This article is about adult human males. For humans in general, see Human. For the word "man", see Man (word). For other uses, see Man (disambiguation).
A man is a malehuman. The term man (irregular plural: men) is used for an adult human male, with the term boy being the usual term for a human male child or adolescent human male. However, man can refer to humanity as a whole.
Michelangelo's David is the classical image of youthful male beauty in Western art
fat deposits mainly around the abdomen and waist ("apple shape")
coarser skin texture
Reproductive system
The sex organs of a man are part of the reproductive system, consisting of the penis, testicles, vas deferens, and the prostate gland. The male reproductive system's function is to produce semen which carries sperm and thus genetic information that can unite with an egg within a woman. Since sperm that enters a woman's uterus and then fallopian tubes goes on to fertilize an egg which develops into a fetus or child, the male reproductive system plays no necessary role during the gestation. The concept of fatherhood and family exists in human societies. The study of male reproduction and associated organs is called andrology.
Karyotype
Most, but not all, men have the karyotype 46/XY. The presence of an atypical number of chromosomes is called aneuploidy, and extra sex chromosomes can cause either XXY Syndrome or XYY syndrome in males.
Illnesses
Human male genital area anatomy
In general, men suffer from many of the same illnesses as women. There are sex-related illnesses that occur solely, or more frequently, in men. Some age-related disorders such as Alzheimer's disease appear to be more common among men. Whether differences in illness distribution is due to a genuinely higher incidence or because men have lower life expectancies than women is uncertain.
Circumcision
Twenty percent of males, particularly in the U.S., have been circumcised, wherein some or all of the foreskin is amputated.
Transgender
Biological factors are not always sufficient determinants of whether a person considers himself a man or is considered a man. Intersexed men may have physical features that are more common in women. In addition female-to-male transgender or transsexual individuals are often considered men psychologically as well as in the social and legal senses (varying by district and culture) but are born with female physiology.
Sexual characteristics
In humans, the sex of an individual is generally determined at the time of fertilization by the genetic material carried in the sperm cell. If a sperm cell carrying an X chromosome fertilizes the egg, the offspring will typically be female (XX); if a sperm cell carrying a Y chromosome fertilizes the egg, the offspring will typically be male (XY). This is referred to as the XY sex-determination system and is typical of most mammals, but quite a few other sex-determination systems exist, including some that are non-genetic. The term primary sexual characteristics denotes the kind of gamete the gonad produces: The ovary produces egg cells in the female, and the testis produces sperm cells in the male. The term secondary sexual characteristics denotes all other sexual distinctions that play indirect roles in uniting sperm and eggs. Secondary sexual characteristics include everything from the specialized male and female features of the genital tract, to the brilliant plumage of male birds or facial hair of humans, to behavioral features such as courtship.
Sex hormones
In mammals, the hormones that influence sexual differentiation and development are androgens (mainly testosterone), which stimulate later development of the ovary. In the sexually undifferentiated embryo, testosterone stimulates the development of the Wolffian ducts, the penis, and closure of the labioscrotal folds into the scrotum. Another significant hormone in sexual differeniation is the Anti-müllerian hormone, which inhibits development of the Müllerian ducts.
For males during puberty, testosterone, along with gonadotropins released by the pituitary gland, stimulates spermatogenesis, along with the full sexual distinction of a human male from a human female, while women are acted upon by estrogens and progesterones to produce their sexual distinction from the human male.
Masculinity
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