I hate the term "cougar" too! And people say it like they're spitting it out . . . KEW -grrrr . . . pretty derogatory. How annoying it's now mainstream enough to be a lame TV show title.

Besides, what a relatively unsexy animal. They could have at least gone for jaguar, or lynx, or panther, or tigress. But no. Cougar.

I used to call men over a certain age silver foxes. But now, I'm afraid it'll have to be bristly boars.

Am I really the first? I went hunting for something readable about this show, and this is the first thing I found. It was a pleasure, thanks!

Course I had to write about it, too. Condensed version: I'd like a reality show where I have a chance to date Vivica Fox, and they give me this. Pfff.

Overwhelming older women are our mothers returned. The SNL skit--with their cringing boys--catches the spirit of it: the "relationships" are incestual, more than gross.

I like Cougars, and older women. Cougars are cool animals, not feral wildcats. They have power, stealth and beauty. I can understand the exhaustion and frustration with the term, but animal comparisons are a long tradition, for worse but sometimes better.

Going at it like rabbits can be fun! I like to choke chickens, just to a 'little' death, not a real one. Those naughty monkeys need to be spanked, if they can find the snake in the turtleneck. Some men like to have have a bear by the tail, while others prefer an eager beaver. Maybe I'm just a horny toad.

I mean, we often refer to powerful animals when discussing sex... tigers, stallions, etc. We don't usually call actively sexy people "mice", say, or "guinea pigs". Cougar fits the mold.

I can understand Ms Traister's reaction. But... is this really a question of 'stereotyping' older women with younger guys? Isn't it also about celebrating more choices for older women? Doesn't it at least make the possibility of older women - younger men connections more visible (a possibility that, some time ago, would simply be met with ridicule or claims that he is a gigolo)?

To me, Ms Traister's reaction seems a bit exaggerated. I don't think there is anything necessarily "empowering" about any specific sexual arrangement -- older women and younger men, older men and younger women, people of the same age --; what is "empowering" is the possibility of choice. And I don't see anything being forced on older women; I see simply one more choice available to them. Female sexuality compared to "cattiness"? It's an old trope; yet it doesn't prevent men from being "lions", does it?

Who's with a hot young chick?

It's called Cinemax Late Night.

=)

I find useful to revert the genders to see the double standards.

An older man who tries to seduce a younger woman is called.

a) "Dirty old man" if he has not money .

b)" Sugar daddy" if he has money.

a) is more likely because the poor are more than the rich.

So you see that the same way women are unfairly judged by their age/beauty, men are unfairly judged by their money.

My basic take on human nature is that women and men are 'same same, but different'. It's the differences between men and women that have always been exaggerated, in order to keep women in their place and ensure that privileges like dating young people should remain the natural perogative of men. Anything that sends out the message that women are a diverse gender, seeking and wanting many different things, all of them acceptable, is great.

wrinkly women should date someone their own age.

shouldn't this be made a crime?

Men with overactive libidos have been known as "wolves" for decades, if not centuries, and that's not a flattering term, either. In fact, it's what you used to call a man if you wanted your daughter to avoid him. This is not the first time prudery has appeared in western culture.

Besides, what the hell is wrong with a cougar? They're beautiful, strong, and independent, and they don't take shit. How is this NOT a feminist icon, exactly? You at Broadsheet yammer about sexual freedom and lack of empowering symbols all the time. Then Mother Nature herself hands you a doozy, and you whine because the Mean Old Men sneer when they say it? Who gives a fuck if they sneer? That's when you use it anyway.

Jesus, do we old farts have to spell out everything for you? I thought you college kids were smart.

Cougars and panthers are the same animal, also known as a mountain lion or puma, depending on where you are from.

Not really relevant, I suppose, just kind of a neat bit of trivia.

Good article, but I'm sorry to see the old myth repeated about women earning 78 cents to a man's dollar.

Look closely at that figure (or even not so closely) and you'll see that it is misleading apples-to-oranges comparison at best.

When controlled for variables like education, time in the workforce, occupation, etc. the number is 98 cents to the dollar. Still not parity, but damn close.

But it's not as impressive as saying 78 cents, so people will keep repeating the lie. These are the same people who probably repeat the myth that 10 percent of the population is gay, when it is actually closer to 3 percent.

Does Rebecca Traister even LIKE fucking? at all?

I get the idea that you have to analyze the SHIT out of fuck paradigms and relegate them into reductive categories wherein practically all women end up dangling from the short ends of a variety of crooked sticks.

I understand this is a Salon where we only discuss intimacy unfolded methodically and meticulously over the longest term but for fuck's sake do you even HAVE a secret wild side where the sexy bitch comes out to play without mangling the phallus and caging the rare raging female libido?

I think you're reading too much into this. Besides once a word gets a definition codified into our language there's no turning back so don't let yourself get too upset.