I used to hate the term “cougar” for all the obvious reasons. First, it conjures up images of Mrs. Robinson in a girdle and garters, smoke billowing around her alcoholic head as she seduces a vulnerable (but willing) Benjamin. Scroll forward to leopard-clad women over 40 showing too much cleavage, vogue in 4-inch stilettos, hanging out in bars, drinking wine, and dragging their young prey home. Every time the media interviewed me, I cringed, knowing the obvious questions would be asked: “Isn’t it just about sex?” “Isn’t it just about money?” I went to great lengths to explain to them that in my 20 years of research as a human behavior research psychologist and the world’s foremost authority on intergenerational dating and psychosexual imprinting (translation: cougar and cub quotes), they were wrong. The media is promoting what I called “The Myth of Stiffler’s Mom” like in the movie American Pie. Stiffler’s mother seduces a young man, but he’s not the 6-pack ab GQ type of model. He is mature for his age, intelligent. He gets into her head before crawling into her bed. Younger men and the media who think that the relationship between the younger man and the older woman is just about sex or money have never had a relationship with an older woman. If they had, they would know the truth.
The facts are pretty simple, and I say them with great certainty, as this is a demographic of people that I have formally studied for over 20 years. If you are familiar with the bell-shaped curve, you can easily see that the bell-shaped curve can be applied to almost anything in life. Let’s plot the dynamics of the younger man and the older woman and see what we find: In the middle section of the curve we have most of the older women. “Older women” can be considered any woman 20 years of age or older who dates younger men. Most of these women in the middle section of the curve are in their 40s and 50s. These are cougars. The 30-year-old women are Pumas. 20-year-old women are kittens. Cougars and kittens are out of the center of the bell-shaped curve. Let’s say they are 1 standard deviation from the Mean, to the left of the midsection. Women over 60 are Panthers. Let’s put them to the right of the middle of the bell curve. There are fewer kittens, cougars, and panthers than cougars; but for the sake of discussion, they are all “cougars”.
What is a cougar? Many women take offense at this nickname, as do I, for the reasons I have given above. People really get mad at me for using the word in my articles and research. Don’t shoot the messenger. I did not coin the word and did not mark it. Blame the media. They are the ones who want cougars to look neurotic, cartoonist, crazy kids, wacko.
I really had a viceral reaction every time I heard the word mentioned, read it in an article, or saw my fingers write it on my computer screen.
Not anymore.
This is what I have come to realize and this is what I have advocated to the thousands of members of my Cougar dating site: YOU define what a Cougar is to you. Don’t let the media. your friends, other cougars, younger men, or so-called “experts” tell you how to define yourself as a cougar. There are basic ingredients that make up the definition: an older woman dating, mating, and / or marrying a younger man. That is the basic criterion. You don’t have to look like Courteney Cox, have Demi Moore’s money, Madonna’s confidence, or Cher’s success to be a Cougar. People who say that a cougar is a “mature, successful, sexy, confident woman who knows what she wants” are leaving out most of the women who consider themselves cougars but may not be successful, sexy, or confident. . In fact, she may be fresh out of a 20 year old marriage, eyes in debt and feeling insecure about that extra 20 pounds, but finds that she is attracted and open to a relationship with a younger man.
There are “experts” who will try to tell people that a woman can be a cougar only if she is over 40 years old. It is not true. There are women on my dating site in their 20s who are dating men 7-10 years younger who consider themselves cougars. Being a cougar has less to do with your age, financial situation, body type, or confidence level than it does with your desire to date a younger man.
I really work hard to make things clear for the media; but they print lewd sex and money angle anyway.
In my PhD research project “The Childhood Psychosexual Imprint and the Effects It Has on the Relationships Between Adult Men and Women Specific to Younger Men Dating Older Women,” I interviewed over a thousand men about their desire to be with A old woman. Each man could give me a chapter and verse about a “watershed moment” in his life when the desire to be with an older woman was imprinted: a school teacher, a nanny, a friend of an older sister, my mother’s best friend. , actresses on television and movies; The list goes on and on. For these men, it was not the myth of Stiffler’s mom. It wasn’t a roll in the hay with Ms. Robinson, it was a powerful imprint that has stayed with them throughout their lives and keeps them coming back to older women over and over again.
I have interviewed men in their 30s who have married older women who are looking for their next older wife. I have interviewed men in their 40s and 50s who refuse to date women their age or younger and opt for the more mature woman. I met an 82-year-old man who told me, “I just married an older woman,” and then added with a wink, “Sex with an older woman is always better.” 82!
Psychosexual imprinting is an area of expertise of mine when it comes to the young man / older woman dynamic. The “psychopathic” part has to do with the psychological aspect of the imprint and the personality of the young person and how it is formed and printed. The “sexual” part is obvious at first glance. Imprinting is a very powerful and decisive moment in a person’s life. We all have traces, some positive, some not positive. The younger man who has positively impressed with an older woman will seek out and bond with older women for the rest of his life. It is not a one-time flash in the pan.
Here’s what the media doesn’t understand about this dating dynamic. And it is not understood by many of the so-called “Cougar Experts” who are jumping on the bandwagon to sell books and speed dating sessions. My research in this area is extensive, thorough, and documented; that’s why CNN refers to me as The Uber Cougar.
So if you are a cougar, don’t be ashamed of this term. It is not derogatory. It is not a humiliation. “He wears his leg with pride” as we say on my dating site. Define who you are as a cougar and dispel the myths that exist. And feel free to email me with any questions you may have about my research and this dynamic. Age discrimination is the last barrier we are breaking down in dating. Even if you are not a cougar, at least now you understand a little more about what one really is … and what it is not.
Happy hunting!