MILFs and Sons of Bitches: The Current View on Motherhood
Words: Alma Shorter
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MILF is one of the most well-known and mainstream pornographic terms. First popularised in the American Pie franchise, MILF - aka Mother I’d Like to Fuck - is now one of the best-known porn categories. The term runs rampant in memes and on TikTok, where people of all genders proclaim their attraction to hot mums, their aspiration to become a MILF, or both. Influencers are rocking “Future MILF” slogan t-shirts, using anti-wrinkle straws and giving anti-aging skincare tips to grow up and become a fuckable older person. Some TikTok users even base the better part of their content around showing off their own attractive mums. These posts are met with overwhelming engagement, with comments ranging from asking for their youthful secrets to if the posters want a new stepdad.
MILF is considered a badge of honour and aspirational feminine archetype in the online sphere. It isn’t dissimilar to the bimbo trend and contains a few aesthetic similarities: The look is usually reserved to thin, middle-aged middle- or upper-class white women. While it is primarily about appearance, the label is also a reference to aspirational motherhood - which is gate kept behind classism, ageism and racism.
The popularisation of the MILF figure culminates in the production of a dating reality TV show MILF Manor that premiered January 2023. The premise is that 8 single women between ages 40 - 60 pursue relationships with 8 younger men - who are the women’s sons. In one of the challenges, the blindfolded women must feel the men’s shirtless torsos and guess which one is their son. This show was met with a simultaneous fascination and disgust - with it being referred to as queasy, horrifying and addictive by various journalists and internet users. It was framed by one of its creators as a show about female empowerment, with one objective to dismantle the double standard stigma of older women dating younger men.
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Nancy Jo Sales writes in The Guardian that the intentional placement of mothers with their sons in the same dating pool serves the purpose of creating disgust towards middle-aged women seeking love and sex with younger men. The myriad of vaguely Freudian challenges effectively creates a premise in which viewers can enjoy content about MILFs while having a licence to finger-wag at mothers daring to express desire. The production of this show sheds light on the increasingly normalised fetishisation of mothers who fit into the beauty standard as well as the moral disconnect between motherhood and sexuality.
In the same breath, sex workers who are mothers are also perpetually demonised. In 2021, retired porn actress Lana Rhoades announced her pregnancy. This announcement was followed by a wave of memes mocking her and her unborn child due to her past career in pornography. Internet users openly pitied her child and she was shamed for giving a child the unsavoury fate of being a “son of a bitch.” The reality is that sex work can enable and empower some women to be the best mothers they can be. In Mireille Miller-Young’s A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography, we can read of some examples of women choosing to work in adult entertainment to be better mothers. The author interviews those who chose to do pornography as they could make the same amount of money for considerably less hours of work in other industries accessible to them. Their career choices allowed the interviewees to simultaneously fulfil their children’s financial needs as well as their emotional needs by being more present in their lives. Motherhood is one of the tools misogynists often use to shame sex workers - as we saw in Piers Morgan’s viral interview of Only Fans creator, Elle Brooke - but her retort sums up the issue with this line of logic. People love to refer to imaginary, future children to antagonise sex workers.
The moral disconnects of motherhood being linked to pornography and generally sex work is due to the fact that assuming both identities is a transgression of firm female archetypes. Internalised patriarchal and misogynist views of womanhood command almost instinctive, negative reactions against female sex workers being associated with the virtuousness of motherhood. So, where does the MILF figure fit into the collective imaginary? What does its popularisation into the mainstream tell us?
The moral disconnects of motherhood being linked to pornography and generally sex work is due to the fact that assuming both identities is a transgression of firm female archetypes.
On one hand, it is a typical instance of fetishisation, where a woman, a mother, is only allowed to be sexual when looked upon by an external gaze rather than in an agentic expression of sexuality. It also speaks to increasingly difficult and specific standards for women to fit into or aspire to fit into. It’s no secret mothers are held to much higher standards than fathers. With MILF having become a regularly used word on social media and in conversations with friends, this all indicates an increase in expectations for mothers to meet.
Some may argue this trend allows middle-aged women to have a spotlight in the context of a beauty culture which celebrates youth, however the MILF aesthetic furthers the idea of equating beauty with looking young, being thin and being rich. A lot of aesthetics around MILFs include wealth and wellness, like the image of being a housewife who takes the Range Rover to pilates. To be a stereotypical MILF, one would need a lot of resources to afford the fillers, hairdressers, luxurious items as well as the childcare necessary to be able to maintain the lifestyle and appearance.
While this trend could be dismissed as an online trend, it has undeniably seeped into how young people, especially young women, talk about ageing and/or having children, which inevitably has material and potentially harmful repercussions. While talking about the MILF trend may ask more questions than it answers, it is certainly a trend that needs to be unpacked and interrogated. Why, in a culture which still deems mothers’ sexuality to be unacceptable, is there such a resurgence of this term? What do women stand to gain from aspiring to not only be mothers, but sexual objects too?