60%er here. We ended up having to get a new mattress after weaning -- sex involved a whole lot of milk all over everything.
Hm. Accidentally or on purpose? I seem to notice a strong stated aversion to breast milk by the majority of men (though of course you never know what happens behind closed doors). But, it would also seem to me that in the course of events, milk might be expressed and ignored (but consumed) in the moment. I would think that as a particular fetish,* the numbers would be smaller.
*I was scarred at an early age the first (and only) time I watched Jerry Springer. It was an episode that featured breast-milk enthusiasts and the professional women who serviced them.
On purpose, although his expressed (heh) interest in breastmilk hasn't ever come up except when it was available at home. I don't know if that's a fetish or just fortuity.
I know a guy who slept with a woman who could lactate on command. She had never even been pregnant before.
3: I meant more generally, though that's an interesting data point. I want to set up a study now. Maybe I can get into the New York Times.
People with infants have sex? Huh.
When Michelle was nursing Malia, I thought about asking for a direct sample, because, hey, this is different, but never really developed enough interest to overcome the awkwardness of the request.
But, you know, if a nursing woman and her partner manage to have sex while she is still nursing, the partner will get a good sense of what human breast milk tastes like.
Human breast milk is actually really sweet. More like a McDonald's milkshake than cow's milk. This says something about fast food culture.
It's been 38 years but I remember the stuff as being much like the allegedly healthy varieties of crap cow's milk they sell now, thin and relatively tasteless.
Can't say it was a very erotic experience though, it was more like a something I had to try then or probably never get another chance at sort of thing.
8: Human breast milk is actually really sweet.
9: It's been 38 years but I remember the stuff as being much like the allegedly healthy varieties of cow's milk they sell now, thin and relatively tasteless.
Diet and individual metabolism must be a factor here. Milk cows are bred for homogeneity in their product in a way that people are not.
11: Yeah, I've tasted it and I didn't find it particularly sweet. A little salty, actually. I'm sure it must vary according to diet, individual, and how long after birth you try it.
more than 60% of women who have breastfed in the modern age have, at one time or another, had their milk sampled by their partner.
Is there supposed to be something weird about this?
That is. I should hope so: if you've just had a child with someone, well, I'd sort of hope you'd be sharing enough in things that you'd try the milk.
I would like to be on record noting that I think it is way more than 20% more normal to sample the breastmilk than diddle the dog.
Is there supposed to be something weird about this?
Yeah, I'm boggled that an appreciable number of men didn't. That's weird, IMO.
There are weird subcultures of bodybuilders who harvest their wives' breast milk because of its protein and amino acid profile. The cheapest and most "organic" protein shake you can get!
Eh, there's a bit of an ick factor - I think primarily rooted in worries that it might mean you've got Freudian problems with your mother. That, and general taboos against consuming bodily fluids. Obviously, milk is different, given that it's meant to be consumed, but I can understand feeling iffy about it.
18: I can understand feeling iffy about it.
I can't. Again: you've just had a child with your partner. She is your partner. You don't ick out at the things going on with her.
Cripe, I have male friends who've wished they could breastfeed their babies, and tried. One friend wrote: "My nipples are too small!"
21: You're talking about ideally, right? Not what many modern American men feel and do?
23: Yes, of course ideally. The OP seemed to suggest that in polite society such things are frowned upon. I dislike polite society in that case.
24: Ok. I agree with you that ideally this should be the case, but I just haven't found such openness to be the case among my peers, and thus can understand their feelings about it, given the culture we swim in.
25: Why don't you say something about that culture, then. You've alluded to fears of Freudian attachment to mother, ick factor regarding bodily fluids (I assume this doesn't apply to sex) ... anything else?
The culture is repressed, is that it?
Put another way: knowing that this may be the case among your peers doesn't yet foster understanding of their stance.
As someone who joyfully breastfed for two years I have to say that both I and my husband were just so utterly disgusted by the substance.
Ew.
I can't explain it. There's just something icky about it.
26: Um, I believe I was saying something about the culture. Where do these vague Freudian notions come from, if not there? If you read the linked article, she makes an allusion about it at the end. It may be dated and wrong, but it's not something you easily escape.
Bodily fluid taboos of course relate to sex, and to culture. I didn't say otherwise. Yes, culture is repressed, in very specific ways. That's what I was implying, as well as the fact that people who are part of this culture, aka my peers, imbibe this consciously and unconsciously and that shapes their reactions, which would be why I brought them up.
By the way, I know tone doesn't come across very well on the internet, but your response in 26 seems unnecessarily belittling.
