Savage Love

1. Re: teh Milkman: Here’s the thing, when your milk “lets down,” you can’t just stop, it would be painful, like asking a guy to stop peeing halfway through…so, I used to say, “If you’re going to start that side, you’ll have to finish it.”

2. You know, I simply do not understand why people think that a good time to mention sexual attraction to something is when their partner is vocally fretting or stressing over it.

   That seems like the worst time to me. Wait until they’re calm and relaxed, and not actively reacting to whatever it is in a negative way.

3. haha i like the milk one. My daughter had a hard time latching on and sometimes getting the milk to start flowing would be an issue. One that my husband was always more than happy to help with. Even when I eventually realized my daughter would not take the milk directly from the source and started pumping and bottle-feeding her my milk, my husband helped a lot to maintain my supply (when I learned that pumping was decreasing my supply as the suction from the pump was not as effective as from baby…or other human).

   So hey, she might be freaked out now but it’s likely that once the baby comes out and the milk starts flowing, she may change her mind and realize it could be more fun than gross (and it could occasionally be helpful).

   I’ve always gotten the impression that breast milk was a little gross but it’s actually really not. at all. but as a first time mom, it’s a little uncomfortable in the beginning. she just needs time to adjust and she’ll be fine. I was. :o)

4. Breastfeeding can take some work in the beginning. Sometimes it’s a supply issue or a poor latch. Cracked, bleeding nipples are also a common problem too when momma and the newborn are new to nursing. MILK should support his wife’s efforts to nurse, say by attending a lactation class with her before the birth. And then maybe once she and baby have the nursing down pat, MILK can share the windfall.

   My husband never showed any interest in my breastmilk… but one day when we were fooling around, he got sprayed. And he enjoyed it. I was more than happy to oblige. But when you’re nursing, sleep deprived, recovering from childbirth/a c-section, etc. it’s hard to see your breasts or post-partum body as sexual.

   So I agree with Dan to take it slow. By the way, the OB usually won’t give you the OK to resume vaginal sex post-partum until after the 6 week check-up. Just be super-supportive and she may come around with sharing the milk!

5. I can only hope that the Milkman’s wife is blessed with a good enough supply that if she does have interest in helping him fulfill his fantasy, they can afford to indulge. I’ve been breastfeeding my baby for a few months now, and I fight for every drop — I don’t consider my milk gross, but no way am I wasting my precious scant ounces on sex play. They are going into my baby, period. My husband can find some other way to get off.

6. For MILK: This is only going to work once.

   As Dan said, he needs to shut the fuck up about the whole lactation gets me hard thing. She’s not going to forget the squick, but after the baby comes and she’s sleep deprived beyond measure, it will likely slip to the back of her conciousness. Once your back to fucking (post baby) and not the first time because god knows that time hurts about as much as giving birth, asssuming you can get her to take off the nursing bra even at night, focus on getting your wife off. Whatever gives her the best feel it down to the sole of her feet orgasm. She will likely spray like a fountain, if the orgasm is really good, she won’t even realize it until after the fact.

   With each of the 3 kids, orgasm made my milk let down. It was uncanny. My husband thought it was disgusting, so I would clutch a towel to my breasts when I climaxed.

7. I have never been in a relationship with a nursing woman. However, my partner has told me that when she was a young mother her boobs were absolutely off-limits to all but her precious offspring. Apparently she was quite fierce about this.

   Who knows how something this primal will play out in any relationship.

8. I have to reiterate what #4 and #5 said–breastfeeding can be a struggle. Be supportive of her efforts and let her establish her supply and then if she has enough to spare maybe she’ll be game. Or maybe not–for hormonal reasons lactating women are often uninterested in sex.

9. When I was nursing, I had ZERO sexual sensation in my nipples. I did before my daughter was born, and I did get it back eventually. Also, I was totally “touched out”, meaning after having my beautiful daughter/little monster attached to me all day, cuddling with me/clinging to me, the LAST thing I wanted was to have my breasts touched.

