If you pick up the biography that the third-century Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry wrote about his teacher Plotinus, you may be struck by just how slight it is on actual facts and details. It’s less a biography and more a few personal notes.
Porphyry explains that because Plotinus despised his own bodily existence–true to his philosophy–he was reluctant to share any personal details about himself even with closest his students. He kept his personal feelings and experiences to himself. However, there is one particular anecdote that, apparently, Plotinus thought so important that he felt compelled to share it:
Despite his general reluctance to talk of his own life, some few details he did often relate to us in the course of conversation. Thus he told how, at the age of eight, when he was already going to school, he still clung about his nurse and loved to bare her breasts and take suck: one day he was told he was a ‘perverted imp’, and so was shamed out of the trick.[mfn]Porphyry, The Life of Plotinus, §3.[/mfn]
Now, personally, I don’t think I would share such a story with my students. That’s even more embarasing than calling your grade school teacher “Mommy.” Although, to be fair, Plotinus did drink only the freshest, all-natural breastmilk, so at age eight he was really ahead of today’s Foodies.
Now before we conclude that such a story has no scholarly value, let’s recall a book by Rudolph Bell called Holy Anorexia (1985). Bell’s (laughably) Freudian hypothesis argues St. Catherine of Siena engaged in such harsh and even deadly fasting for a surprisingly simple reason: she was still dealing with the trauma of her mother weaning her too soon. Catherine’s mother had about 23 kids and usually moved on to nursing the next child and thus weaned them naturally. Catherine, however, was one of the last, so her mother had to wean her intentionally. Back then, just as some people do now, mothers and wetnurses sometimes applied castor oil or another bitter substance to tarnish the taste of the teat. Apparently Catherine took this to heart—at least according to Bell’s view.
Well, maybe if Plotinus had been allowed to suck until he was 20, he wouldn’t have hated the body so much…
Source: https://www.cakematernity.com/blog/breastfeeding-memes