28.last: I'm sorry. This sort of thing makes me impatient, as will have been clear. I tend to jump clear across the divide to: let's get over it, shall we? And I become impatient with those who can't, or won't, or don't see the need to.
Thanks. The impatience makes sense. I'm sure I was just being overly sensitive too. I just didn't understand because I personally do agree with you!
She is your partner. You don't ick out at the things going on with her.
You also give her space if the things that are going on with her are causing a lot of stress.
"Stop, I've already had one little boy playing with my breasts all day!" is a sign that this might not be a time to experiment sexually.
With respect to the rest of 28:
I was asking about *your* peers, your age group, which isn't my own. Wondering if there's a difference there.
I might should read the links in the original post.
I don't have any ick factor about it at all, but both wives did. Tasted the same from both (vaguely like canteloupe), despite them having very different diets.
Oh, well, in that case. I recently found myself watching an episode of Friends (why, I don't know) and much of the episode revolved around the drinking of breast milk. The men were grossed out and were making bets as to whether or not they could stand it. That's about as popular culture for my generation as I can get in respect to this particular subject, and I would bet probably fairly representative of middle America's views on the subject. Similar joking and revulsion seems to be common among the otherwise enlightened men I know (well-educated, liberal, seemingly sexually-liberated) with children.
Why? I don't know. Like I said, I'm making guesses about the influences of Freud, but I do think a lot of it must lie in bodily fluids taboos. I don't think those are the sorts of things you can disregard easily - violating them might lead to the best humor and the best sex but they're certainly present. I don't know enough about theories of taboo to say more.
33: but both wives did
Why is that, Apostropher? Can you say?
I see from BHO's comment at 31 that tasting the breastmilk might be part of sexual activity, but I hadn't been thinking of it that way. If so, though, maybe a woman might want or need her sexuality to be separate from her mothering? I don't know.
I can't say I'd ever thought about it. I'm surprised it's as high as 60%.
My wife kept hinting that she wanted me to try it. She was kind of put off my general reaction of "No way, that's gross!" Expressed more delicately, of course.
Why is that, Apostropher?
No idea, and I honestly don't understand the reaction. Objectively, it's entirely less gross than deep kissing, which is about as septic an environment as you can get short of analingus.
The fact that we still have so many and so frequent national bouts of hysteria over women breastfeeding in public to me is a pretty good indication of how widespread the social "ick" factor is. Plenty of people don't want to acknowledge that children are doing it, much less imagine an adult tasting the milk.
I mean, once again, La Leche League bears its name because even "The Milk League" in English was too controversial for the 1970s U.S. I haven't seen a lot of signs that we've progressed on this issue.
What the heck is wrong with analingus?
I'd much rather drink breast milk than eat baby formula.
so frequent national bouts of hysteria over women breastfeeding in public
I confess that this has been in the back of my mind throughout this conversation. And I have something close to a hatred for people who freak out about it, hence my vehemence here, tempered as it is.
Do you know what is decidedly gross? Reprocessed breast milk. I was tending to a friend's baby one day, and, in my immense stupidity, was lifting said baby repeatedly up in the air, hovering over my face, after he'd eaten quite recently. Spit up ensued. Some landed in my mouth. That was not a happy taste.
You know what's my favorite thing about this thread? How seriously everybody's taken Becks's entirely made up 60% number. Y'all are team players.
I'd much rather drink breast milk than eat baby formula
For sure. That fake stuff freaks me out.
My wife kept hinting that she wanted me to try it.
Did she try it herself? For the people who think it is weird/gross: is it weirder or less weird for a woman to try her own milk?
Compared to the father trying the breast milk, I mean.
What if it's in a drink? A white russian made with breast milk: weird?
Heh, we were contemplating making ice cream out of a friend's - she had a bunch stored in the freezer and had to get rid of the older stuff to make way for the new - but we never actually did. Pity.
we were contemplating making ice cream out of a friend's
It's got pretty high fat content, right? Might work well.
I've always wondered if the relevant work of mercy led to controversy at the time. And while I'm repeating links from an earlier thread, I'll link this too.
Steve tried it, of course. I've tried it too, but it had little to offer my jaded palate.
51: Yeah, that's where we got the idea from.
Why are the presidential commenters going presidential, by the way?
Did she try it herself? For the people who think it is weird/gross: is it weirder or less weird for a woman to try her own milk?
Right. Have people tasted their own bodily fluids in general?