   I did also eventually discover my husband’s hidden porn stash- I have no problem with him having a stash, but… I found that his main fetish was lactating women. Not only did this gross me out, it pissed me off- because after that, every time he bitched and whined about having his sleep interrupted, or how the baby needed something and could I take care of the baby, or etc… all I could think about was the fact that he was getting off watching me, and I was doing all the work.

   Post partum women are not to be messed with. They bring cranky and irrational to a new level, and that is just the way it is. MILK needs to keep his mouth shut about this issue. For years. He may get lucky, because, like the previous poster said, the same hormones that cause orgasm contractions, also cause milk to let down. He needs to feel thankful if that happens, and also feel thankful if all he ends up with is a wife and new mother.

10. Mr Savage, you overrate the Prudecutor. Her puns, taken by themselves, are generally passable, but she indulges herself far too often and lets the puns overwhelm anything serious she might say in her responses. If I were feeling less charitable, I could say she uses the puns to cover up that she has extremely little substance on offer.

    A classic example was the letter from a woman who worried that her husband might be becoming more attached to his best friend than he was to her. Somewhere in the middle of all the Brokeback puns she could conjure, the Prudecutor’s only piece of actual advice was to ambush the two of them by asking the friend to come see a film and then show you-know-what. Perhaps cute in fiction, but what a sign of a spiteful soul. Interestingly, to tie this together with the recent SLLotD, the Prudecutor and about half of the intelligent commenters revealed their adherence to the view of sexual orientation as a two-sided coin weighted to land on S rather more often than on G. The B word never came up until I mentioned it myself, only to be rather quickly shot down, much to my surprise.

11. I liked the last letter. Bit of a new theme for Dan.

12. wow number nine, that sounds great… Why anyone would want that experience I will never know. No kids, no pregnancy and dear god no cranky, selfish, entitled new mothers. I’m sure your husband had a fantastic time as well. Go team.

13. As a college student with communication studies majors friends:

    “heterophobic” is my new favourite word.

14. Regarding “establishing the milk supply,” that supply responds to demand. Dad ain’t going to deprive the baby of nothing. If anything, the additional activity will only encourage more production, which will be to the baby’s benefit. “Every drop goes to the baby” is, if anything, counterproductive.

    For that matter, If Baby is having trouble early on, Mom may well need Dad to help out during the early days, lest she suffer painful engorgement, come down with impacted milk glands, or mastitis; or alternately, her milk supply goes down from lack of consumption. Pumping is NOT as good as human intervention in this respect, even adult human intervention. (However, be a little careful, because overproduction is what causes engorgement and if your activities are too enthusiastic, you get too much production, you have a negative feedback loop going.)

    The simple answer is, just let it drop. If you have sex while she is lactating, provided it’s reasonably good sex, you WILL get sprayed. (Unless she gets all irrational and tries to cover up to keep it from you — which would be pretty shitty of her, since milk that goes into the nipple shields isn’t going into the baby, it’s just going to waste.) Relax, it’ll happen.

15. @9.. Wow. If your marriage hasn’t failed already by the time I write this – and guessing by your incredibly bitchy, selfish, and holier-than-thou attitude, I’m sure it has – you need to keep YOUR mouth shut, for years. And hopefully you’re petty jealousy, insecurity, and anti-GGG sentiments wont rub off on anyone else.

    @2 Why wouldn’t that be a good time to mention it? If I was insecure about something, and I mentioned it to my partner, who replied with, “actually, that _____ really turns me on.” I would be not only relieved, but overjoyed.

    “Baby, umm.. I think my penis is too small and it’s bent weird and I’m really insecure about it.”

    “Well actually I think small bent penises are really really hot and that just makes me want you even more!”

    “What?! How dare you say such a thing when I’m trying to be insecure about myself?!”

16. Anybody else think “irritable bowel syndrome” when they saw LW initials as IBS?

    I’m such a child at heart.

17. @14 nailed it. Milk let down is all about the suction. Many babies have trouble latching on and a free flowing milk duct could be very beneficial and give the baby an advantage. Maybe Milky should play that angle, and get some milking in early.

