# Todays XKCD **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 9, 2011, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-xkcd/570787 "2011-02-09T18:48:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2011, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-xkcd/570787/21 "2011-02-10T04:54:53Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Yes, the strip is about lactation fetishes. That doesn’t mean Randall has a lactation fetish, just that he thinks lactation fetishes are funny. It’s true that the stick figures in his strips are often author stand-ins, but that doesn’t mean everything they do or say are things the author does or says. Rather, it’s more like this strip is something Randall could imagine happening, if he had a serious lactation fetish, which he may or may not have. I don’t think the strip is about lactation fetishism at all. It’s about a woman sensing that the man had a random stray thought, “Hmm, she has breasts, I wonder if I could milk her?” If it the strip were about a lactation fetish, the male character wouldn’t have to wonder these things. He would presumably keep a normalized SQLite database of the precise hormonal state of every woman known to him. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2011, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-xkcd/570787/22 "2011-02-10T05:00:40Z")
I don’t think thinking about lactating breasts is necessarily perverse either. I mean milk is a beverage most people drink. We don’t think of it as baby food usually. So lactating women kind of like people with a built in beverage tap. I mean 50% of the population never needs to buy cream for their coffee because they can make it themselves. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2011, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-xkcd/570787/23 "2011-02-10T15:56:23Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > I don’t think thinking about lactating breasts is necessarily perverse either. I mean milk is a beverage most people drink. We don’t think of it as baby food usually. So lactating women kind of like people with a built in beverage tap. I mean 50% of the population never needs to buy cream for their coffee because they can make it themselves. Yes, but only if they are lactating. (See the other day’s XKCD.) Hey! Recursion! ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-xkcd/570787/24 "2011-02-10T16:00:35Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Can’t a cartoon just be funny without someone psychoanalyzing the cartoonist? > > Conversely, how could a cartoonist be funny without revealing what someone, somewhere, somehow will interpret as a perverted fetish? A woman walks into a bar and asks the bartender for an example of a double entendre; and the bartender _gives her one_. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-xkcd/570787/25 "2011-02-10T16:01:37Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I don’t think the strip is about lactation fetishism at all. It’s about a woman sensing that the man had a random stray thought, “Hmm, she has breasts, I wonder if I could milk her?” Right. This is also the “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” answer. ---
**Author:** ![thinksnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thinksnow/32/2849_2.png) [@thinksnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thinksnow)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-xkcd/570787/26 "2011-02-10T17:38:55Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > A woman walks into a bar and asks the bartender for an example of a double entendre; and the bartender _gives her one_. …and the bartender _gives it to her_. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2011, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-xkcd/570787/27 "2011-02-11T09:23:56Z")
So, so far we have: It’s a metaphor, it’s a random stray thought, it’s shock humor, it’s just about breasts not breastfeeding, lactation fetish is not really weird. I think the author is trying to mix his quirky couple thing with a weird lactation topic and it doesn’t really work. He is trying to have his milk and drink it too. > [@thinksnow](#): > > …and the bartender _gives it to her_. A woman walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a double entendre. But he was happily married. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/todays-xkcd/570787.md?page=1)