It's time to talk about pornography, people. Ever since American Pie popularized the term "MILF" to an overly-aroused, eager-for-change, porn-viewing audience, the nation has had older women on the brain. And with porn stars like Lisa Ann happily accepting the task of branding themselves as MILFs, the common idea of "younger is better" has flipped the porn world upside down. Despite the fact that she's only 35 years old, Tanya Tate (above) has taken the MILF genre by storm, winning 10 "MILF of the Year" awards in her six short years in the adult industry. Last week, amidst her busy schedule of performing, directing, and making fleshlights, Tate was gracious enough to answer some of our questions concerning the world's ever-growing oedipal tendencies and the separation of fantasy and reality in pornography. Why do men love MILFs? Tate says it's actually not all that complicated. Let's talk about your humble beginnings, Tanya. When did it all start?
Thrillist TV History of The History of the McRib I didn’t realize that MILF meant something else. It means a hot, older woman...someone who is in control, someone who knows what they want and knows how to be satisfied. At first, it didn’t sound very sexy—but when people started referring to me as a MILF, I decided to embrace it. If that’s my term, that’s my market. How does it feel now?
Do a lot of your MILF friends have kids? What do you think triggered the MILF movement? So, it’s more about men liking empowered women?I remember when I was younger, I didn’t know how to please a guy properly or what to do with him. It takes time to learn and older women have years of experience. Plus, there have always been fantasies in porn: sexy teacher, hot secretary, a friend’s hot mom. I have a lot of guys who will do webcam chats with me, like one-on-one, and a lot of them call me “mommy.” It really is a big fetish. MILF and incest seems to go hand-in-hand, it seems.
Do you get a lot of adverse reactions? Yeah. Porn’s all about the taboo—but it’s all staged... Deal. I won’t say you advocate incest.
Do you think most men have an Oedipus complex? So, plenty of incest, but no patricide.
How old are these guys? Ironic, because you're literally too young to be these guys' mom.
In the world of porn and erotic fiction, moms seem so be all the rage. For example, MILF (an acronym for “Mom I’d Like to Fuck”) was the third most popular search term on Pornhub last year. It was also the third most-viewed category, and it boasts more than 40,000 videos. Likewise, if you search the erotica section on Amazon’s Kindle store, the term MILF brings up over 10,000 hits. The fact that MILFs play such an outsized role in adult entertainment makes sense when you look at the content of men’s sexual fantasies. I surveyed more than 4,000 American adults about their fantasies for my book Tell Me What You Want and found that 88 percent of heterosexual men said they had fantasized about MILFs before. In addition, 42 percent said they fantasize about MILFs often. So what is it that makes moms alluring to so many men? In order to understand their appeal, we need to consider the way MILFs tend to be depicted in the world of porn. Research suggests that, more often than not, these women are portrayed quite differently than younger women are. In a study published in the Journal of Sex Research, researchers analyzed the content of 50 MILF videos and 50 teen videos taken from some of the most popular porn sites. The main thing they found was that MILFs were placed in more dominant roles, sexually and otherwise. Click here to learn more about the Men’s Health expert advisory board. Men's HealthWhile traditional gender roles suggest that men are “supposed” to be the initiators of sex while women are the gatekeepers, MILF porn presents a major reversal of those roles. Compared to teens, MILFs were two-and-a-half times more likely to initiate sex. MILFs were also much more likely to take control during the encounter. In fact, they were nine times more likely than teens to set the pace and direction of sex. MILFs were also usually depicted as having higher occupational status over their male partners, something that was never once observed in any of the teen videos. Specifically, more than four out of five MILFs were shown having high status jobs, such as being the boss, judge, or teacher. By contrast, in MILF videos, men were usually depicted as students or lower-level employees. These findings suggest that the men who are drawn to MILF porn may be turned on more generally by the idea of playing a submissive role to a powerful and dominant woman. My sexual fantasy data from Tell Me What You Want offer additional support for this idea. Among straight men, I found that having frequent MILF fantasies was linked to having more fantasies about being sexually submissive, being sexually humiliated, and having sex forced upon you. It’s worth noting that, among heterosexual women, those who reported more MILF fantasies were more likely to fantasize about being dominant, sexually humiliating a partner, and forcing sex on someone else. In other words, men and women alike seem to associate MILFs with certain aspects of BDSM. When you consider that BDSM is one of the most common sexual fantasy themes, this suggests that perhaps MILF scenarios are just one of many ways that people seek to enact those broader BDSM desires. The appeal of MILFs, however, isn’t all about interest in power and control. Interestingly, I also found that men who fantasized about MILFs tended to have more attachment anxiety, meaning they are more insecure in their relationships. They’re worried that their partner might leave and they need quite a lot of reassurance. To be clear, this was a small association, meaning that being into MILFs is far from a reliable sign that a given guy is insecure; however, the fact that there’s a link at all suggests that there is at least a small percentage of men who take some psychological comfort in the idea of a MILF. Anxious men tend to be worried about sexual rejection, so these men might prefer to be with a woman who makes her interest in sex clear and takes the lead. This means these guys don’t need to put themselves in that position of vulnerability where they attempt to initiate sex but might have their advances rebuffed. Consistent with this idea, men’s MILF fantasies were linked more broadly to fantasies about being desired and wanted. Men who fantasized about MILFs were also more likely to fantasize about breast milk. This suggests that breast milk fetishes might be part of why some men are drawn to moms, too. Lastly, I found that MILF fantasies were associated with fantasies about sexually pleasing a partner. When you consider that MILFs know what they want and are not afraid to say it, this tells us that another reason some guys may be drawn to MILFs is because it’s simply easier to please a woman who makes her sexual wants and desires clear. When looking at the appeal of MILF porn and erotica, it’s clear that there’s a very rich underlying psychology, but also that different men may be drawn to MILFs for very different reasons. Justin Lehmiller, PhD is a Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute and author of the blog Sex and Psychology. His latest book is Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. Follow him on Twitter @JustinLehmiller Justin Lehmiller, Ph.D. is a Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute and author of the blog Sex and Psychology. His latest book is Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. |