Hypothetical about mammals and mammaries

[ZenGum]

Just imagine back 80 or 100 million years ago when mammals were diverging from whatever it was we diverged from.

Suppose that both males and females developed full breasts as adults and these responded to suckling by producing milk, meaning that male mammals could breast feed every bit as well as females.

How would this have affected subsequent history, especially human behaviour and cultural development?

Discuss, with examples.

[footfootfoot]

Are you asking us to do your homework again?

[ZenGum]

No, I just want to discuss boobs, but I wanted to feel all intellectual about it.

[Lamplighter]

Given your hypothesis, boobs would go the way of ears
... functional, but of little titillation for anyone.

(except maybe the Chinese who reportedly have a thing for ears)

See what I did there... discussion, pun, and example.

[Trilby]

Lamplighter is on report.

[GunMaster357]

If memory serves me, milk production is triggered by the rise of an hormone inside our body. Hypothetically, it would be possible for us men to breastfeed an infant since we have mammary glands.

so was it boobs that you wished to discuss or moobs?

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

...Suppose that both males and females developed full breasts as adults and these responded to suckling by producing milk, meaning that male mammals could breast feed every bit as well as females.

How would this have affected subsequent history, especially human behaviour...

Well, for starters, I wouldn't have left the house nearly as much...

[Clodfobble]

The question is, what triggers the lactation in a man? In women, currently, hormones released by the placenta begin the series of events that ultimately lead to the woman's body knowing it is time to lactate. After that it is only a positive feedback loop that keeps it going--stop draining the boobs regularly, and the milk production will stop.

It wouldn't be very "selfish gene" of them if men's bodies started producing milk any time they saw any baby. Maybe the baby could produce a pheromone that the man's body would recognize as genetically his own. But that could lead to serious societal problems. Being able to hide or misidentify the father is one of women's evolutionary strengths.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Given your hypothesis, boobs would go the way of ears
... functional, but of little titillation for anyone.

Maybe not visually, but my ears are definitely an erogenous zone. I can get wet just having someone whisper in my ear.

ETA in the right context of course - when Mum hisses in my ear at the cinema because she recognises an actor it raises nothing but irritation...

[Trilby]

"Being able to hide or missidentify the father is one of women's
evolutionary strengths,"

How can you *not* love Clodfobble?

[footfootfoot]

The reasons babies always look like the father when they are born is so the father doesn't eat them.

[Aliantha]

I think my husband would look pretty funny with boobs.

Just sayin'...

[ZenGum]

Fun fact, some men can produce very small amounts of milk in response to suckling on the nipples. My hypothetical changes this to producing enough milk to nourish an infant.

Men wouldn't look silly with boobs because everyone would have them. Women would probably find men attractive if they had a nice pair of boobs, since it suggests a good breeding partner.

I was more thinking about the changes to reproductive behaviour and consequent social structures.

If BOTH parents can breast feed it would greatly change the "post-partum feeding problem". Feeding could be shared, greatly reducing the asymmetry in the amount of resources each parent must put into offspring. This could lead to a substantially different social and parenting dynamic. We might have fully avoided the man-goes-to-work, woman-stays-at-home pattern.

How different would society have been?

And how differently would our culture have constructed men's roles and men's psychology if men, by nature and habit, had a much more nurturing and caring role? Would Alexander the Great have been such a gung-ho imperialist with a suckling babe on his boob?

Would our God-as-stern-male-judge concept have been different if He was portrayed as routinely breast-feeding?

Would Rush Limbaugh still be such a jerk with a ... you probably don't want that image presented to your mind, do you? :p

Stop me now.

[infinite monkey]

Would Howard Stern even have a career?

[Aliantha]

Would more men get breast cancer?