The male obsession with older women has existed forever. However, sometime around 1999 a new term made its grand entry into the vocabularies of young American males, which made it not only acceptable to be into older women, it made it cool. Thanks to American Pie, a new word came to embody the hot mom, and that word was MILF (Mom I’d Like to F*ck). Before long, pubescent boys everywhere were screaming “Your mom’s a MILF!” at carpool lines, soccer parties, and sleepovers across this great nation. A few years later, the American band Fountains of Wayne brought teenage boys’ MILF fantasies to life in a video loved by many and forgotten by few.
Somewhere along the way, a word previously used to refer solely to a wild African jungle cat became the word of choice to describe women who enjoy younger men: the COUGAR.
Trying to find the connection between MILFs and these sexually free women of a certain age on the prowl? Essentially, once a MILF gets some wrinkles, discovers Botox and divorces her husband, she then becomes a COUGAR, another term that has entered the lexicon with a vengeance.
Given that older men have desired, dated and married younger women for ages, why is it that just now our culture has developed an obsession and assigned a term to attach to the older woman/younger man match? Are the words “MILF” and “Cougar” empowering, degrading, or just plain creepy?
Whatever your opinion, here are a few general rules should follow when throwing around the terms MILF and Cougar (or dealing with them in the flesh).
1) If you’re into a girl, never refer to her mom as a MILF. This will immediately put the mental image of you having sex with her mom into her mind, which is just effing disgusting.
2) If your mom doesn’t know what the term MILF means by now, you should probably refrain from telling her. Ignorance is bliss, and you should not cuss in front of your own mother! Tisk tisk! She will probably beg you to tell her, but once you do, it won’t be worth it and will create mucho awkwardness.
3) If you want to hook up with an older woman, be respectful. She is a human being and more mature than you. Oh, and if she has kids, make sure you’ve never hooked up with any of them.
4) Older women- sexual as they might be- are people, just like you. Calm your testosterone urges and tame your desire to bed someone just because you could say you hooked up with a cougar. Stacy’s Mom came out over eight years ago, get over it!
