New Study Claims 'Cougars' Do Not Exist

[madinmaryland]

:popcorn:

For a decade now we've been chronicling the emergence of cougars in the dating jungle: women, usually over 40, who hunt younger men, or cubs, and shower them with a tantalizingly experienced kind of love — and lots of Abba music. There are cougar celebrities — 47-year-old Demi Moore married 32-year-old Ashton Kutcher — cougar books, cougar cruises and, perhaps the ultimate affirmation, cougar sitcoms, including the popular Cougar Town, starring real-life cougar Courteney Cox. What further proof do we need of this species' existence?

Michael Dunn isn't buying it. The noted psychology researcher at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff has just released a study that he insists renders the cougar craze a "myth." After examining the age preferences expressed in 22,400 singles ads on popular dating websites in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan, he found no sizable cohort of women seeking younger men. To the contrary, the share of lionesses wanted men their own age or older. Nor did he find evidence for the proliferation of cubs: the overwhelming majority of men displayed their eons-old preference for younger women. "I do believe the cougar phenomenon is a myth and, yes, a media construct," Dunn, who specializes in human evolutionary psychology and mating behavior, told the Australian Associated Press. (See a brief history of cougars.)

But faster than Madonna can pick up a 21-year-old male model, self-identified cougars and their supporters are striking back. "I get angered by this silliness," says Valerie Gibson, the British-born, Toronto-based journalist whose best-selling 2001 book, Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men, is considered the first to identify the wave that Dunn wants to debunk. Gibson, a self-described cougar who is over 40 but won't reveal just how much over, sees in studies by investigators like Dunn — who last year presented research that men who drive expensive cars really are more attractive to women — an anti-cougar bias. "Society has always told us that the older woman who is still sexual isn't supposed to exist," she says. "We should be wrapped in a shawl baking cookies for our grandchildren and all that crap."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2011796,00.html?hpt=T2#ixzz0x4olp6vz

When I was 22, I dated for a couple of years someone who was 15 years older than I was.

:shrug:

[arbusto_baboso]

1. When I was 19, I dated a 30 year old hairdresser/aerobics instructor.

I learned more that summer than I ever have before or since.

[notesdev]

13. I had a very similar experience

she was an artist by profession but boy did she deliver an education!

[slampoet]

2. It always existed as a niche behavior until they came up with a Searchterm for it

I was interested in older women when i was younger but Until the media invented MILF and Cougar as terms, none of them felt accepted by others.

[davidinalameda]

3. they wasted research money on this?

wow

[kestrel91316]

4. At my age, I have decided I would prefer a young stud to some older

guy who needs (or imagines he needs) Viagra to have a good time. Cars don't influence me. "Vigor" does, lol. But it's all in my head because I can't be bothered with the whole dating thing anyway. Too busy reading and internetting and making homemade ice cream.

[Warpy]

Remember the thing that always killed a romance stone dead?

For me, it was the request that since I was going to do my laundry, I should do his, too, the first step on the treadmill to unpaid servitude.

I finally gave up and filled my life with other things, too.

[Warpy]

5. Wealthy women have always had boy toys

and the boy toys were well taken care of, much better than the women who audition for trophy wife and don't make the cut.

I just think the phenomenon has been overstated. Most women out there making a decent living are educating children and looking toward retirement, not looking for playmates their children's ages.

Still, one of the most successful marriages among my cousins involves a 22 year age difference "the wrong way." She was hardly your typical cougar type, though, and he was and is no boy toy.

[FedUpWithIt All]

8. Thanks for the story of your cousin.

I am 13 years older than my "husband". We are a typical couple. I am not wealthy. I do not control him. He is definitely NOT pampered. The relationship is far from being built on crazy sex as we are far to tired at the end of most days, like any other couple.

The truth is that we enjoy each other. We want the same things to fill our days. We want the same future. We make each other laugh. I trust him and respect him. We make each other better versions of the people we were before we met.

I wish the term cougar had never been invented because it is simply another way that people can easily and out of hand dismiss relationships like ours. I cannot tell you how many people we have spoken with who cannot see how offensive it is to laugh about and directly refer to the father of my child as a "toy" or "kid", "baby" and other disrespectful labels. We have had people insinuate, to our faces, that we do not feel love for each other...only lust. For some apparently this type of offense is a slight we are just supposed to take because we dared try to relate outside of the social "box".



A relationship like ours is not easy. There are the prejudices of others, a whole host of self esteem issues (nearly all based on social pressures), fears about the future...

I just wish that people would be more empathetic and respectful of the choices of others.

[derby378]

15. Your story sounds a lot like ours

Right down to keeping vigil at Ginny's hospital bed.

[FedUpWithIt All]

16. ...

:hug:

I am glad she had you by her side when she needed you most.

