Dr Thomas Stuttaford
Have you been watching too many recorded episodes of Little Britain? A
variation on one of its regular sketches is of a young man introducing his
girlfriend to his parents.
After introductions they all sit down for a formal meal. The young man looks
fondly and pleadingly at his mother until she takes out her breast and
squirts milk at him. He drinks it, to the horror of his would-be fiancée.
Most people would share the girlfriend's opinion. Even so, pictures of milk
pouring from shapely breasts into the mouths of babies is a constant theme
in classical art, while some men take pictures of their wives breast-feeding
so that they may be reminded of the experience later.
However, in most cases, breast-feeding appeals to onlookers because it arouses
protective instincts, epitomised by the caring message of the Madonna and
child image, rather than erotic longings.
One of my patients took her baby to a preview at an art gallery. When he began
to cry she decided to unbutton her dress. lift up her bra and feed him
immediately. She told me later that she was amazed by the small crowd of
fascinated men, presumably art lovers, who gathered to look wistfully at
her.
Many patients have told me that their wives' or partners' breasts became more
alluring and sexually stimulating when enlarged because of pregnancy or
lactation.
Western men usually react more to big breasts. However, Dr Desmond Morris, the
expert on human behaviour, has documented how some cultures prefer small
breasts - and how, in some parts of the world, neighbouring tribes may have
different preferences. The emphasis that men place on the appeal of one part
of the body can vary, even within the same culture. They might, for example,
be “breasts” or “bottoms” men, but if their preference is strongly held, it
is described as partialism.
Breasts have two functions. They are not only useful for feeding a baby -
although only a small proportion of the breast is composed of glandular
tissue, the rest is mainly fat - but also serve as sexual signals to attract
mates.
The latter is something that happens only in human beings. In primates, as
well as some other mammals, rounded bottoms are the principal sexual signal;
breasts are important only for breast-feeding. Once we evolved and no longer
walked on all fours, bottoms became relatively less conspicuous and breasts
became the more important sexual signal.
Are you unusual? Probably the manifestation of your fascination for breasts
and your desire to share your child's supper is a bit beyond what most men
experience, and some people would find your erotic response to the idea of
lapping up your wife's breast milk dis-tinctly weird.
But it is harmless, unless your wife objects. Even so, I should keep quiet
about your fantasies.
Dr Thomas Stuttaford, The Times doctor, spent many years working in a
genitourinary clinic
Suzi Godson
The physical transformation that a woman experiences during pregnancy is
fascinating and the ability to produce a substance nutritious enough to
sustain a baby for the first year of its life is nothing short of
miraculous.
Breast-feeding is deeply sexy and deliciously sensuous. Soft skin against soft
skin. Shark eyes rolling with pleasure, and warm, wet, milky lips greedily
sucking sweet vanilla cream. And when the baby wakes up, he gets his turn,
too.
Sexualising your baby's sustenance might feel like a transgression, but it's
not. Just because they are multi-tasking doesn't mean that your wife's
breasts are off-limits; and since she will leak during sex, and spurt during
orgasm, you can just clean up.
If, however, is the operative word. It's a well-known fact that the hormones
associated with breast-feeding have a deleterious effect on libido.
Prolactin might stimulate breast-feeding, but it represses the effect of
dopamine, the happiness hormone that is directly responsible for sexual
arousal. Oxytocin, the hormone that encourages contractions, lets down milk
supply and bonds the mother to the child, puts the last nail in the coffin
of your wife's libido.
Oxytocin doesn't affect just human beings. In the animal kingdom it is the
reason prairie voles form long-lasting pair bonds while montane voles don't.
If you block oxytocin production in female rats and mice, they stop
nurturing their young and lose the ability to recognise familiar members of
their species.
So, how do you persuade a sleep-deprived woman, who hasn't had her highlights
done and who weighs 15lb more than she used to, that breast-feeding her
husband is anything other than exhausting?
Flattery is the best, possibly the only, weapon. Childbirth knocks the
stuffing out of female self-esteem, so your sexual interest in her lactating
breasts may be a welcome boost to her fragile ego. You could try explaining
to her that the same hormones that are suppressing her sexual appetite are
whetting yours.
Curiously, the odours given off by breast-feeding have been shown to heighten
sexual desire in childless women. Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses
Centre in Philadelphia and the University of Chicago are not sure why, but
in 2002 suggested that it may be a way that women signal to each other that
the environment is a good one in which to reproduce.
Breast-feeding may be a complex evolutionary interaction, but it is a damn
clever system. The more your wife's breasts are stimulated, the more milk
they will produce. The flavour will change depending on what your wife eats
and how much liquid she drinks, but, in general, breast milk tastes like
slightly sweet vanilla milk.
Some men love it, others are grossed out by it, but most have tried it. Some
of them unintentionally. Many years ago when some young male guests turned
up to visit my new baby, I discovered that I had run out of regular milk.
All that was in the fridge was a lone bottle of freshly-expressed mother's
pride, so I poured it into a little white jug on the tray next to the
bickies. No one noticed the difference.
Suzi Godson is the author of The Sex Book (Cassell, £16.99) and The Body Bible
(Penguin, £16.99)
Honestly?
I've three children with two women and nursing after the baby was done was pretty common for us. In some ways, I think it was more erotic for me than them, but it was--in a fashion--a type of intimacy they appreciated especially considering how they felt about themselves at the time.
C.A., Glendale, Arizona, USA
Lactation of course can be erotic. Why some "doctors" differ between the functions is beyond me. A breast is erotic because it has a nutrition-function - so hard to understand? A nursing breast is not erotic, and mothers don't have sex - get real, for heavens sake!
Lara, London,
Given that signs of fertility are generally sexually attractive it makes sense that there could be something sexy in breastfeeding.
A women breastfeeding your child is showing off her fecundity just like her hips and healthy complexion.
Whether you should tell her or not probably depends on her..
Laura, Birmingham,
I say enjoy yourself while you can and I would like to disagree that the hormones associated with breast-feeding have a deleterious effect on libido. My experience is the opposite I found that much to my husbands delight while breastfeeding my libido was greatly increased.
Anita , stoke on trent,