don't call me a cougar

As the TV show Cougar Town hits America with a contented growl, its echoes in mainstream media have surpassed all expectations. What there’s left of printed pages worldwide, all from the New York Times to the Sun make room for the older-woman-dating-younger-man phenomenon, with man comments, one as follows:

“This social phenomenon is a fad. Nobody wants to admit that these young men are motivated by a) lack of a suitable mother figure in childhood due to selfish self-absorbed baby boomer parenting b) money, property, resources, etc.. c) weariness of sex being used by younger women as a manipulation device and a bargaining chip. Many of these so called cougars have faces pumped full of botox, breasts full of silicone, and surgically rejuvenated vaginas. The rhetorical question I have for the readers is this: What do you think is going to happen to this trend when these men get the clue that there is no such thing as a satisfactory mother substitute, the economy improves, the fake enhancements wear off or become grossly freakish in contrast to the physical traits that are aging right on schedule?”

As we know, on the internet, no one knows a dog is a dog, but I have a faint suspicion that this particular gentleman is not of the perfect-abs-six-pack-shiny-black-mane-of-(natural)-hair variety. I’ve never heard a young, confident, sexy guy speak that way about an older woman. Accent on ‘confident’, here, I’m not talking about the poorly endowed ones who find fault in the most angelic of creatures. As for the older guys, they never seem to get why a young man would date an older woman, even if it’s rare to find one who didn’t have that fantasy as  a young man.

Until forty, I mainly dated older men, so a male friend in his fifties didn’t hesitate to voice his view regarding younger men dating older women: “Oh, it just makes them feel good that the women are so grateful for the sex.” It could only have been an analogy: are men so grateful for sex with a younger woman that they’re willing to pay up with lavish gifts and even marriage, that institution to be most avoided in the mind of the average male? Does the gentleman’s comment on the cougar piece reflect his own insecurities? Is he, at least in theory, if not from experience, aware that his no longer perfect abs cold only be made up for by a dignified cheque? Or that the only role he could ever play in a young beauty’s eyes is that of a father figure? Well, fear not, Sir, for all known millennia, the end of a recession or the disillusionment of not being able to replace a father figure hasn’t stopped young women to continue to search for sponsors, just as the older woman experience will continue to fascinate young men, not always for the same reasons.  In most cases familiar to me, the younger man is enthralled by the older woman and is not looking to compare her with her younger counterparts, quite the contrary, he finds a mature woman more beautiful and is attracted by her confidence, and that is unfortunately ever more pronounced due to increasing body image insecurities in generations hitting their twenties and thirties now. Yes, the economic uncertainties the gentleman commentator indicates are pushing girls to ever more clingy measures. I understand, Sir, that it’s disconcerting that the available pool of women is shrinking before your eyes now that you see it doesn’t go without saying that the forty and fifty year old ladies are at the mercy of those older gentlemen who can’t afford a younger woman – as your laws of exchange seem to indicate – but no need to take it out on us. Really.

By L’heure Bleue, guest blogista

Tags: cougar, Dating, female, toyboys

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 11:21 and is filed under Dating, Life, Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.