[derby378]

17. You just reminded me...

I was her co-conspirator when she tried to sneak out of the building for a smoke break. They tried watching us carefully, and I suspect they let us get away with more than they should have, but she needed a little "normal" in her life.

[FedUpWithIt All]

21. It sounds like you love her a lot

And that she knew it. :hug:

[daleanime]

6. What difference does it make...

either way?:shrug:

[Stuckinthebush]

7. I guess the researcher didn't go to dateacougar dot com

I know a 46 year old who met her current mate on that site. He's 30 I think.

It may not be prevalent but there are a number of cougars out there.

[Xithras]

9. LOL! When I was 19, I dated a 38 year old woman.

Myth? Hardly!

It was kind of funny though...she had a 15 year old daughter who thought I was "really cute", but who was totally grossed out by the fact that someone "her age" would want to date her mom. I sort of avoided the subject, because I didn't want to tell the poor kid that our relationship was all about the bumptity-bump. The kid was going on and on about intergenerational love and marriage, when in reality her mom just wanted the opportunity to screw like a teenager again.

[Matariki]

10. Ha ha. Figures a man published this - "wanted men their own age or older" indeed.

:rofl:

[cbdo2007]

11. Has he never been to a bar?

Lots of cougars there, maybe he's just older so he doesn't realize? I don't know but there are definitely older women out there looking for younger guys, just like there are older men out there looking for younger women. What is the term for them? (nevermind, I already regret asking)

[JustAnotherGen]

12. Why would any of my friends or I

Turn our nose up at dating a younger man? In my neck of the woods - they are indeed more attractive, fit, fun, and have a ton less baggage.


I'm glad I have my boyfriend now - but even though he's 41 (I'm 37 and look quite a bit younger than my age) he's here from Italy but brought his style, verve with him. He's not the typical 41 year old guy in America that's gained 100 pounds since college and looks in the mirror and says: I've got beautiful blue eyes. Therefore I'm hot. I make six figures. Any woman who wouldn't want me is a loser." <------ The beauty of this - Swear on my mother's good name. . . I've heard these bullshit lines in singles happy hours from JUST this type of man.

Bottom line - Single older women take care of themselves. We do. It's true. Our male counterparts by and large don't, and those who do always want 21 year old blondes with tremendously large fake breasts. And there are very few of THOSE too.

So what's a girl of 37, 47, 54 to do - BUT to stay open to a man who is 27, 36, or 42? And the funny thing I learned prior to meeting my current boyfriend last October? When I had an influx of 28, 29, 30 years olds?

They don't feel their counterparts take care of themselves or have enough world knowledge. I took this to mean - The men that were asking me out in that age group - many were veterans, had traveled the world, etc. etc.:

Susie Cutsie who is 27 and "oh my god - like I just bought a new lip gloss and like- oh my god - like did you see -like kim kardashians - like latest - like show?" . . . she's not cutting it for the 30 year old guy who maybe did a few years in Iraq/Aghanistan and is now at Princeton doing a Masters in Public Administration.


No wonder THEY come looking for us . . .

[derby378]

14. I was MARRIED to an older woman

She hated the "cougar" label, so I won't call her one - she thought the term made her sound predatory when she was anything but. We were close friends who suddenly turned into something deeper.

[cbdo2007]

18. That's the problem is the label gets misused and is therefore misunderstood.

A cougar is not every woman who dates/marries an younger man.

A cougar is an older woman who goes to bars where the average age of everyone else is 21-25 years old, they dress exactly like the 21 year old girls there, and they actively try to go after the younger guys. A cougar is a "fish out of water" of some sorts who is trying to fit in and thinks/acts/looks like the younger generation, and a younger guy helps her fit into that mold.

[Brewman_Jax]

19. Individual differences

In the past past, I dated a woman that was a good bit older than me, (she wouldn't reveal her age) but she taught me some things I needed to know to be a better companion in the future. In the recent past, I was friends with a woman that was just 5 years older than me. We went out most every weekend 'til she got a job transfer out of town. Our last conversation, which started "We HAVE to talk!", so you know that it was not going to be pretty. She let me know in no uncertain terms that there was no possible future together and we were "just friends". I look a great deal younger than I am, and I think that didn't help.

To add, I've heard the various stories from some of the guys at the bar of how they "hooked up" with some older woman and had wild sex and got to drive her really cool car for a while.

To keep a very long story short, it depends on the individuals present.

[hughee99]

20. Flawed methodology, maybe?

"After examining the age preferences expressed in 22,400 singles ads on popular dating websites in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan, he found no sizable cohort of women seeking younger men."

Perhaps it is just that cougars looking to pick up younger men aren't looking on dating websites. Young men looking for sex are really easy to find, you don't need to use the personal ads or websites especially if you're not looking for a long-term relationship.

I live in a relatively small town, but there are several bars and clubs in the area where one can find cougars, and I can't imagine this is a situation unique to "small town" Massachusetts.