# Do partners of lactating women suckle? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 8, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101 "2012-10-08T17:01:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/21 "2012-10-09T02:25:18Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Maybe someday, through genetic engineering. I bet if asked, those same women would say those beer taps hurt. like. Hell. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/22 "2012-10-09T02:42:14Z")
Dear God, no. No no no. I kinda want to vomit just thinking about it. Plus, I had low supply, so every drop of it was saved for the kid. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/23 "2012-10-09T03:08:45Z")
Most I ever did was squirt some out. That’s not perverted or nuthin, right? ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/24 "2012-10-09T03:33:02Z")
I used to make jokes about mother’s milk cappuccino. Tried it once and quit making the jokes. Long story short, fell short of expectations. ---
**Author:** ![prettydorky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f04885/32.png) [@prettydorky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prettydorky)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/25 "2012-10-09T03:43:07Z")
I started dating again while still nursing. I had to warn a guy to stay away. Also, I had trouble letting down when pumping, and out of sheer frustration at one point (I HAD to pump enough to be ready for an upcoming medical procedure, and the milk just was not coming out), I asked my son’s dad to help me try and get started. He was able to, and neither of us thought of it as gross, nor sexual in any way. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/26 "2012-10-09T03:43:16Z")
It was mentioned in a Heinlein novel, I think, so how odd can it be? ---
**Author:** ![tomcar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tomcar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomcar)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/27 "2012-10-09T04:10:08Z")
My sons mother nursed til he was 2. She had alot of trouble with it and her breasts would get hard. She would put hot compresses on them and I would have to suck them to keep the milk flowing… ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/28 "2012-10-09T06:36:37Z")
I don’t know why people should be reluctant to admit to this, I would be surprised if it were not common amongst couples in the relevant situation. It does not seem particularly weird of kinky to me. My wife invited me to give it a try when she was lactating, and I did. It was in bed, when we were making love. (I forget on how many occasions, a few but not many.) I got very little milk out of her, however. Perhaps I was too tentative in my sucking, not doing it hard enough, afraid of hurting her, or perhaps having a man suckle her rather than a baby did not stimulate her to release milk like a baby would, I don’t know. She did breastfeed our babies, who must surely have got a lot more milk out than I did, but they both needed bottle milk too. Anyway, the experience was not especially pleasurable for me, not beyond the pleasure I would otherwise get from kissing and sucking on a woman’s breasts, anyway, and what little milk I did get left a sour taste in my mouth (which I do not get from regular cows milk). Maybe if I had got more milk I would have liked it better. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/29 "2012-10-09T06:43:47Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I don’t know why people should be reluctant to admit to this, I would be surprised if it were not common amongst couples in the relevant situation. Seriously it seems like a hangup, I’m supposed to buy that men/women with partners who have lactated keep their mouths away from their breasts during sex for around a year? :dubious: Unless as one poster suggested it is a matter of semantics, I imagine the number of men/women who sit down focused on getting a feeding out of it and focusing only on that is pretty low. I’d imagine that the only group who as a whole have never incidentally tasted breast milk are exclusively gay men. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/30 "2012-10-09T14:58:47Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Seriously it seems like a hangup, I’m supposed to buy that men/women with partners who have lactated keep their mouths away from their breasts during sex for around a year? > > :dubious: > > Unless as one poster suggested it is a matter of semantics, I imagine the number of men/women who sit down focused on getting a feeding out of it and focusing only on that is pretty low. > > I’d imagine that the only group who as a whole have never incidentally tasted breast milk are exclusively gay men. Well as I mentioned, both my ex-wife and my current wife wanted me to not treat the breast in a sexual fashion at all whilst breast feeding. I respected that, of course. And they were still visually stimulating to me anyways (more so, in fact, than normal, due to being bigger/fuller) so I didn’t mind. ---
**Author:** ![Gus\_Gusterson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@Gus\_Gusterson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Gusterson)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/31 "2012-10-09T15:00:24Z")
I did it when my wife was nursing. It was both to relieve some of the pressure (neither of our kids were very good at breastfeeding) and because it turned both of us on. I wasn’t able to figure out how to get a really good flow going but I got enough to relieve her pain. It was very sweet and I liked it a lot. I talked about it with some friends and none of them had done it with their wives. None of them thought it was odd, gross, or kinky. They mostly said that it simply hadn’t occurred to them to do it. ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/32 "2012-10-09T15:44:28Z")
