply what we might call the standard equipment that all humans get. These 22 pairs constitute an all-purpose genetic blueprint that in effect is programmed for either maleness or femaleness by the sex chromosomes. The programming is done by the hormones secreted by the sex glands.

For example, the autosomes give you a voice box, while the sex hormones determine whether it's going to be a deep male voice or a high female voice. Similarly, the autosomes give you nipples, and the sex hormones determine whether said nipples are going to be functioning (in females) or not (in males).

One interesting consequence of the developmental set-up just described is that during the very early stages of fetal life, before the sex hormones have had a chance to do their stuff, all humans are basically bisexual. Among other things, you have two sets of primitive plumbing--one male, one female. Only one set develops into a mature urogenital system, but you retain traces of the other for the rest of your life.

It's tempting, therefore, to say that male nipples are yet another vestige of your carefree bisexual youth. Trouble is, male nipples are hardly vestigial. They're full-sized and fully equipped with blood vessels, nerves, and all the usual appurtenances of functioning organs. Why this should be so nobody knows--in some other mammals, such as rats and mice, male nipple development is completely suppressed by the male sex hormones. (Incidentally, don't start thinking that at one time our human male ancestors must have suckled their young. So far as anybody knows, male lactation has never developed in any mammalian species.)

Human nipples appear in the third or fourth week of development, well before the sex characteristics. (The sex hormones start to assert themselves at seven weeks.) As many as seven pairs of nipples are arranged along either side of a "milk line," a ridge of skin that runs from the upper chest to the navel.

Normally only one pair amounts to anything, but on about one baby in a hundred you can detect some vestige of the other ones, usually on the order of a freckle. There are cases of women who ended up with an extra breast, which made them freak show candidates not so many years ago. Luckily today the women can avail themselves of corrective surgery while the rest of us can watch Jenny Jones.

Anyway, both male and female babies are born with the main milk ducts intact--the gland that produces milk is there in the male, but it remains undeveloped unless stimulated by the female hormone, estrogen. Occasionally, a male baby is born with enough of his mother's estrogen in his body to produce a bizarre phenomenon known as "witches' milk," with the male glands, suitably stimulated, pumping away at the moment of birth.

In the adult male, the dormant glands can still be revived by a sufficient dose of estrogen. Actual lactation is rare--only a couple cases have been recorded. But at least one writer (Daly, 1978) has suggested that the "physiological impediments to the evolution of male lactation do not seem individually surmountable." Meaning we may yet see the dawn of the truly liberated household.

--CECIL ADAMS

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pappymojo

well, I'm pretty sure that all mammals have nipples regardless of sex. I would assume that as fetuses female and male bodies start out very similar and that this is why we have nipples.

I cant find it now but there is the whole thread comparing penises to vaginas and how similar they are. I think that with nipples it's kinda the same thing.

GrayWolf

...Even so, can you really say you mind having nipples?

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They are too young when you start worrying that they might be too young. 18 is my lowest limit. I'm going to be 25 next month.. No piece of ass is worth getting pounded in my own. - Johnny Rotten (I laughed for so long when I read this...)

macmanmike6100

i agree with Cecil Adams, in that they're extremely primitive, not sex-linked, so it was just a result of evolution not finding a real need to fully eliminate them in males.

KnifeMissile

I have heard that it is, genetically speaking, easier to give both sexes nipples. I mean, it is genetically "cheaper" (ie takes up less information) to simply give both sexes nipples and activiate them with some well timed hormones later, per lafemmefatale's quote.
If you ever write software, you can see how this is possible.

motdakasha

It's because we were all female eggs at one point. It's the extra Y chromosome that makes your fetus eventually develop differently. You have nipples because you started off as a woman! The male anatomy is just an alteration of the female's.

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BA Psychology & Photography
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legolas

Yes. Someone told me that we get our nipples before our sex is determined so either accept your nipples or wish that women didn't have them either.

