Once upon a time, before milf really entered general public usage, it was youth slang, teen slang. Teenage boys used it to talk about attractive “older” women, who for the most part were entirely off limits to them.

I remember this one time at … (if you catch my reference) when our foster son was in his late teens, he had a good friend who was gay.

The two of them would tease my partner sometimes by using a term we were completely unfamiliar with, dilf. Milf wasn’t yet widely used or known, so it took us a while to figure out what the boys meant.

When my partner realized what our son’s gay friend was implying, he was a little bit flattered and a whole lot upset. He was put off by and even a bit frightened by the fact that a teenage boy would be talking openly about being sexually attracted to him. Most of that has to do with homophobia and societal reaction, of course.

But it does bring up an interesting point. Milf was originally used by underage boys to talk about their friend’s mothers.

I mean, I guess that alone should be enough to make people cautious about using it unless there’s certain the woman they’re talking about is comfortable with it.