Cougars and Such

The topic of cougars keeps coming up in my life.  Some have said I am a cougar, although technically, I don’t meet the full definition.   But cougars are not just women, either.   There are “man-cougars” too.  Let’s start with the female cougars, though, since that seems to be the hot topic these days.

A female cougar is a woman usually 40 years or older who exclusively pursues very young men, at least 10 years her junior, but typically  young enough to be her son.  So a cougar in her 40’s would pursue a male partner in his 20’s, a cougar in her 50’s would pursue a man in his 30’s, you get the picture.  It has been a part of pop culture probably since the movie The Graduate with Ann Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman. We all remember that scene, don’t we?  These days WAAF even advertises a site for men to find cougars (hey but doesn’t that take away the stalking role of the woman?) complete with a jingle that goes: ” date a cougar, date a cougar”.  It’s both funny and absolutely for real.

A man-cougar is defined as an older man, usually middle aged who pursues and succeeds in dating younger women.  It is not known whether the cougar got its name due to the predatory behavior of actual cougars in the wild, in comparison with the predatory behavior of the “human cougar”, or due to the fact that older women who may pursue younger men have been known to wear a lot of wild cat prints.  Personally, I prefer the first idea.  The last one seems a little tacky.

Regardless, the reason I bring all this up is that I am aware that although this kind of cougarism, if you will, is quite common, there is still a societal taboo about it, whether it is older woman/younger man or older man/younger woman.  It has been described as both “disgusting” and “wrong”, among other things I’m sure.

But why is it disgusting and wrong?  If you think it is disgusting and wrong, I invite you to look at where your views are coming from.  What’s true is that we are all souls within these bodies.  While one person may be chronologically older than another, maybe the “younger” person actually has a more advanced soul than the older person.  And what I also know to be true is that we are attracted to people many times due to the souls inside of them, not due to their age or even their bodies in some cases.  If our souls have a history with each other from past lifetimes, we may be attracted regardless of age.  And as one member of our meditation group pointed out, there is the fact that in the older woman/younger man cougar situation, both partners are likely to be at their sexual prime.  And I would argue if that’s the case- it’s a good thang!

I will say there are a couple of caveats.  One, I am talking about consenting adults here.  Certainly not about children.  And two, when there is a power differential, such as an older boss pursuing a younger employee, I can see that may become exploitative.  With an older woman pursuing a younger man in general, yes I admit there is a power differential but since men are more powerful than women in our society, it doesn’t count, in my eyes.  And as for those older guys pursuing younger women, depending on how much younger, etc., there may be some room for debate.

What do you think?  Are you for it or against it?  Have you ever experienced it?  If you think it’s okay, do you think it can ever be a “serious” thing, as in a long term relationship, or do you see it as just for sexual fun?