Here’s a brilliant article by Aisha Sultan at STLtoday.com on the relationship between the rising popularity of Cougar porn and the global economic crisis:

“Freud would have a field day in the video aisles at Pure Pleasure Adult Megacenters. Mommy issues are making it in a most unexpected way, and the proof is in the porn. There is a booming genre of videos devoted to eroticizing mothers. But why? What’s driving the surging interest in yummy mummies (as they quaintly refer to them across the pond)? In fact, there’s a perfect storm of factors encouraging this fantasy: a bad economy in which men have been particularly bruised and a generation of man-boys stuck in arrested adolescence.

If young men are feeling particularly hapless, helpless and jobless in this moment, a soccer mom fantasy may be comforting or empowering. Does watching a mother, an increasingly powerful figure at home, get conquered by men allow them to reassert control that has been lost in changing gender roles at home?

“A lot of younger guys come in the shop, and you’d be surprised what kind of DVDs they’re choosing,” says Jim Kleinhans, part owner of Pure Pleasure Adult Megacenters, with nine locations across the country and five in St. Louis. He noticed that mother-themed pornography took off about three years ago. He sees more interest in videos starring older women, but it seems to go beyond the allure of an experienced woman. There is also an emerging class of faux-mommy whores.

“An adult movie title might say something about soccer moms, but the girl starring in it is 19 or 20 years old,” he explained. The title itself plays off the mom fantasy — even if the actresses are nowhere near motherhood. The mom-themed videos have been gaining momentum over the past several years, he said. “It’s become a major proportion of our sale and rental income,” Kleinhans said.

For earlier generations, there was the iconic Mrs. Robinson seducing the graduate. Then there was Stifler’s mom on “American Pie” deflowering a high school senior. Stifler’s mom, played by the dishy Jennifer Coolidge, may be single-handedly responsible for propelling a slang acronym that describes a mother someone would like to bed (using graphic language unfit for publication) into popular lexicon. She helped usher in an era of mainstream mommy lust.

Coolidge, who is performing her stand-up act this weekend at Comedy Etc. in Fairview Heights, says her role in the “American Pie” movies has made her an international magnet for younger men.

“It was always the cliché of men leaving their wives for younger women,” she said. “The playing field is sort of even now. Women make their own salaries. They can do the exact same thing and can have a younger man.”

For every woman threatened by her husband’s nubile secretary, there’s a man wary of the 18-year-old, strapping pool boy.

Coolidge noted a difference, however, in how American men, specifically, respond to her.

“The British boys really, really go nuts … to them, an older woman is sexy, and it’s an incredible fantasy. … I think the American fantasy is still about men wanting control. Maybe American men don’t feel as in control of their lives.”

Coolidge noted how her last boyfriend responded to her own dynamic stage presence.

“The last guy I was with, it was my lack of confidence (offstage) that he was attracted to. It was all about being smaller than him,” she said. “Younger guy are attracted to a strong quality. But many men (obviously, not all) still want to find a way to control it.”

We recently wrote about the new sexier image of motherhood, which Coolidge certainly embraces. There are plenty of mothers who consider being seen as sexually desirable as a compliment.

But it’s more than just the image of mothers that has changed in recent years: The lackluster economy, which has been shedding jobs for a prolonged period, has taken a toll on men, because male-dominated industries have been harder hit. As more men have lost their wage-earning status, more women have taken on the role. And, recent research indicates that not only are more wives outearning men, in a third of marriages, they are better educated, as well.

Could the “Rise of Wives” be reviving an unresolved Oedipal Complex? A 40-year-old male friend, with a self-described casual interest in this subject, says the reason most men like mommy porn is much less complicated than a subconscious desire to regain control in the face of emasculating social and economic forces.

“It is naughty,” he explained. “This is ultimately a fantasy in which a man has stumbled across a hidden treasure trove of sexual pleasures which have been covered up with dowdy clothes and a mass of responsibilities. The woman is still vital and hungry — and when engaged, voracious.” But even in his example, the man gets to set the mother free, unlock her pent-up desire.

Still, he’s probably the wrong demographic to explain a mother’s allure. It’s the tastes of much-younger, perennially noncommittal man-boys that are more curious. They are part of the generation raised dependent on helicopter mommies to rescue them, and now they’re attracted to a fantasy in which men sexually humiliate the supermom-next-door. Coincidence?

Perhaps, in our hypersexualized culture, the fringes of social boundaries are the most erotic. Whatever is propelling the mommy fetish in pornography, it does give Freudians a shot at a rather literal case study.”

Click here for the original article.