How the MILF genre is gaining favor in the porn industry landscape
While the porn industry is reinventing itself in alternative sectors, increasingly paving the way for adult cinema with more ethical and inclusive formats and content that rejects sexist stereotypes, the mainstream continues on its path. Some of the biggest online porn platforms break their own records with tens of billions of visits and using the statistics they obtain, they extract data for their annual reports, which reveal the sexual fantasies that users personally enjoy in search of pleasure.
A survey profiled predominantly male consumers (68% male versus 32% female) with an average age of 41, whose main interest is the mature female figure. Mature women or even older women seem to be a magnet for attracting a younger group of male viewers. Today it is not unusual to see a 20-something guy watching Arab MILF sex movies.
The words “mature” and “MILF” reappeared in their rankings-sharing the top spot with other common words like “lesbian.” The former is the most visited category in the world. The former was the most visited category and also ranked fourth among the most searched words on the web. The second, an acronym for “Mother I’d Like to Fuck,” which is a sexist stereotype of attractive older women, was the second most searched term and the fourth most viewed category. Broadly speaking, MILF consistently occupies the top five search positions across major platforms.
When it comes to realizing this desire, the mandate in the industry is clear: young actresses playing mature women or slightly more mature women (between the ages of 30 and 40) with an equally young and vibrant appearance. The precedent was set in the generational image of American Pie in 1999 with Stifler’s Mother (Jennifer Coolidge), which also popularized the term MILF. This portrayal of a woman who, as this New York Magazine article by Em & Lo puts it, sets “a superficial standard for women to try-and fail-to fulfill the grueling final step for alpha mothers trying to have it all.” First, “the pressure to look good during pregnancy,” then, “the race to get fit at all costs after giving birth,” and then, “the small matter of reawakening your libido amid a pile of diapers.”
A good example is Tanya Tate. She is only 35 years old, and Tanya Tate has won 10 MILF of the Year awards in her short six years in adult films. The actress recognizes the irony in playing the mother of actors between the ages of 18 and 25 who could hardly be her children.
“Through advertising, television, movies, and of course pornography, we have been sent the message that older bodies are not sexy or desirable, that only younger bodies are sexy. In the porn industry, these older bodies don’t exist. Actresses are playing 20-year-old MILFs!” says Erika Lust.
“When all these scenes are filmed, it’s not really against the lack of age representation, it’s the opposite: it’s exploited. And these are movies that clearly don’t show a true representation of sex at an older age,” says Erika Lust, ethical porn director and creator of adult film platform X Confessions. Earlier this year, the director filmed Soulsex with John & Annie, an erotic fiction film whose protagonists are a heterosexual couple over 60 with attitudes that are “very different” from what is seen on the internet.
However, Tate and the other actresses are just one example and there are many others where middle-aged women are portrayed by real middle-aged women. And finally, whether the actresses involved are genuine or not, it’s clear that the “old-woman appeal” is not something strange anymore.