You're Drinking Breast Milk

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A character -- usually a man—is a guest in the home of a woman with small children. He gets thirsty, opens the fridge, finds a container of milk, and starts drinking. Then, the homeowner comes along and informs him, "You're drinking breast milk."

Invariably, the character doing the drinking will be squicked out, and disgustedly spit out the milk. The audience's reaction will vary quite a bit more, considering how funny such scenes can be if done well, and the fact that in Real Life there are many people who have a Fetish for lactation, breast milk or both, and may even be turned on by such scenes.

May lead to Fridge Logic when you consider that human milk is much, much sweeter than bovine or goat milk; the guy who was drinking it should have realized it wasn't what he thought it was without someone else telling him. It makes more sense if the milk is being used to complement coffee or breakfast cereal.

Usually a Comedy Trope. For obvious reasons, you'll see less of it the more kid-friendly a work is... it tends to pop up more in PG-13 or R-rated films and comedy series that are geared more specifically toward adult audiences.

Examples of You're Drinking Breast Milk include:


Anime and Manga

  • In Lotte No Omocha, Effie is the main provider of milk in the mansion. While it's mostly reserved for Lotte, other people get to taste her milk throughout the series. Naoya does so when he first sets foot in the mansion,[1] and in a later chapter, Lotte and all her classmates drank directly from her breasts thinking it would make their breasts grow bigger.


Comics

  • Not explicitly stated to be breast milk, but in Creature Tech, Dr. Ong drinks from a cup at a group picnic before being told that family doesn't have a cow. Assuming he's being ostracized or mocked for being an atheist...

Dr. Ong: So? I'm a country boy. I can drink goat's milk with the best of them.

  • panel shows a woman breastfeeding an infant while small children play nearby*
  • panel shows Dr. Ong spitting out his beverage*
  • Baby Blues gag. Wanda asks Darryl if he wants milk in his coffee, then (off-screen) the milk is squirted into his coffee. Wanda yells "Bullseye!" and Darryl says "I'm going to miss it when you stop breastfeeding, Wanda."


Film

  • Rock Me, Baby

Jimmy: Dude, you just drank breast milk.

  • In Look Who's Talking, James, played by John Travolta, borrows a bottle from the fridge to put milk in his coffee. Mollie, played by Kirstie Alley, helpfully chimes in with the trope name.

James: Thank a lot, man. [drinks coffee]
Mollie: Hey, you know, that's breast milk.
[James does a Spit Take]

    • The gag is actually played out again at the end of the same scene, when James announces he's leaving with his coffee and "his breast milk."
  • In Meet the Fockers, Gaylord drinks a cup of his sister-in-law's breast milk on accident. He comments "ew" before putting it back down.
  • In Borat, the title character from Kazakhstan nonchalantly informs the American senator he's speaking with that the cheese he's feeding the senator was made from his wife's own breast milk.
  • Happens accidentally in Grown Ups, with Maria Bello as a mother who's not only still lactating but able to feed her four-year-old, and Maya Rudolph, who gets it all over her face. Her response? "It's actually not that bad."
    • Later in the same movie, the toddler is succcessfully weaned off of it, leaving the mother to ask "what am I supposed to do with it now?" Her husband says he has an idea in mind.
  • In 1971's Sunday Bloody Sunday, Bob, babysitting a houseful of kids, with his girlfriend Alex, finds a small, odd looking container of milk in the refrigerator and asks the eldest daughter if it's all right for him to drink, and she respond that it's milk her mother had expressed for her infant brother, as "he isn't weened yet".


Literature

  • A variant of this occurs in the web erotica Lesbian Land 2250. The protagonist, who recently arrived in the setting, goes to get milk out of the fridge. As she's drinking it, she reads the label that says it's breast milk. Subverted when she doesn't seem to mind, and is in fact turned on by this. And then it's revealed that they regularly have women milked each day, with the milk being delivered all over the city like regular milk delivery.
  • The end of The Grapes of Wrath has an intentional version when Rose of Sharon, who has recently experienced a stillbirth, nurses an old man dying of starvation. Cut from the movie version, of course, given the year it was made.


Live Action TV

  • One episode of Friends features Ross being squicked out because Phoebe tastes some of Carol's expressed breast milk when heating it up for Ben. Joey then subsequently tastes it, to prove to Ross that it's not a big deal. Ross still refuses it, stating that it's gross, until Carol and Susan tell him that he's being silly and that they've both sampled it. Even then, it takes him a while to "build up" to sampling it.
    • A variation, Joey drinks formula, mistaking it for eggnog. Upon being informed it was formula, he didn't care, he just wanted more because it tasted good (though being Joey, it's possible he didn't know what "formula" was).
  • Happened in the office on Close To Home. Annabeth is expressing and storing her breast milk in the fridge. One of her male co-workers ends up putting her breast milk in his coffee.
  • This came up once on Designing Women, when Suzanne almost used milk Charlene had expressed for her infant daughter in her coffee.
  • In Peep Show Jeremy deliberately uses Sophie's breast milk in coffee as he and Mark have run out of cow's milk. He enjoys his coffee but Mark is disgusted when he realise what it is hes drinking and refuses to drink any more saying its practically cannibalism.
  • Little Britain had a recurring skit about a grown man who was still breast-fed by his mother ("Bitty?"). At one point when they're having tea the father asks if she can spare any milk, so she sprays a little into his cup. The fiancée is thoroughly Squicked, but still marries him for some reason.
  • On A Different World, Jalessa left breast milk in the fridge. Ron uses the milk to make pina coladas for a bachelor party. As they are drinking, the babysitter explains that was breast milk. Cue multiple spit takes.
  • Invoked in a sketch on The Kenny Everett Video Show when aging rocker Sid Snot orders a cup of tea from a roadside van. The woman serving asks if he wants sugar. He says yes and she reaches into her cleavage and pulls out a couple of sugar cubes which she drops in his tea. She then asks "Milk?" and he gives a knowing look to camera and says "You wouldn't dare".
  • Served as a Crowning Moment of Funny during the "Improbable Mission" sketch on Whose Line Is It Anyway? (US version). Ryan and Colin have to prepare lunch (or something) for some foreign dignitary. Colin, a genetically modified agent, complains at one point that he lacks a "coffee gene", to which Ryan replies, "I'm not talking about coffee, Mr. Moo!" Cue uproarious laughter.


Video Games


Web Comics

Rayne: Meh, it was either that or walk two blocks to the store. I stand by my choice.


Web Original

  • On The Ricky Gervais Show, he complained that a neighbor once made him a dessert from breast milk.
  • This from 5-Second Films.
  • In Chakona Space Chakats normally drink each others milk. But there's one story where a Chakat wet nurse's roommate plays this trope completely straight, for several months before shi tells hir where the stuff in hir coffee came from.
  • Blog "The Sneeze" once featured breast milk on it's "Steve, Don't Eat It!" feature. Steve wasn't totally thrilled with the taste, but it was tolerable. He also tried it with Nesquik.


Real Life

  • There are multiple accounts of the TSA and other security agencies forcing mothers to drink their prepumped milk.
  • A chef in N.Y. made cheese from his wife's breast milk.
  • An ice cream parlor in London is now serving breast milk ice cream. The milk is provided by donors who must first have their blood tested.
  • Steve, Don't Eat It!
  1. it takes him several chapters to realize it