“Scott” is a childhood friend. Although we’ve kept in touch over the years, we’re not particularly close. He’s more the type of friend you hang out with over a few beers, but not someone I’d pour my heart out to (and vice versa). So when he emailed me this past weekend and said he had something important to discuss, I assumed it was the worst—maybe a terrible accident, a life-threatening disease, that sort of thing. I immediately called him.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. Long pause. “Scott, do you need money? Did someone die? You know I’m here to help.”

“Dude,” he finally said meekly. “I just…I just found out the most disturbing thing.”

Shit, I thought. This sounds worse than I thought. “What is it, man? You can tell me.”

Another long pause. Then, he finally blurted it out, “I found out my mom was a…big-time slut!”

Now it was my turn to pause. I was confused. What the hell was he talking about?

“I went to see my mom for lunar new year,” he continued. “She asked me to clean out some stuff from the garage. I was going through one of her boxes and there were photos in there. Photos from when she was younger. Photos of her doing…disturbing things.”

I was…intrigued. I remembered Scott’s mom was a total MILF. She was the hot mom all us guys had our first sexual fantasies about. Scott’s father had left her when he was in the first grade and his mom supported them by waitressing at Denny’s and other similar establishments. In fact, this one time, Scott and I entered his house just in time to catch his mom buttoning up her tight pink waitress uniform and I believe a lifelong fascination with cleavage and hot waitresses was born in that moment. So like I said…I was intrigued.

“Tell me more. What kind of disturbing photos did you find?” I asked him.

“Photos of my mom having sex with different men,” he said.

A little backstory—Scott’s dad was his mom’s first love. They met when they were in junior high, dated all through high school and got married as soon as they graduated. He was the only man she had been with. So when he just picked up and left one night; leaving behind a note explaining that he made a big mistake by getting married and having a kid too soon, his mom was devastated (they soon learned he ran off with a co-worker he had been having an affair with). The photos Scott had found were from the period shortly after all this happened. His mother was newly single and working out her abandonment/rejection issues by…obviously making up for lost time.

“That’s what my mom told me at least,” Scott said. When he found the photos, he immediately confronted his mother and she didn’t make excuses for them. He said she happily admitted to sowing her wild oats for a few years following her husband’s betrayal. “I was hurt and lonely. Your dad was the only man I had slept with,” she told him. “I figured I’d make up for lost time and have some fun. What’s the big deal? I was single, no one got hurt. And I kept it from you and provided for you. You always came first so it’s not like I was out getting laid but neglecting you.”

Scott was so stunned by his mother’s matter-of-fact response that he just walked out the door and hadn’t talked to her in a week. He told me his mother had been calling and leaving multiple messages—worried that his son had rejected her like her husband did.

“Look, I have to agree with your mom,” I said, “it’s not like she did anything wrong and she sounds OK with it. I admit seeing the pictures of your own mom getting freaky would be disturbing but you have to try to put that out of your mind.”

“You don’t understand!” Scott screamed. “It’s not just pictures of her with one guy. It’s lots of guys. Jesus, there’s threesomes, a couple of shots with one of my teachers, she’s dressed up like Wonder Woman in a few of them, there’s even pictures of her fucking in front of our Christmas tree with my presents underneath! I remember that tree! I remember the gifts I got that year! She was fucking some guy wearing nothing but a green elf hat while I was sleeping in the other room—dreaming about Santa and getting my Atari 2600.”

“Hold on, back up there…threesomes? Wonder Woman? Uh…do you by chance have the pictures with you now…?”

“Dude, this is serious!”

“When you say threesomes, was it her with a chick and a guy or two guys…”

“Dude!”

“OK, I’ll be serious. Let me ask you this…if the photos you found had been of your dad banging some chicks—which we know he did while he was still married to your mother—would you be reacting like this?”

“Yes, I’d still be disgusted.”

“That’s a given, but would you still be freaked out like this?”

“Well…no.”

“Exactly! ‘Cause he’s a guy and the thought of him banging a bunch of chicks is more acceptable than the thought of her doing the same.”

“She didn’t bang a bunch of chicks.” I think this is his attempt at a joke.

“Are you sure?” I reply. “Did you see ALL the pictures?”

It sounds like he’s trying to suppress a chuckle on the other end of the line. I figure that’s a good sign.

“Look,” I continue, “your mother single-handedly worked her ass off and took care of you. She sent you through college. She loved and supported you in every way. So she liked to have sex with a lot of guys….dressed as an Amazonian superhero. With a lasso? Did she have a lasso by the way…sorry, sorry. My point is–so what? It’s not like she was a serial killer.”

“Well…she was a great mom.”

“Then why should the fact that she was much like the restaurants she waitressed in—open 24 hours with deliveries in rear—matter?”

Scott’s laughing. “Shut the fuck up, motherfucker, or I’ll kick your ass!”

“Motherfucker? Hmm, interesting word choice there.”

“Fuck you!”

“Too late, your momma already did!”

“I’m hanging up now, asshole.” I can hear him stifling more laughter.

“Wait, if you’re still uncomfortable and need me to talk to your mom for you, I’d be happy to. Just let me know her number, what kind of flowers she likes, what color lingerie looks good on her, does she like Sade? Shit, I think I saw a Wonder Woman costume at…(sound of a click) Hello? Hello? Hmm…must have been disconnected.”

And the lesson here is…if you ever find photos or other visual evidence of your hot mother having sex with a bunch of guys, I am the last person you want to call for advice about what to do.