Shameless plug alert: The dissection of “MILF” continues! It seems old-line feminists like TheRoot’s Amy Alexander can’t wrap their heads around the near-explicit sex appeal of my exploding-into-the-mainstream acronym, and she asked me to defend it, along with public radio’s Grant Barrett, who also runs a “slanguage” site called Double-Tongued Dictionary (talk about explicit sex appeal).

Back in Alexander’s day, a hot mom was “more politely” referred to as a “Mrs. Robinson.” But referring to a mom as a Mrs. Robinson holds many more negative connotations — like, adultering cougar, for starters — whereas a MILF is just plain hot. As for how the McCain campaign has capitalized on MILF for Palin purposes, it’s more opportunistic than sexist, as Alexander asserts; that desperate crowd would do the same thing with an overly attractive male candidate, if a MILFman equivalent existed. Of course, I agree with Alexander that this election has highlighted the country’s widespread chauvinism. But even she’s gotta admit that it’s the MILFs, rather than the humorless Pats, who will lead us out of it.

p.s. Alexander soft-quotes me saying that Sarah Palin is a MILF, but I am too much of a publicity ho to dispute the claim. Plus, she is a super-fun phone interview and she better make good on her promise to schedule a lunch next time she’s in NYC.