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One In 18 People Are Born With Third Nipples - Why?

One In 18 People Are Born With Third Nipples - Why?

So weird, yet so interesting.

Mark McGowan

Mark McGowan

James Bond villain Scaramanga was famed for his extra nipple, as was Chandler Bing for a large part of the early Friends seasons. Because it's in a film or a TV series, you just see it as a funny anecdote, but they're actually quite common.

Third nipples are weirdly fascinating.

Credit: United Artists

Third nips, or 'Supernumeracy nipples', occur in around one in 18 people and are utterly useless. But it's an extra nipple, IT'S WEIRD.

I guess I'm interested because I have one myself; I share this with the likes of Mark Wahlberg and Lily Allen.

Third nipples don't have areolas surrounding them, or if they do they are very small, meaning that it's literally just a tiny udder poking out from the skin and it is usually along the two vertical 'milk lines', which start in the armpit on each side.

Though an extra nip carries no kind of symbolic meaning in western culture, the only thing that is attached to them is social stigma. Obviously, it's not that drastic, but possibly taking your top off in a date's bedroom, ready to take 'the next step' in a relationship may draw some strange looks and questions.

You can see your GP and possibly have it removed, but fuck that, make up a story about it - make out that it means you are worshiped by Aboriginal tribes and you're labeled The Giver of Milk.

Credit: Channel 4

The first finding of the condition was made by a geezer called Leichtenstern in a German scientific journal in 1878. He estimated that around one in 500 humans, or 0.2 percent had a third nipple. It must have been an odd study - "Listen, mate, I just want to count your nipples... Yes, I've had a few beers."

There's a fairly simple explanation as to why people have the rare condition, and it's down to evolution.

While in your mum's womb you start developing breast tissue along two thick symmetrical ridges of skin called the 'milk lines'. They usually fade away by the ninth week of pregnancy, but in some cases they don't completely go away, so breast tissue can start growing in other areas, according to Medical Daily.

Researchers seem to have found that there are no added health risks when it comes to supernumeracy nipples, cancelling out older studies that suggested that there was a strong correlation between conditions involving the kidney and urinary tract, including cancer.

Having an extra nipple does make you an interesting topic. It's a quirk, if you will. If you pick the right moment at a house party, stood in the kitchen, eventually drop in about your attribute and then the attention is on you. There's bound to be one person who thinks it's infinitely interesting, and it's certainly something you can play on.

Credit: Calvin Klein

Obviously there are many more abnormalities that are a lot more niche and rare.

At the start of 2014, an anonymous bloke opened up in a Reddit AMA, confessing to being the legendary, openly bisexual, double-penised man.

He calls himself 'DoubleDickDude' and spoke out about the struggles of living with a medical condition called diphallia, where the sufferer has two fully functioning penises.

To commemorate the anniversary of his big reveal, in 2015 he published a memoir entitled Double Header: My Life With Two Penises which is available to buy on Amazon, if that's your thing.

Credit: Amazon

Although he would still like to maintain his anonymity, the man - who has two 10-inch, uncircumcised penises - claims to have slept with more than 1,000 men and women in his life.

"Before I was 'DoubleDickDude' no one cared about what I had to say," he told Rolling Stone. "Since then, I've been able to help people who felt alone or lost. I've had so many messages from people who need encouragement for one thing or another. With so much negativity in the world, the ability to bring something positive to the table is a great feeling."

He says that he wasn't a big internet user before his AMA a year ago, but since then he has become a keen surfer of the web. He also added that he wanted to write a book after "realising that there are still people who are genuinely curious."

Credit: PA

He firmly believes that his "life would never, ever be the same" if he were to reveal his identity, and we can see why.

"I received countless interview requests within the first month of my Reddit AMA," he continued. "Everything from interviews on news shows, offers for my own reality show, magazine and newspaper interviews, offers to do porn. You name it, I got it in spades. I turned them all down."

You can read the full interview with Rolling Stone here, or if you'd rather read the full memoir for yourself, you can purchase that here.

As you'd expect, having two penises comes with some problems, but there are some benefits to the condition.

"My prostate gets inflamed if I don't ejaculate enough," he wrote in his original AMA. "I'm probably the only guy with a legit reason to orgasm at least once every day or two days. My prostate gets stimulation from both cocks and creates a lot of seminal fluid. So when I cum it has to be squeezed every few days to get all the excess out."

As I'm sure you're all wondering, the two dicks are side-by-side, rather than one being above the other. Obviously, this could prove a nightmare when you have to pee early in the morning, something DoubleDickDude alluded to in his AMA after he was asked: "Have you ever peed and had both do the forked stream? That's a catastrophe with just one penis, I can't imagine how annoying it must be with four streams."

To which he replied: "Yeah it's happened and is twice as devastating."

Featured Image Credit: United Artists

Topics: Weird