If it's sex specific behavior then my old girl is having a identity crisis.
She's been gnawing on my fingers for years. She doesn't bite hard and will
back off if I say "ouch".

We have our second male cat. This one and the other male we had before bite
quite a bit, only playfully though, but hard enough.
Before we owned two female cats. They never used their teeth when playing.
Is biting a characteristic of male cats? I mean they bite females too when
mating.

--
Carola

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2003:

I have two male cats, and one female. One male bites (often, mostly in play
but he also gets seriously overstimulated), the other doesn't bite unless I
have to do something he doesn't like (clean his ears, clip his claws, clean
his butt...etc). He's a very gentle cat.  The female is young, less than a
year, and she bites also only when I'm doing something she doesn't like
(like checking her fur because she keeps losing it in places -- dry skin).  
Other male cats I've had bit in play, but a female foster I had bit because
she was mean.  Bit me to the bone once.