In Defense of Cougars

The cougar concept has suddenly captured the imaginations of the American public. From Demi and Ashton, to the sixty-two year-old Erica Kane dating her daughter's ex-lover on "All My Children", to the upcoming network show called "Cougar Town" with Courtney Cox, the media is overflowing with salacious stories of the mixed-generation phenomenon.

I was a cougar forty years before the term was invented to describe women of a certain age coupling with men of an uncertain age. And I'd be one still, if those adorable young dudes understood that I'd be grateful for a little more than help in crossing the street. Unfortunately, now that I officially qualify as "elderly", I'm lucky to get a passing glance from the bag boy at the supermarket, much less a flirtatious ogle from a male of any age or state of virility. Ah well...I have some hot memories to fall back on when necessary. The first time I dated a junior man, I was 30-something and he was in his twenties. And I honestly hadn't given it a thought until he mentioned the disparity. It never occurred to me to question his age; we were contemporaries, as far as I could see, and it wasn't until he confessed that he was seeking a partner of child-bearing age with whom to reproduce that I realized I had outgrown his demographic.

However, neither that incident nor the many to follow stopped my propensity for dating men who were born years after I was. And there's a perfectly simple explanation for my preference: prime man is prime man, regardless of how old I get. The problem is really just one of timing: the world didn't catch up to me until I was in my forties, which occurred in the sixties. I had been what was then called a "Bohemian"...arty (I was, after all, a writer, not a nurse, secretary or teacher) and a divorcee. Add to that my many sexual liaisons and my frequent visits to local nudist facilities, and my reputation was solidified. I was introduced to, and rapidly bonded with marijuana, dabbled in other mind-altering substances, did a little international drug smuggling, had a house in Topanga Canyon and fell headlong into love with the new hippie lifestyle. Needless to say, all my friends were contemporaries of my children and my lovers were selected from that same pool. Despite the thrumming mantra "Don't trust anyone over thirty" that filled the smoke-filled atmosphere, I managed to edge my way into a society in which I finally felt comfortable. Regardless of my burgeoning accrual of birthdays, the men in my life remained in the same general range, somewhere between 25 and 40. Their age never figured into my equation of Exploration+Experimentation= Life, but I discovered early on that the male thirst for adventure pales after their fourth decade, so I didn't really have much choice in my selection of a Mate du Jour.

And so it was that I pioneered the Cougar explosion and I've never looked back. I applaud the current crop of women who appreciate what Mae West pointed out so many years ago: A hard man is good to find! And when you do find one, ladies....hang on to him, until, of course, he gets too old for you.