Misstropolis

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The Anti-Cougar Manifesto

by Marissa Miley

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Cougars have been on the prowl a lot recently. At least, that’s what it seems like when picking up a newspaper or magazine these days. From The New York Times to Harper’s Bazaar to CNBC to Star Jones in the New York Post, it’s hard to go a week without reading something about the cougar – that older woman who dates (i.e. “preys on”) younger men.

Back when I first heard the term some years ago, I thought it was funny – a liberal, coquettish take on a cultural phenomenon that had been little talked about at the time. I laughed along with others at the title of a self-help book called Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men and then again when dating sites started to spring up online (gocougar.com, dateacougar.com, and urbancougar.com). Soon Internet social networking groups caught on (“Cougar Girls Rock”), along with Facebook applications (“Which Sexy Celebrity Cougar Are You?”) and offline events like cougar cruises and cougar speed dating.

I thought it was cool to be a cougar. I certainly thought it was cooler than being a MILF, that infamous acronym popularized in the 1999 movie American Pie. MILF: the attractive 30- or 40-something woman, with a tight body and even tighter clothing. MILF: Mother I’d Like to Fuck.

I found MILF crass. It sounded like what it was: another example of female objectification fulfilling a male fantasy. But for me, cougar was different. It seemed empowering, positive. At first, cougar called attention to a woman’s embrace of her sexual self, to her desires and fantasies. It didn’t stem from any male fantasy, or so I thought at the time. The cougar was strong and predatory, whereas the MILF was meek. So I celebrated the cougardom and its most famous royal, Demi Moore, who at that time had just started dating Ashton Kutcher.

But then I learned that in 2004, Billy Joel - the music legend I listened to growing up, the same Piano Man my parents listened to when they were young - married a 23-year-old named Katie Lee when he was 55 years old. That’s a 32-year difference. Billy was a classic cougar, except for one thing: he wasn’t a woman. So what was I to call him? What was the media calling him? It turns out, something light or sweet: “involved in a May-December romance”, attracted to “arm candy”, Katie’s “Sugar Daddy”.

There was simply no male counterpart for cougar – then or now – just as there are no male counterparts for “bitch” or “slut”. (No, “male slut” does not count.) What’s more: The cougar is just one beast in a growing jungle of misogynist slang. There are Kittens (20-somethings), CITs (Cougars in Training), and Jaguars (50-something women seeking younger men). Cougar Hunters, too. (For a truly ridiculous sampling of this, see Kevin Alexander’s article in Boston Magazine.)

I used to think that by calling a woman a cougar, I was being progressive. I thought I was using a friendly moniker to denote the woman who was powerful, successful, and knew what she wanted: a younger man. No more. Just see NBC’s “Age of Love,” a dating show that pitted 20-something kittens against 40-something cougars in pursuit of one hot Australian man. (The winner, no surprise, was 25.) Or watch the straight-to-DVD Cougar Club in which Faye Dunaway (why Faye?!) plays the over sexualized wife of a college grad’s boss.

My guy friends laugh whenever I ask them about cougars. They’re very excited I’m spending my time researching and writing about them. They think it’s hot – in the same way they think lesbians are hot. That’s because cougars are part of a male fantasy, not a female one. The young guy who can score a woman in her 40s, with a career, with ambition, who knows what she wants? Clearly, that young guy is the ultimate stud.

By embracing denigrating nicknames like cougar, we’re complicit in a contemporary form of our own objectification. In the end, a cougar isn’t empowered. She’s only as hot as the guy who goes for her.

This is the first in a two part series on the Cougar Phenomenon by Manhattan based contributor Marissa Miley.