    I call bullshit on the that’s not what that is for’ bullshit. What about buttholes? Semen toothpaste? Tampon string floss? Lots of fluid gets exchanged that is ‘not what that is for.’ Maybe read up on convincing a woman to have anal sex would help? Yeah, this is for her and the baby and it will feel great! Nothing to do with your fetish you know. Approach it by eating her until she almost cums and then moving to the chest for nipple play….

    #9: Illness is no excuse for the practice of hateful vice and intolerable behavior. A pregnancy is much less so.

    Dan’s answer with the new mom’s mantra is priceless. After spewing afterbirth all over your doctor, shitting the sheets, and plopping out a slime covered bowling ball, a little nipple squirt will not be “gross” but will seem like nothing more than spilled milk.

    A resident of the island of lesbos taking two fags Greek style is almost something I would watch. I caught the lesbian drama height worry also. Two words: Telephone Book…

    If you are so concerned maybe demand a movie of them humping the hershey highway before you dive into the chocolate so you know what they like?

    Bi-curious/pan-curious/post-gender-curious fellow is lucky Dan is such an expert. He has always taught us that sexual attraction and orientation is all about what you imagine fucking in the context of a relationship. This disembodied penis fetish is nothing more than an affectation. He could be attracted to lactating nipples or something equally weird and it doesn’t make him gay. Heterophobic is indeed the word at many universities!

    Couldn’t Ms. Shitdropper drop some, I don’t know…like some warm melted fudge brownie or something and give him the tactile sensation. Hell, tie a pair of racing stripe underwear over his head and give him the whole show without even dropping load. Dan would have suggested something like this for almost any other fetish except this one which happens to gross him out.

18. Re prepartum/postpartum sexual feelings: My husband just played up the “oh my good lord you are a veritable goddess, look at that belly, look at those huge breasts, just feel how hard I am, as I gaze at your earth mother body….” Repeat ad nauseum, but I ate it up. My breasts were never off-limits, even when other parts had to be.

    Re IBS: me personally, I would love that scene, because of the penises and cute gay guys. But what excites her about it? She thinks it might help her get over her fear of penises. That doesn’t seem likely. She does say she’s intrigued. Maybe she should think about the scene for a month or so, fantasize about it, and figure out what makes her hot.

19. Also, re Ms. CSE, I agree with Professor for once. If she likes the guy enough to stay with him, there must be ways of easing into this. How about, keep the door open when using the bathroom? If she can’t envision that for poop, do it for pee until she’s comfortable, then start thinking, when you’re peeing (door open, him on the bed in the next room), hey, could I take a shit? Just let yourself think about it.

    I used to not be able to pee in the shower, or take a dump when my husband was in the bathroom. Now I can do both. One step at a time is what makes you GGG.

20. What’s Dan’s issue with seitan? I’m a meat-loving convert to veganism, and I think seitan’s awesome. Was this some kind of Satan pun that went over my head?

21. I’ve been told (by people with boundary issues) that some nursing mothers can lactate involuntarily.

    I don’t have personal experience with it, but my Ma was drunk one night, and told me about it for some reason. Apparently, when she was breast feeding me, sex with my dad tended to cause her to leak milk all over the place. Which, I guess, in this case, is the whole point? So maybe the issue will resolve itself.

22. I can’t decide if these letters are more gross than boring or more boring than gross.

23. The first time I sucked on my wife’s breasts after she’d given birth, and I tasted her milk, I came instantly. One of the most erotic experiences I’ve ever had.

24. I feel pretty awful having just completed a year in therapy trying to somehow feel like maybe I wasn’t born a monster… and Dan Savage, who I sometimes see as a hero, role model, or well grounded human being. Can decide that I deserve to be ridiculed, and suggest to his audience (like everyone else) that I should remain forever closeted.
    Dan, if I had read your articles at 13 when I was just discovering the paraphilia that has caused me so much shame over the years. I probably would have killed myself. I am glad I am older, but I think you ought to rethink your “It gets better” campaign, some of these young people are dealing with things you clearly have contempt for.