Sure, I’ll admit it. I didn’t suckle for nourishment, I did it because my wife enjoys having her breasts sucked when we make love, and I enjoy doing it. The fact that I got milk out of it was a side effect, not the goal. The milk is very sweet. She tasted it too. It didn’t freak either of us out. When I did it, she was turned on. When she was nursing our daughters, it was for feeding. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/33 "2012-10-09T16:11:59Z")
> [@Mtgman](#): > > Certainly partners of lactating women still interact orally with the breasts of the lactating partner in many, if not most, cases. How closely this resembles suckling is a different question entirely though. Suckling involves a mechanism called “latching on” and \*\*stimulates the breast to “let down” at which point the milk flows with minimal suction necessary. \*\* Both the latch and let down are complex physiological activities which are difficult to accomplish if you’re an adult. The positioning, size of the mouth/lips/tongue, would all make a proper latch difficult for adults. The let down is as much psychological as physiological and many women have experienced involuntary let down from hearing the baby cry with hunger, which shows it involves more than physical stimulus of the breast. > > Sucking a lactating breast is certainly possible. Suckling is a different thing however. Without a good latch and let down then an adult would get less milk(especially the fat-heavy hindmilk) than a baby would, although they’d still get some. > > Enjoy, > Steven This is all more or less true, with the exception of the highlighted part. Milk “just flows” only for a moment or two as let-down occurs, but after that the baby does indeed need to suck. Breasts are not just like bottles or bags attached to women; they contain ducts which must be stimulated to actually produce milk. Babies have to work a little to get the milk out, which in turn stimulates the mom to produce more, so you actually only produce the amount that your baby needs at any given point. (With of course some adjustment periods when demand either increases or decreases. There are sometimes daily variations too so it’s not like scientific input/output at all times.) I think they whole process is very interesting and I did taste my own milk on several occasions. But like most have mentioned, breasts were mostly off-limits for sexual activity during breastfeeding because, depending on the time of day and when the next feeding is, they’re apt to be ready to produce at any minute. They can also be too tender for much sexual action, at least in my experience. However, the longer you nurse the more this decreases. I nursed my last for a few years, and older babies eating solid foods don’t nurse as much, and so the girls return to Regular Boobs during non-nursing periods, only springing into action when the let-down is triggered. [Disclaimer: this is mostly just my experience as a longtime and frequent nursing mother, although I believe it to be in general accurate for most nursing situations.] ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/34 "2012-10-09T16:31:03Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > It was mentioned in a Heinlein novel, I think, so how odd can it be? I see what you did there… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/35 "2012-10-09T17:00:23Z")
Nitpick: This is in my mind because Richard Dawkins made a point of it in his book _Evolution: The Greatest Show on Earth_. Babies (and passionate men) suck. They do not suckle – that’s what the owner of the breasts being sucked does. It also seems to depend upon who you use as your authority. The Collins dictionary agrees with this restricted usage, but the American Heritage Dictionary embraces both meanings. YMMV: > **[suckle](https://www.thefreedictionary.com/suckle)** > > Definition, Synonyms, Translations of suckle by The Free Dictionary ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/36 "2012-10-09T17:07:08Z")
> [@Gus\_Gusterson](#): > > I did it when my wife was nursing. It was both to relieve some of the pressure (neither of our kids were very good at breastfeeding) and because it turned both of us on. I wasn’t able to figure out how to get a really good flow going but I got enough to relieve her pain. It was very sweet and I liked it a lot. > > I talked about it with some friends and none of them had done it with their wives. None of them thought it was odd, gross, or kinky. They mostly said that it simply hadn’t occurred to them to do it. I think you have very polite friends. Doubtlessly, eyebrows were raised afterward. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/37 "2012-10-09T17:44:49Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > Doubtlessly, eyebrows were raised afterward. Them wasn’t eyebrows! ---
**Author:** ![Gus\_Gusterson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@Gus\_Gusterson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Gusterson)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/38 "2012-10-09T17:58:22Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > I think you have very polite friends. Doubtlessly, eyebrows were raised afterward. I don’t know what kind of friends you have but I have the regular kind of friends who jump on any opportunity to make fun of each other. We don’t bother with politeness. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101/39 "2012-10-09T18:11:12Z")
> [@Gus\_Gusterson](#): > > I don’t know what kind of friends you have but I have the regular kind of friends who jump on any opportunity to make fun of each other. We don’t bother with politeness. My friends and semi-polite. They take turns making fun of each other [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-partners-of-lactating-women-suckle/637101.md?page=1)