44: How seriously everybody's taken Becks's entirely made up 60% number
Oh. It sure does help to read the links, eh?
57: peeing in your own mouth seems like a simple enough way to assuage curiousity. Why wouldn't somebody do that?
53's second link is especially good, I think. I hadn't read that before. It must be so strange.
I have never tasted (I don't think) my own pee or shit. Most other bodily fluids I can think of, sure. I never made milk though.
59: True true true. So there you go.
I have never tasted AWB's piss or shit either.
Well, I'm just saying not everything that comes out of me is beautiful and inherently tasty because it's me. Other fluids I am totally down with. But it seems people draw the line in different places. And I do find it odd that other people are willing to taste someone else's (x fluid) but not willing to taste their own. I have run into this on my travels.
I cannot taste my own X fluid, lest my field of psychic energy expand exponentially and I accidentally destroy Tokyo.
60: 53's second link is especially good, I think.
Agreed.
You don't taste your own vaginal or penile fluids because they're tasty, but because you would like to know, somewhere along the line, what it tastes like. Just as, somewhere along the line, you should probably look at yourself, your private parts. This is toward the general goal of not being alienated from your stuff and your parts.
Anyway, pee and shit don't count, being excretory, which breastmilk is not. It sounds as though the latter is sometimes categorized in such a way, though, which just baffles me.
Sweat is excretory, and frankly, I think it's quite nice.
Just as, somewhere along the line, you should probably look at yourself, your private parts.
I do that all the time!
Yes. I am the slate.com of looking at my genitals.
70: Stupid external genitalia.
70: Frankly, I find it difficult to stop.
Why does sweat count as excretory?
71 to 69, obvs.
I have a good friend who says, "Of course I look at myself in the mirror sometimes when I masturbate. I'm not that ugly!"
Heh, that is good funny.
75: It's an excretion, including of waste products from the blood.
Fluids, hell. The truly in touch with themselves taste their bodily gasses.
(Obligatory Jenkem link omitted.)
But if you think that the excellence of sweat is to facilitate cooling, that it's accomplished by dint of shunting waste blood products out is neither here nor there.
I keep meaning to ask a gun-horny acquaintance how much he likes shooting skeet.
66: That's Neo-Tokyo, dude, Neo-Tokyo.
Commenting 100% Becks-style after dominating at trivia tonight: 100% pro-breastfeeding babies, 100% anti-circumcision, 100% ambivalent on adult consumption of human lactation. Whatever floats your boat, you know?
Well, I'm slightly disappointed that someone isn't going to argue that any and all bodily excretions are excretory.
Well, I'm slightly disappointed that someone isn't going to argue that any and all bodily excretions are excretory.
I'm pretty sure that's how I had all bodily excretions labeled up to this point, with varying degrees of palatability. Now I'm just confused.
There are plenty of incretory bodily fluids, it's just not so easy to get access to them for the tasting.
You'd have to have an awful lot of breast milk to float a boat. Even a toy boat, that seems like it would be sort of a waste.
If you prick us, do we not giggle? If you suckle us, do we not excrete?
I refer to all of my outputs as "excretionary spending". Because I'm a stimulist.
Minne is so Becks-style, and is also completely right.
So the story at this point is that everything that comes out of us is excretory (by definition) and it's just a matter of cultural conditioning whether we're willing to taste come ejaculatory fluid or breastmilk or saliva or menstrual fluid or shit. Okay, I'm down with that.
93: Madame, we could use a man like Luigi Galleani again.
93: Well, our closest relatives do seem awfully fond of eating their own shit.
Speak for yourself, Parenthetical!
our closest relatives do seem awfully fond of eating their own shit.
Back on the veldt, "Eat shit!" was an invitation to dinner.
Oh, sure, the ba'al shem wouldn't eat shit. But what about the rest of our relatives?
"To Serve Man... HIS OWN SHIT? Noooooooo!"
94: Ah, I should have known. We should talk, Minneapolitan, now that you have a bit more free time.
The true meaning of "suum cuique".
So the story at this point is that everything that comes out of us is excretory (by definition) and it's just a matter of cultural conditioning whether we're willing to taste come ejaculatory fluid or breastmilk or saliva or menstrual fluid or shit.
This was indeed the thesis behind the great book, The Social Construction of the Taste of Shit .
103: It probably didn't need a whole book to make the claim. Some say there is a logic behind the way we've sorted the things we're willing to taste, nonetheless.
There are more than cultural issues to consider when it comes to eating shit.
101ers: I so have to go to sleep. But yeah, email me. I don't know when I'll be back east again, sadly.