25. Avast, it’s true that it’s supply and demand and MOST women’s breasts are up to the task but not everyone’s breasts produce enough to exclusively breastfeed–like number five I had real supply issues after having my kid (who had a GREAT latch). I had to take tons of herbs to get what little supply I had and there definitely seemed to be a cap on what I could make. Lactation is actually fairly complicated–if anything is amiss not only with your sex hormones but your thyroid, pituitary, blood sugar levels, milk glands, ducts or prolactin receptors you could have problems producing milk. Your post is generally right but things don’t always go as well or as easily as the lactation consultants tell you they will.

26. #5, if you are having trouble maintaining your supply of breast milk, letting you husband suck will probably help, rather than hinder. Supply responds to demand, in this case – the more sucking, the more milk. Many moms who primarily pump have this problem, because your body does not respond to a pump the way it does to a mouth.

    So, let the baby nurse as often and as long as possible, and allow any auxiliary sucking that happens to come along.

27. Wow – I can tell that a lot of the comments re MILK’s letter are from non-moms and people who don’t know any moms of infants very well at all. I wish MILK the best of luck, and I do think that he just needs to let his wife get over her freak out – having your first child can be incredibly stressful. I will say however that I know a lot of men/husbands who are grossed out by breastmilk – one of my closest friends told me that her husband hadn’t touched her breasts since she’d given birth two years earlier. If my husband expressed any interest in my lactating breasts, I’d just be thrilled that he wasn’t grossed out by them! But that’s just me. I understand that it’s not for everyone, but for both of their sakes, I hope his wife gets over it – seems like completely harmless fun to me – way more fun than clutching a towel to one’s lactating breasts during sex as another commenter noted. I wish them both luck.

28. The thing is, MILK, you really have no idea how this is all going to play out after the birth. Some women have experiences like myself and #9 (with variations therein and varying results). And you are going to have to figure out how to deal with it, just like she has had to figure out how to deal with your occasional bullshit over the years. But you really can’t tell what her body is going to do, how it’s going to change, what is going to arouse her, until AFTER the birth. I’ll tell you this much, follow her lead, slather on the compliments re: #18’s post, and ignore those who find what you are doing repugnant (#15). (The last thing a new parent needs is someone telling them they shouldn’t be having kids due to some issue the opinion-holder is struggling with.)
    MILK, you are about to enter a whole new universe of sexuality. Tolerate her autonomy over her own body and respect her temporary postpartum limitations. You will be rewarded for your efforts.

29. Dan, I sent the last letter to a whole bunch of my straight male college friends. (We were theatre/art/music majors.) It’s too bad we didn’t have this column in 1994.

    Then again, I’d have gotten laid a lot less. Creative-type females who like cock AND the men the cocks come with are the luckiest females in the world.

30. Ms Erica@18 – Very good point re IBS (unfortunate acronym, though?). Doing things of this sort can be all good fun, but doing them unexamined can be a receipt for disaster.

31. I’m a bi guy who, like COLD, has never been romantically interested in men, but still very interested in cocks. Since you self-identify as bi-curious, COLD, you should take the plunge and hook up with a guy for an NSA cock-sucking session. There are plenty of bi guys out there with the same attitude re sex/romance, so go for it. You should definitely satisfy your curiosity and find out whether you like stroking and sucking a cock as much as you enjoy looking at pictures of them. It’s also perfectly viable to establish an on-going sex-only relationship with another bi guy who shares your interest in cock and your aversion to a m/m romance (and it’s a lot safer than getting with a different guy each time).

32. LW3 was ANNOYING. I went to college, most of my friends went to college, and we didn’t develop a weird sense of pre/post/bullshit ANYTHING. This guy is a dork.

33. LW3 was ANNOYING. I went to college, most of my friends went to college, and we didn’t develop a weird sense of pre/post/bullshit ANYTHING. This guy is a dork.

