Why I Loved Being Called a MILF

Since becoming a mom, Wilson Diehl had “internalized the wildly sexist notion that moms are unsexy,” she writes on Salon. “Maybe I could be a hot 35-year-old married lady, but a hot 35-year-old married mom?” But on a ladies’ weekend in Chicago with friends, Diehl found herself “dressed in not-too-badly-baby-stained clothing, drinking hot toddies and engaging in an ever-so-slight flirtation” with two college guys. When her friends whipped out the baby photos, Diehl thought it might be time to leave the guys alone so they could hit on younger women—but when she suggested doing so, one was quick to protest, “No way, man! You all are MILFs!”

“One of us—I won't say which—might have leapt across the ottoman to give him a hug,” she recalls. “I was surprised at how good that weird little acronym felt. For as long as I remember, I’ve considered myself a feminist. When I was a baby and my mom asked, ‘Are you my girl?’ I apparently replied, ‘No. Woman!’ And yet, here I was, with a baby of my own, and I loved being called a MILF.” Even though one of her friends insisted the term is “gross,” Diehl realized, “It had been forever since I'd been made to feel interesting and compelling, much less kind of sexy … damn is it nice—necessary, even—to be noticed and wanted for something other than a sippy cup or a spare sweater.” Click for her full essay. (More motherhood stories.)