Curious about cougars
A few years ago, a colleague told me about a great story I should check out: Had I ever heard of "cougars"? The car or the cat? I asked.
Neither. Cougar, he explained, was a term for older women catting around for younger men, or cubs. Apparently, it was all the rage in Manhattan: older women hooking up with younger guys. Having long had an aversion to the cliche of the older man and the younger woman, I was intrigued but suspicious.
In Manhattan, I scoped out bars in midtown, on the Upper West Side, and the Lower East Side. I saw plenty of middle-aged women, but none of them were with younger guys. When I explained what the term meant, most of them laughed. It was hard enough to meet men their own age, never mind the young studs, they said.
May-December romances are common, as long as it's an older guy with a younger gal. Reverse the roles, and it's considered a freak show along the lines of "Harold and Maude." Hugh Hefner, 82, is dating 19-year-old twins. Freaky? To be sure. But judging by the popularity of the reality TV show "The Girls Next Door," viewers love that stuff. The series, which is going into a sixth season, focuses on Hef's young live-in girlfriends at the Playboy Mansion. Imagine a real-life 82-year-old woman, who rarely gets out of her bathrobe, cavorting with men young enough to be her grandsons. It sure wouldn't be on TV, unless it was an episode of "Fear Factor."
Likewise, it's not unusual for a man to marry someone 20 or 30 years his junior. In fact, he's often the object of envy. But if a 25-year-old man married a 50-year-old woman, his buddies would check him into the nearest psychiatric ward. And her friends might try to stage an intervention. (I mean, why would you want to marry someone who wasn't alive when the Beatles broke up?)
Way before Mrs. Robinson seduced Benjamin Braddock in "The Graduate," the older woman/younger man thing was considered off-limits. Benjamin, of course, ended up with Mrs. Robinson's daughter. In "Animal House," Dean Wormer's wife hooked up with Otter during a fraternity party. She got sent to detox, while he kept his studly reputation.
Though "cougars" are widely known nowadays, I'd forgotten about them until recently, when I was at the gym and the television was turned to some Hollywood celebrity show. The hosts proceeded to list the top 25 cougars, including Courteney Cox and David Arquette, and the old affair between Barbra Streisand and Andre Agassi ("She was iconic before he was born"). Cher, Joan Collins, and Linda Evans were mentioned along with their various boy toys. Susan Sarandon is 14 years older than Tim Robbins. Kim Cattrall played a cougar on "Sex and the City," as well as in real life, with her beau the chef, who is 23 years younger. Demi Moore is 16 years older than husband Ashton Kutcher.
And what do these women have in common, besides younger men? They're rich, famous, and glamorous. In real life, far from Hollywood, it just doesn't happen that often.
Still, older women with younger men is more common now than it was for the parents of us baby boomers. In their day, 50 meant at least 50; it certainly wasn't "the new 40." Today, thanks to changing mores, fitness, styles - and cosmetic surgery - women look younger than ever. Many are financially independent. And they're certainly freer to enjoy sex more like men have: without the emotional attachment.
Too, demographics have changed radically from the days of Ozzie and Harriet, when "married with children" was the norm. In 2005, for the first time ever, the US Census Bureau found that more than half of all American households were headed by unmarried people.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," the main character ages in reverse: He is born an old man and grows younger, ending his life as a baby. When he's 50, he marries a 20-year-old woman. He adores her for her youth and beauty; she loves him for his maturity and worldliness. But when she's in her 40s and he's in his 20s, he "wondered what possible fascination she had ever exercised over him." They split up and never see each other again.
In the current film based on the story, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are the age-crossed couple, and, yes, issues arise. But they remain devoted to each other.
Only in Hollywood. 