    (Reposting after registering.)

34. Breast milk, like everything else about the human body, was not DESIGNED for anything. It just evolved. Just like penises were not “designed” for vaginas only. If they work with mouths and asses, so be it. If breast milk works with this guy, deal with it.

35. “So I’d perhaps shrug and summon my new mom mantra: Whatever works.”

    This just sounds extremely depressing. Even moreso when you consider that they have a child intertwined in all this.

36. #6, yeah, just trick her into it. That’s the ticket. And she can’t say no because the deed’s already done!

37. I am #5. To commenters #14 and #26, I thank you for your advice, but as #25 said (thank you!) it is a lot more complicated than that. Believe me, if a little breast play were all it took to keep my baby fed on my milk, we would not have spent hundreds of dollars on lactation consultants, hospital-grade pumps, herbal supplements, books, and other drugs since my baby was born to try to keep me going. Lactation Consultants like to make you think if you aren’t having success in breastfeeding, it’s your own fault, but some women DO have bad supply — it doesn’t have to do with their baby’s sucking ability (mine is an excellent sucker) or with anything they try to do. After a while, the party line is as bad as telling women that infertility is their own fault. We are doing everything possible to nurse our babies.

    For more on this topic, visit http://fearlessformulafeeder.blogspot.co…

    FWIW, I feel lucky that I’ve been able to at least PARTIALLY nurse my baby for the last six months.

    Back on topic for the letter, I agree with the previous poster who said rather than focusing on what gets the Milkman off (namely, her lactation) he would be better able to achieve her ends by reframing the whole conversation on to her: the whole “wow you gorgeous earth mother, look at you carrying my baby” thing worked very well to get me in the mood the entire time I was pregnant, and, post-partum, once we were given the all clear for sex.

    And, FWIW, nursing or pumping right after sex does work well in terms of let down.

38. One of my regrets is that I didn’t let my husband try nursing when I was breastfeeding, all those many years ago. It wasn’t so much that my breasts were off limits, it’s just that, as others have said, I was sleep deprived, sore, and feeling fat. When I got past the first few months and felt rested, my breasts weren’t particularly sexual to me at that point. They were a pair of baby-feeding devices that hung on my chest. My husband loves to suckle and I asked him recently why he didn’t ask/try when I was breastfeeding. He didn’t have much of an answer…”I mostly thought they were for the babies.” Ah well, opportunity lost. For MILK I’d say: worship your wife, tell her how beautiful/wonderful/gorgeous she is and how crazy you are about her and maybe she’ll come to realize that nursing her baby AND her husband is really really hot and sexy.

    D

39. To those of you criticizing the new mothers for their irritability and/or apathy (@15, @17, @35): Fuck you. Their bodies have not been their own for about a year.

40. I searched ‘seitan’ with one eye squinched shut, worried I was going to see pictures of Japanese women doing weird things in slings.

    I’m both relieved and a little let down. 🙁

41. “stay the hell away from heterophobic post-gender/post-modern/pan-sexual cultural-studies majors whose immaturity, self-loathing, and anger all manifest in a refusal to accept that a good guy can also be a straight guy.”

    Right on with this. It’s great for people to think critically about gender and sexuality (in themselves and in the world at large), but it seems like so much of the college-y post-gender mindset is geared towards forming ideologically elitist cliques; or, a way for middle-class kids to mitigate their guilt and fear by convincing themselves that they’re somehow on the margins of society; or, a way for people to convince themselves that having sex with their cute friends amounts to some sort of transformative social activism.

42. Love the comments about Prudie, Dan!

43. sooo sick of how it seems like so many fetishes are immediately linked to mental/familial issues. lactating fetish = mommy issues? give me a break

44. @40 Makenna
    If it helps maybe you could be a little imaginative about the suggested use of the seitan. He is vague…

    CSE:
    The companion to not judging others for their sexuality is being confident in the right to your own. It’s reasonable and possible to have any number of hard limits to your play. You sound like a wonderful person: you accepted that he has this challenging kink and you took it seriously enough to write to Dan.