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"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."

Sleepyjack

theres nothing wrong with nipples, even just aesthetically. Imagine a guy with no nipples, he'd look real weird wouldn't he?

motdakasha is right though, seems the Y chromosone fucks a lot of things up

mattevil

no nipples = cartoon character

RelaX

Ugh... when I read that I immediately started thinking about classes object and inheretance, God must've used Java.

reminds me of a joke...
"We all start off as women... some of us just evolve out of that"

*hides now*

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crazymang

lol I never thought about It like that, I do however have flash backs of

"I have nipples, could you milk me?"

lol

Holo

They have their pourpose for some men

Plus I also heard that all fetuses start out female and only later in the gestation does the fetus beome male or stay the default. Really after seeing really big clits I realize how close men and women really are even sexually. Really the only differences ar the vagina and the larger breasts and the location of the reproductive factories. The clit is just the original version of the penis before the Y chromosome and testosterone got hold of it. The other differences aren't really sexual, strength, hair etc. Testosterone is what makes the world go round, for both of us albeit in differing amounts.

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I happen to like the words "fuck", "cock", "pussy", "tits", "cunt", "twat", "shit" and even "bitch". As long as I am not using them to describe you, don't go telling me whether or not I can/should use them...that is, if you want me to continue refraining from using them to describe you. ~Prince

meff

"to make men happy"

Hahahaha

Well, it's true, but I am pretty sure whoever invented us humans didn't specifically put them on girls to make men happy. Though I'd like to think that

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Toy-like people make me boy-like.

bermuDa

so we can pierce them!!

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hotzot

my Dad said that when we get old enough beer comes out of our nipples just like milk from a mom. He sure embarrassed the shit out of me when I repeated that in the 4th grade.

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filtherton

And with the right mix of hormones and a breast pump, you too can lactate. MMM, mancheese.

smallequestrian

This is part of an article review I did for an Anthropology class. Finally college is starting to pay off...Enjoy...

<p>"The complex issue of female orgasm comes down to two opposing factors: is it an adaptation or an artifact. The view of female orgasm as an adaptation is really a true Darwinian look based upon that natural selection somehow favored female orgasm and that is the reason it exists. The opposing viewpoint says, in a very simplified form, that females have orgasms because males do.</p>
<p>The artifact argument bases itself not just on the genitalia but also use the nipples as a source of information. When you look at male nipples you wonder what their purpose is. Male nipples certainly do not lactate like they do in females, so what possible reason could they have to exist? The same approach can be taken when the penis and the clitoris are examined. The purpose of the penis is to ejaculate sperm into the female vaginally through the male’s orgasm. The clitoris does not actually serve to release gametes, as the penis does, but still retains the male function as a source of orgasm. The nipples and the genitalia of both sexes are linked together through embryology. Embryology shows that at the beginning of prenatal development males and females start out with essentially the same equipment and that it is only later in the pregnancy that the structure of the genitalia actually starts to differentiate.</p>
<p>Gould says that the reason males and females are structurally analogous is that it is developmentally prohibitive to waste energy on developing completely separate structures. Therefore, while orgasm was adapted for in the male with the purpose of releasing gametes through the penis, it would have been developmentally prohibitive to totally redesign the female just because the clitoris doesn’t serve the same purpose. It is also important to note why Gould and Symons would say that the clitoris doesn’t serve a purpose even though through its direct stimulation it causes orgasm. The central argument to that, is that if female orgasm was an adapted for trait, why is it such an infrequent occurrence in females as cited by the many studies in Symons article and if male orgasm is a product of sexual intercourse, then why is not the clitoris in the vagina where it would receive direct stimulation during sexual intercourse?..."</p>

SkanK0r

Haha, it's weird that I've never heard that answer before... lord knows I'd heard the question.

meff

Hmm, I seemed to think mancheese was something else

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Toy-like people make me boy-like.