Topologists of the world: Untie!
Otto's been doing his research!
I mean, I'm generally OK with the mocking of facile, evidenceless "veldt" explanations that goes on here, but I think it's hardly going to buttress the patriarchy if we allow that, just maybe, we don't like the taste of shit for some reason other than "society told us so."
Urine, however, is sterile.
I think it's hardly going to buttress the patriarchy if we allow that, just maybe, we don't like the taste of shit for some reason other than "society told us so."
Agreed. I have no idea what this has to do with the patriarchy, by the way.
And, of course, those other (even closely related) animals that are partial to that most savory of excretions have the intestinal flora to deal with it.
Us privileged humans have simply lost the knack.
109: Oh, I was just teasing about the eating of shit. Though, do you happen to know why chimps/gorillas can get away with doing it? Is it a omnivore's problem, or do they get sick like us?
Urine, however, is sterile.
Which is why Bear Grylls spends so much time drinking it.
And 111 explains why I should always preview.
In six of the nine feces containing adult worms, the whole undigested leaves of A. mossambicensis, T. orientalis or A. aequinoctiale were also found. As many as 18 or 21 worms were expelled with 21 to 56 leaves in a single feces. On three occasion, I was able to closely examine the leaves and worms in these feces back at camp. The worms remained moving and alive in the dung for up to at least four days. By the time these fecal specimens could be examined, some worms were moving freely within the liquid feces, but others were caught, alone or in pairs, in the compartments created between the folds of the leaves. In one case, two Oe. stephanostomum worms were actually firmly stuck to the surface of the leaf as if attached by Velcro TM. Only after three tugs with tweezers did they come completely off.
Man, you can get to some nasty corners of the internet googling "chimpanzee shit eating".
115: Yeah, I'm turning on "Private browsing...", even though this is my private machine. Searches on "coprophagia" tend to yield more benign results. This is a fascinating topic! So many angles! E.g.,:
Lewin (2001) reports that "... consumption of fresh, warm camel feces has been recommended by Bedouins as a remedy for bacterial dysentery[citation needed]; its efficacy (probably attributable to the antibiotic subtilisin from Bacillus subtilis) was confirmed by German soldiers in Africa during World War II."
116: if it was just the gross stuff that'd be fine. It was the white supremacist forum I accidentally stumbled into that's still bothering me.
Most hilarious wikipedia illustration ever.
as if attached by Velcro TM
You people can't stay on topic to save your lives, can you?
'night night.
118: And it's in the public domain! Clearly this is exactly the sort of contribution to the creative commons that Lessig dreamed of. Thanks, Seedfeeder.
I haven't been having much luck determining the origin of the popular conception of Germans as shit-obsessed, but I did find this book, which looks fascinating.
An elephant from Sierra Leone Let a fart into the telephone It bounced back out, And you are out.
That would have been better if the formatting worked. Oh well! German scatological nursery rhymes lose something in the translation anyhow, one imagines.
And man, that's a rough way to go.
124: pica in adults is generally pretty gnarly.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
What's the name of your little friend?
Herbert!
Herbert shit in bed
Right on the fancy spread.
Mom saw what he'd done,
And you can run.
re: 120
Wiki has a habit of marking images as public domain when they aren't. There's at least one wiki entry that contains images created by the place where I work, and where they point blank refuse to i) credit us, ii) remove the public domain indications.*
* the actual copyright status is ambiguous, as it's different under UK and US law, afaik. But the people involved [in creating/editing the wiki entry] are being dicks about it ...
I've tasted mine - more like rice milk than anything else, I thought. I think C probably had some too, at some point in the however many million years I was breastfeeding for, though not from the source - I was really anti any unnecessary breast contact through that time. Just too much.
I can totally understand the "ick" factor--every once in a while my wife or I will marvel at how weird it is that she makes milk--but I would totally try it if we had any to spare.
116: I think the full citation is:
Lewin (2001) reports that "... consumption of fresh, warm camel feces has been recommended by Bedouins to their enemies as a remedy for bacterial dysentery[citation needed]; its efficacy (probably attributable to the antibiotic subtilisin from Bacillus subtilis) was confirmed by German soldiers in Africa during World War II and nobody else."
Our midwife told us that breast milk could be used as a cure for minor eye infections. Neither of us were damn fool enough to try it.
re: 129
Too late to ask my grandfather. He spent much of WWII shuttling around the North African desert doing sneaky things with wires.
