Male Nipples > research including asking the www, I am still unconvinced at various ideas.?

Question

OK we start of in the womb with both male & female bits, then biology decides which bits to grow, or which bits to lose.

But why the nipples, regardless ? Male nipples are of no use !

Any definitive answer ?

Bob

Answer 1

I read some time ago that male nipples act as a heat regulator.

Answer 2

The way i was always taught and have assumed it is this. Basically when were in the womb as chromosomes we are as essentially female XX before one chromosome weakens and makes the pair XY, thus the stage in the womb where we become male is after the development of the nipples but before the mammary glands hence we don't have fully fledged b*****s and it is solely the nipples remaining. It is a by product of the fundamental genetic design that all males are inherently female before birth at some point during pregnancy. Which is the same reason that most men have a noticeable seam down the middle of their s*****m whereby the vaginal cavity is closed

Answer 3

I've heard a theory that the male and female shared responsibilities in feeding the children, and at one point men and women both lactated.  But that doesn't hold water for me.  Lactation in women occurs after becoming pregnant, a man's body would have no such cue.  The only way it could be feasible is if the men lactated constantly, and considering that there aren't always children around, nature wouldn't allow such a waste of energy.  The most likely reason we have them is for aesthetics.  The human body is designed to be attractive to the opposite s*x.  If our chest differed too greatly from that of a woman, there might be a higher risk of rejection.  Also nipples are more sensitive then the rest of the body, so they may well have played a vital role in s*x.  Sadly, the male nipple is largely ignored in modern intercourse, which may lead to them disappearing completely in the future.

Answer 4

we do not start off in the womb with ANY male parts..

if you meant androgynous then i am sorry, you're correct

because we start off as female and develop nipples.. simple as that.

if a female (the mother) dies, it IS possible for a male to lactate and produce milk, thus ensuring survival of the offspring, hence a VERY good use

Answer 5

I'm surprised that you are not aware of this, and that nobody has pointed it out, but the body is *full* of features that are "of no use."  From the appendix, to wisdom teeth, to the muscles that give you goosebumps or let some people wiggle their ears, to the Plantaris muscle in your calf (a long thin muscle that serves no purpose, and in fact is absent in a small percentage of people).  

And there are many structures that develop in embryos that disappear later on in development (although sometimes they don't) ... like gill folds, or tails, or webbing between fingers.

Evolution explains all of these things.   All of these things have a clear function in related animals.   The appendix may have some function w.r.t. immunity in humans, but in dedicated plant-eating mammals it is critical for digestion of cellulose.  Wisdom teeth are the result of a shrinking jaw.   The pilli muscles that give you goosebumps are the same ones that raise the fur in other mammals for warmth or make the animal look larger when threatened.  And the plantaris muscle is the same one used in other primates for grasping with the feet.

Why do things last so long after they are no longer useful?  Because of how embryos develop.  A developing embryo is like a program executing in sequence.    Sometimes the genes that build a structure will continue to build it during an early stage of embryological development even if it disappears completely in a later stage in development, or even if it has little or no function in the adult organisms.

Nipples in males are an example of this.   A structure that develops in the early embryo of all mammals before a the development of the sexual glads that produce the hormones that determine the physical sexual characteristics of the embryo.

Answer 6

Apparently, according to "The naked Ape" by Desmond Morris, the male nipples are an erogenous zone, as are the ear lobes and the nose. apparently all these areas expand in erotic moments, check em out next time if you have a minute!!

Answer 7

Because it just hasn't evolved so that they disappear completely, but they remain undeveloped.

We all have the ability to make more nipples than we normally have, we have a milk line or something running from our arm pits down each side to our groin. Some mammals have several pairs of nipples, others have only 2 remaining between their back legs, or in our case, up on our chest, depending on how many young we normally give birth to and which is the most convenient place to suckle them. The genes for making more nipples are still inside us, but we have evolved other genes to stop them being expressed. Sometimes they do get expressed in a random fashion though and we end up with 'third nipples.'