    I am told that anal sex leads one to lose their fear of shit. It was my private observation watching my wife shit continuously during many hours of labor that I had no negative feelings about that. She is beautiful. I love rimming her and on rare occasions there is a hint of a certain flavor that surprisingly does not bother me in the least.

    Considering what he is asking of you, you might look at it as “it is better to give than to receive.” If you just can’t do it then don’t fault yourself. That’s who you are. Most of us feel the same way.

45. Sucking on tits (and the milk letdown) stimulates the same hormones that cause love, sexual arousal, and bonding. Nursing for me was a total sexual high. I read up on it, and it’s a normal biological response. It’s one of nature’s blessings, so I enjoyed it for what it was. I conferred with a few La Leche League women who were all too happy to say that it’s much more common than mainstream would have you believe.

    I’m done with nursing now, but I’ve been missing the tit play. My husband’s an ass man and turned off by breasts–especially since he watched me nurse–but we’re working on getting him comfortable with sucking on my tits. It can be hard for a person to change their ick factor of certain bodily functions, but my husband is slowly coming around.

    Maybe MILK should give his wife some info about the fun parts of nursing. Help her get more comfortable with her body and maybe she’ll actually get around to enjoying it. I’d even recommend treating her like a goddess, telling her that her breasts are beautiful, amazing, and powerful. It’s very likely she’s freaking that her breasts are gonna turn saggy after swelling up from pregnancy. I’d either talk to her directly, or get one of her female friends/family to talk about good bras, surgery if she wants it, or letting her know you find her attractive regardless.

    Good luck, MILK. I hope it works out for you.

46. sunmountain @28 says:
    “ignore those who find what you are doing repugnant (#15). (The last thing a new parent needs is someone telling them they shouldn’t be having kids due to some issue the opinion-holder is struggling with.)
    MILK, you are about to enter a whole new universe of sexuality. Tolerate her autonomy over her own body and respect her temporary postpartum limitations. You will be rewarded for your efforts.”

    Unfortunately, as those of us who’ve been following these SL letters can attest, husbands being rewarded for their efforts are not a big feature of the Savage Love letter, in fact, I would say it’s been quite the opposite lately, so I wouldn’t make the assumption that if the guy just lays off and leaves her alone, things will be back to normal in no time. We seem to be discovering that “temporary postpartum limitations” stretch into years-long postpartum issues for a fair number of people, so it would be more helpful to examine things as a couple, and to deal with things as a couple, rather than seeing this as something where the power is only in the wife’s hands.
    @15 was pointing out that anyone who has that degree of bitterness is probably not a lot of fun to live with. I tend to agree with him.

    offwhite @39 I’ve been a “new mom” three times. And yes, while it’s exhausting, etc. etc., it doesn’t give you an excuse to be a jerk, or to treat your husband like an annoyance. Their life changes pretty dramatically for that year, too. Compassion is needed on both sides.

47. Well, I’ve searched on “seitan” and all I find is “wheat gluten.” I’ve never heard of it. Care to enlighten me, someone? What is Dan referring to?

48. Bwahahahha Makenna….I had to look it up in exactly the same manner, and had EXACTLY the same reaction!!

    @24….you comment broke my heart and gave me a whole new perspective. Thank you for that; at least you are not hurting anyone (I can NOT EVER come to terms with pedophilacs however). I hope you find someone. I hope Dan is reading this and perhaps tapers his comments a bit. Its not something I would personally find appealing, but hey…as long as its not hurting me or anyone else, its really none of my business, is it?

    And dayum for IBS….can you seriously tape it???? I wanna watch too. That sounds hot as hell!

49. Dan not Savage @47: I would humbly suggest that Dan, as a pot roast-loving carnivore, is comparing the vegan staple “seitan” to bestiality…which is a not wholly unreasonable comparison. It does taste like fermented ass.

50. Hhmmm. Could it be . . . Seitan?!?!?!?!

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