Nipple stimulation or breast stimulation is

stimulation Stimulation is the encouragement of development or the cause of activity generally. For example, "The press provides stimulation of political discourse." An interesting or fun activity can be described as "stimulating", regardless of its physic ...

of the

breast The breast is one of two prominences located on the upper ventral region of a primate's torso. Both females and males develop breasts from the same embryological tissues. In females, it serves as the mammary gland, which produces and sec ...

. Stimulation may be by

breastfeeding Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that bre ...

, sexual activity, or an indirect non-sexual response. As part of sexual activity, the practice may be performed upon, or by, people of any

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most culture ...

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...

. It may occur with the use of fingers, orally, such as by sucking or licking, as well as by use of an object. Nipple stimulation may produce sexual excitement, and erect nipples can be an indicator of an individual's

sexual arousal Sexual arousal (also known as sexual excitement) describes the physiological and psychological responses in preparation for sexual intercourse or when exposed to sexual stimuli. A number of physiological responses occur in the body and mind a ...

. Adult women and men report that breast stimulation may be used to both initiate and enhance sexual arousal, and a few women report experiencing

orgasm Orgasm (from Greek , ; "excitement, swelling") or sexual climax is the sudden discharge of accumulated sexual excitement during the sexual response cycle, resulting in rhythmic, involuntary muscular contractions in the pelvic region chara ...

from nipple stimulation.

Development and anatomy

Male and female breasts,

nipple The nipple is a raised region of tissue on the surface of the breast from which, in females, milk leaves the breast through the lactiferous ducts to feed an infant. The milk can flow through the nipple passively or it can be ejected by smooth ...

s and

areola The human areola (''areola mammae'', or ) is the pigmented area on the breast around the nipple. Areola, more generally, is a small circular area on the body with a different histology from the surrounding tissue, or other small circular ...

s develop similarly in the fetus and during infancy. At

puberty Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a ...

, the male's breasts remain rudimentary but the female's develop further, mainly due to the presence of

estrogen Estrogen or oestrogen is a category of sex hormone responsible for the development and regulation of the female reproductive system and secondary sex characteristics. There are three major endogenous estrogens that have estrogenic hormonal ac ...

and

progesterone Progesterone (P4) is an endogenous steroid and progestogen sex hormone involved in the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and embryogenesis of humans and other species. It belongs to a group of steroid hormones called the progestogens and is the majo ...

, and become much more sensitive than the male ones. Smaller female breasts, however, are more sensitive than larger ones.

Physiological response

Breasts, and especially the nipples, are

erogenous zone An erogenous zone (from Greek , ''érōs'' "love"; and English ''-genous'' "producing", from Greek , ''-genḗs'' "born") is an area of the human body that has heightened sensitivity, the stimulation of which may generate a sexual response, suc ...

s. Nipple stimulation may result in

, and erect nipples can be an indicator of an individual's sexual arousal. The individual's sexual partner may find such erection erotically stimulating. A survey in 2006 found that sexual arousal in about 82% of young females and 52% of young males occurs or is enhanced by direct stimulation of nipples, with only 7–8% reporting that it decreased their arousal. The stimulation of women's nipples from suckling, including

, promotes the production and release of

oxytocin Oxytocin (Oxt or OT) is a peptide hormone and neuropeptide normally produced in the hypothalamus and released by the posterior pituitary. It plays a role in social bonding, reproduction, childbirth, and the period after childbirth. Oxytoc ...

and

prolactin Prolactin (PRL), also known as lactotropin, is a protein best known for its role in enabling mammals to produce milk. It is influential in over 300 separate processes in various vertebrates, including humans. Prolactin is secreted from the pi ...

. Besides creating maternal feelings, it also decreases a woman's

anxiety Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...

and increases feelings of bonding and trust. Oxytocin is linked to sexual arousal and

pair bonding Pair or PAIR or Pairing may refer to: Government and politics * Pair (parliamentary convention), matching of members unable to attend, so as not to change the voting margin * ''Pair'', a member of the Prussian House of Lords * ''Pair'', the Frenc ...

, but researchers are divided on whether breastfeeding commonly incites sexual feelings. Nipple erection during sexual arousal or breastfeeding are both caused by the release of oxytocin. Nipple erection is due to the contraction of

smooth muscle Smooth muscle is an involuntary non- striated muscle, so-called because it has no sarcomeres and therefore no striations (''bands'' or ''stripes''). It is divided into two subgroups, single-unit and multiunit smooth muscle. Within single-unit ...

under the control of the

autonomic nervous system The autonomic nervous system (ANS), formerly referred to as the vegetative nervous system, is a division of the peripheral nervous system that supplies internal organs, smooth muscle and glands. The autonomic nervous system is a control system t ...

, and is a product of the

pilomotor reflex Goose bumps, goosebumps or goose-pimples are the bumps on a person's skin at the base of body hairs which may involuntarily develop when a person is tickled, cold or experiencing strong emotions such as fear, euphoria or sexual arousal. The fo ...

which causes

goose bumps Goose bumps, goosebumps or goose-pimples are the bumps on a person's skin at the base of body hairs which may involuntarily develop when a person is tickled, cold or experiencing strong emotions such as fear, euphoria or sexual arousal. The ...

. Few women report experiencing

from nipple stimulation. Before Komisaruk et al.'s functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) research on nipple stimulation in 2011, reports of women achieving orgasm from nipple stimulation relied solely on

anecdotal evidence Anecdotal evidence is evidence based only on personal observation, collected in a casual or non-systematic manner. The term is sometimes used in a legal context to describe certain kinds of testimony which are uncorroborated by objective, indepen ...

. Komisaruk's study was the first to map the female genitals onto the sensory portion of the brain; it indicates that sensation from the nipples travels to the same part of the brain as sensations from the vagina, clitoris and cervix, and that these reported orgasms are genital orgasms caused by nipple stimulation, and may be directly linked to the genital sensory cortex ("the genital area of the brain").

References

{{Human sexuality

Stimulation Stimulation is the encouragement of development or the cause of activity generally. For example, "The press provides stimulation of political discourse." An interesting or fun activity can be described as "stimulating", regardless of its physic ...

Oral eroticism Sexual acts

Development and anatomy

Physiological response

See also

References