Sexuality
The Triple Nipple Club
Having two nipples is so passe… How about three, an extra penis or two vaginas?
I have three nipples. I’m not proud of them, but there they are. Resting a few inches below my right breast, my third nipple — also called a supernumerary nipple, accessory breast, multiple breast syndrome, mammae erraticae or polythelia — was first pointed out to me in the sixth grade when I took my shirt off during a heated kickball match. At the time, it was about the same size as my female classmates’ nipples, so I was a little self-conscious about it. Since then, I’ve just accepted it and been glad it hasn’t grown any larger.
As it turns out, having three nipples is more common than I originally thought.
One in eighteen men and fifty women has at least one extra nipple.
Some famous people, including Mark Wahlberg, Lily Allen, Carrie Underwood, Tilda Swinton, and Anne Boleyn have/had them.
Extra breasts, with or without lactating nipples, have had minor roles in the movies The Warrior and the Sorceress, Total Recall, Star Trek V, Earth Girls are Easy, Firecracker, Flesh Gordon 2, Dumb and Dumber, and Return of the Jedi. They can show up anywhere on the body and during Tudor times were considered a mark of witchcraft.
Urban legend has it that one woman had a third lactating nipple on the bottom of her foot. Fortunately for her, it’s never been considered necessary to wear a bra over a third nipple — just the first two.
The discovery of Francesco Lentini
During my polythelia research, I ran across a number of other human anomalies that have plagued mankind over the past several hundred years. In 2006, a twenty-four-year-old man checked himself into a New Delhi hospital to have his extra penis removed. Called diphallia, he wanted to have it removed so he could marry his childhood sweetheart and have a normal sex life.
In 1889, a resourceful man made a life-long career out of his attributes. Sicilian Francesco Lentini was born with three legs, two sets of genitals, and an extra foot growing out of the knee of his third leg.
Turning his back on a prodigious soccer career, he used his special qualities to become famous by touring with the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus, and after marrying, raised a family of four children until he passed away in Florida at the ripe old age of seventy-eight. There’s been no word whether or not his children inherited his special attributes. Even having just an extra finger would be a nice way to remember dad.
Hazel Jones, an attractive twenty-seven-year-old British woman has her own special qualities — or benefits — depending on how you look at them. After suffering from excruciating menstrual cramps, the then eighteen-year-old from High Wycombe, discovered she had a condition called didelphys, or two vaginas.
“It’s not that crazy at all, even though it sounds like a sci-fi thing,” said Vincenzo Berghella, Director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. “We see many women with two vaginas. Which is actually a septum dividing one vagina. Maybe once a month or more.”
Jones never thought much of her duplicity until she experienced painful sex with her boyfriend. She was also puzzled by her friends’ responses when she asked them,
“Which hole do I put my tampon in?” She was referring to her two vaginas. They thought she was confused about the difference between her vagina and her rectum.
Even though it’s easy to surgically correct the condition, many don’t. “I thought it was amazing and it’s definitely an ice-breaker at parties,” said Jones. “If women want to have a look, I’m quite happy to show them,” although I’m sure she wouldn’t feel comfortable giving me a peek.
Another young lady discovered there was an added benefit to having two vaginas — she lost her virginity twice — once in the backseat of her Volvo and other on her wedding night.
After learning about double penises, dual vaginas, and triple legs, I didn’t feel nearly as self-conscious about my triple nipples as I once did. Even if Mark Wahlberg, Carrie Underwood or Tilda Swinton do about theirs.
