Week 55-Why do women's nipples vary in appearance?

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Women have many different types of breasts and nipples.  Nipples can vary in colour, shape and size,  mostly determined by genetics.

The average size of a woman’s nipple is 3/8 of an inch or 10mm. The skin of a woman’s nipples are rich with nerve endings that are easily stimulated. When stimulated the nerves send a message to the muscle around the nipple and causes the muscle to become erect.

Nipples can change temporarily when women are aroused during sex.  They can get hard and erect and are sensitive to touch, air, sexual thoughts, images, and words.  Some people call this change a nipple hard-on. When sexually aroused, nipple erection is accompanied by lubrication – helping the body prepare for sexual activity. 

Nipple erection can also change with temperature – like a tactile response to cold. This can sometimes be embarrassing, but it can also just be fun.

Planned Parenthood of northern New England’s Education Department carefully selects all weekly questions. All questions are actual inquiries made to PPNNE by college-aged students.

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