Along with soprano singing and boy-band appreciation, lactation is normally considered to be exclusivly for girls… wether we would want to or not the recieved opinion is that men cannot do it. Acording to this profoundly distirbing site, it’s not so much a matter of physiology rather mind over matter, and that if men really want to they can grow man-breasts and produce milk.
According to this passage from Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by George Gould, M.D. and Walter Pyle, M.D. (1896), the the phenomina of man-milk is not as rare as you might expect:
Hunter refers to a man of fifty who shared equally with his wife the suckling of their children. There is an instance of a sailor who, having lost his wife, took his son to his own breast to quiet him, and after three or four days was able to nourish him.
According to this FAQ, male laction is not only impossible but undesirable from an evolutionary point of view. On the other hand, Wikipedia points out that it is common in other animal species and may result in people as a result of a hormonal imbalance.
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