Picture of Domesticity

[Guest]

No, not me.

This.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/sweetsubsarahh/MVC-030S.jpg


and this.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/sweetsubsarahh/MVC-031S.jpg


Sweet little Kiwi, still nursing. Even though she's too big.

Very sweet picture.

So what's the problem?

That isn't the momma kitty, Midnight.

As a matter of fact, it isn't even a girl kitty. His name is Blackie, and he's Kiwi's brother from a different litter.

He lets her nurse on him for hours. He winds up with a wet tummy and his nipples must really hurt, but he lets her do this.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/sweetsubsarahh/MVC-032S.jpg


http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/sweetsubsarahh/MVC-033S.jpg


I am sooo confused.

 

[Guest]

No, not me.

This.

KITTIES!!!!!


Soo CUUUTEEEE!!!!!!!

 

[Tom Collins]

Awww...how sweet. Maybe your cat is transgender?

 

[Guest]

If he begins to lactate, we may be in trouble.

I should do a search. Is it possible for male animals to lactate in certain situations?

 

[carsonshepherd]

That's really... disturbing.

 

[carsonshepherd]

Awww...how sweet. Maybe your cat is transgender?

Hahahaha.

 

[Guest]

That's really... disturbing.

What, you don't like someone licking your nipples, carson?

 

[carsonshepherd]

What, you don't like someone licking your nipples, carson?

Not cats!

 

[Guest]

Not cats!

Aw, now.

We've already had this conversation.

I remember saying that a little pussy never hurt anyone.

 

[Guest]

Okay. Prepare to be further disturbed, gentlemen.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n2_v16/ai_16051177

Father's milk - male mammals' potential for lactation
Discover, Feb, 1995 by Jared Diamond

TODAY WE MEN ARE EXPECTED TO SHARE IN THE care of our children. We have no excuse not to, of course, since we are perfectly capable of doing practically anything our wives can do. And so, when my twin sons were born, I duly learned to change diapers, clean up vomit, and perform the other tasks that come with parenthood.

The one thing I was excused from doing was nursing my infants. It was a visibly tiring task for my wife, and friends kidded me that I should get hormone injections and share the burden. Yet cruel biological facts appear to confront those who would bring sexual equality to this last bastion of female privilege or male copout. Males--and not just human males, mind you--seemingly lack the anatomic equipment, the priming experience of pregnancy, and the hormones necessary for lactation. Until last year, males of not a single one of the world's 4,500 mammal species were suspected of lactating under normal conditions.

Brace yourselves, guys. Science is demolishing your last excuses. We've known for some time that many male mammals, including some men, can undergo breast development and lactate under special conditions. We've also known that many otherwise perfectly normal male domesticated goats, with normal testes and the proven ability to inseminate females, surprise their owners (and probably themselves) by spontaneously growing udders and secreting milk. Now we know that at least one wild mammal engages in similarly odd behavior: just last year, spontaneous male lactation was reported in the Dayak fruit bat of Malaysia. Ten adult males, captured alive, proved to have mammary glands distended with milk.

Lactation, then, lies within a male mammal's physiological reach. Yet it's not part of our normal human repertoire, nor the normal repertoire of any other mammalian males--except, intriguingly, for the Dayak fruit bat. Why, then, since natural selection evidently could have made us men lactate, didn't it? Might it reprogram us in the future? Might male lactation, now a fascinating theoretical problem at the interface of physiology and evolutionary biology, soon advance from the realm of theory into practice?

Let's start with the facts. Of the 23 pairs of human chromosomes, 22, and the genes that they carry, are the same in men as in women. Only the twenty-third, the "sex chromosome," differs between men and women: women have two matched copies termed X chromosomes, while men have one X chromosome plus a smaller Y chromosome.

The genes on chromosome 23, acting in concert with genes on other chromosomes, ultimately determine all differences between our sexes. Those differences, of course, include not only the possession of ovaries as opposed to testes but also the postadolescent differences in beards, pitch of voice, and breast development. Blocking a single gene--say, one that normally codes for the cell receptor that binds testosterone--can make someone who genetically is otherwise a normal male develop breasts and a vagina.

The actual effects of testosterone and its chemical derivatives, called androgens, vary with age, organ, and species. Animals differ greatly in how the sexes develop. Adult male gorillas, for example, are much larger than females (weighing roughly twice as much), have a differently shaped head, and a silver-haired back. Human males also differ from females, though much less obviously, in being slightly heavier (by 20 percent on average), more muscular, and bearded. But males and females of some gibbon species look so similar that you couldn't distinguish them unless they permitted you to examine their genitals.

Both sexes of all mammals have mammary glands. While the glands are generally less well developed and nonfunctional in males, the degree of underdevelopment varies among species. At one extreme, in mice and rats, the mammary tissue never forms ducts or a nipple and remains invisible from the outside. At the opposite extreme, in dogs and primates (including humans), the gland does form ducts and a nipple in both males and females and scarcely differs between the sexes before puberty.

During adolescence the visible differences between mammalian sexes increase under the influence of a mix of hormones from the gonads, adrenal glands, and pituitary gland. Among the hormonally caused changes is a growth spurt in the mammary glands in females. Hormones released in pregnant females produce a further mammary growth spurt and start milk production, which is then stimulated by nursing. In humans, milk production is especially under the control of the hormone prolactin. (In cows the responsible hormone is somatotropin, alias growth hormone, the substance behind the current debate over the hormonal stimulation of milk cows.)

(article continues)

 

[Guest]

.....

 

[LadyJeanne]

Okay. Prepare to be further disturbed, gentlemen.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n2_v16/ai_16051177

Father's milk - male mammals' potential for lactation
Discover, Feb, 1995 by Jared Diamond

TODAY WE MEN ARE EXPECTED TO SHARE IN THE care of our children. We have no excuse not to, of course, since we are perfectly capable of doing practically anything our wives can do. And so, when my twin sons were born, I duly learned to change diapers, clean up vomit, and perform the other tasks that come with parenthood.

The one thing I was excused from doing was nursing my infants. It was a visibly tiring task for my wife, and friends kidded me that I should get hormone injections and share the burden. Yet cruel biological facts appear to confront those who would bring sexual equality to this last bastion of female privilege or male copout. Males--and not just human males, mind you--seemingly lack the anatomic equipment, the priming experience of pregnancy, and the hormones necessary for lactation. Until last year, males of not a single one of the world's 4,500 mammal species were suspected of lactating under normal conditions.

Brace yourselves, guys. Science is demolishing your last excuses.

I wonder how many men would breastfeed their children if they could.

 

[Guest]

I wonder how many men would breastfeed their children if they could.

 

[rgraham666]

Um, pass.

Diapers, all the rest of that I can handle. Breast feeding is out.

I ain't that enlightened.

 

[Guest]

.....

 

[zeb1094]

Mine are both too old to be breast feeding from anyone.

Are you sure? What do you consider "Too Old" to breast feed? 80, 90, 100? At what age is a man too old to suckle?

I for one hope I am never too old!

 

[Guest]

Are you sure? What do you consider "Too Old" to breast feed? 80, 90, 100? At what age is a man too old to suckle?

I for one hope I am never too old!

Naughty lad.