Reprocessed breast milk. I was tending to a friend's baby one day, and, in my immense stupidity, was lifting said baby repeatedly up in the air, hovering over my face, after he'd eaten quite recently. Spit up ensued. Some landed in my mouth. That was not a happy taste.
This happened with my ex wife.
She was not amused when I wanted to get the camera before I got her a towel.
It's usually pee.
You take off a wee boy's nappy to change them, and the little fuckers let fly, right at where your face is normally located.
131: Huh. With all the constant spitting up Sally did, I suppose I'm lucky I never got any in my mouth. I did spend basically the entire first six months with baby-spitup somewhere on me.
I really like having kids in the age bracket that's starting to do, rather than only to generate, laundry.
To add a literary anecdote: Joyce milked Nora into the tea.
129 - I know several women who are earthmothery enough to have squirted milk into their babies' eyes when they've been a bit red or gunky. Apparently it does help. Not something I ever tried though.
I can't remember, but I might have -- there was generally milk leaking all over the place anyway, so if there were a gunky eye situation, it would have been natural.
135: oh, no, we tried it out the baby, just not on ourselves.
Printing copies of the thesis for my committee, the proofreader. I'm sleepy. Have to start working on my defense presentation, and fill out a bunch of retarded ambiguous paperwork.
I'm also reminded that I need to go move my car before parking regulations start up again.
I've been cheesemaking lately, might be worth a try if I had a supply.
The problem is the disconnect between food and its source. I assume a lot of people would also be grossed out by drinking milk directly from a cow/goat/sheep udder.
IANA biologist, but I was taught that shit isn't excretion because it's not a product of metabolism, it's just stuff that passes straight through (and water). Conversely, breathing out is excretion. Anyone taste their own breath?
143: Right. I remember the term 'egestion' from 9th grade biology.
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You said no more masturbating to Paul Harvey, but that's all they seem to be able to do on NPR receently.
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Anyone taste their own breath?
I taste my own vomit, although I'd rather not.
You said no more masturbating to Paul Harvey, but that's all they seem to be able to do on NPR receently.
That was beautiful, Rob. Is masturbating to Rob's comment about a dead guy ok?
Human breastmilk has lactobacillus that we've probably `domesticated' to boot the infant immune system. *could* help with eye infections. especially if charge-separated.
149: Only until the thread dies.
My babies never had any conjuctivitis-type things to squirt at. Perhaps I should have offered it to C for his eczema.
I thought I was non-squeed by the concept, but it turns out that, in the event, I kind of am.
IOW, 60% may be high.
I have to say it was pretty weird when the sound of crying caused a leak.
See, I'm thinking 60% must depend on what you mean by "sampled." A direct sample, as in from the breast, is one thing - maybe just curiousity, in a more or less sexual way. I have no guesses about the percentages there. But having prepared hundreds of bottles of breastmilk, I sampled it all the time - is it warm enough, too hot? The wrist thing only goes so far. I assume this is true of damn near every dad who prepared a bottle - not 100% of dads by any means but surely more than 60%? But also, not nearly as interesting, so there's that.
We have some friends who rather than dump a batch of pumped milk (I guess they'd done enough drinking that they decided better safe than sorry) decided to do shots of it.
118: By the same author. (NSFW, obvs.)
FWIW, straight from the tap, incidental ingestion: Fine. Purposefully ingesting post-decanting: yechh.
And it does kinda taste like cantaloupe.
Some people are truly committed to informing the public.
143: Not true. For one thing, that's how you get rid of dead red cells.
Not all secretaries are execrable.
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You know, I've talked about getting high on cat dander before, but dammit, I was joking.
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Also, not all crescent rolls are eschatology.
I don't understand 159. (Well, I understand what it's saying, but I don't understand the preferences behind it.) Post-decanting, you're drinking a glass of milk. From the source, you're ingesting a bodily fluid right from the body. I'd expect the latter to be more squick-inducing, for the squick-prone.
I don't understand the preferences behind it
I believe intent was the dividing line. As in swallowing semen as part of oral sex, fine. Doing shots of it from glasses, ick.
168/9: Yeah, lots of stuff is acceptable or even hot in bed that would be really gross in another context. Drinking breast milk (more than just for entirely utilitarian purposes like to check temperature) seems like one of those things to me.
Thank you 172. My dh is totally comfortable in his body, and has a way of making me comfortable in mine. And tasting as part of lovemaking happens without doing anything differently from what you did pre-baby.
decided to do shots of it.
What a waste of an opportunity to make White Russians with it.
175: I believe they may also have experimented with making Irish cream.
