Hypocrisy and Ageism Behind "Cougars"

No trend is more hideous than the term cougar. From Courtney Cox's Cougartown to Air New Zealand's rightly contested cougar video, the term -- and buzzing commentary about the shocking and grotesque fact that older women are sexual beings! -- is all over the place.

At first, it might seem like mainstream culture is finally respecting the fact that women's sexuality doesn't go "poof!" as soon as they turn 30. I'd say the life span of that illusion should be about 2.5 seconds. Huff Post's major cougar fail, however, indulges in this illusion for much longer. Can anyone in all seriousness start an article about cougars with the gleeful declaration that "age is irrelevant?" (Especially when she goes on to say Hollywood has gone "the way of the dinosaur?")

Yeah, when the media goes into a frenzy comparing older women to wild cats and younger men to kittens age certainly seems irrelevant. Seems even more irrelevant when you consider the fact that the only time an older woman can be sexy is when she's a movie star with a skin tight mini-dress and a boyfriend twenty years younger than her, and seems tremendously irrelevant when age is the only thing the media can seem to talk about in reference to said women. Could we ever see a picture of Demi Moore without mentioning her age? Could an older women ever be sexy if she wasn't first labeled one of those exceptional hot older women, and if she wasn't first and foremost a (hot, old) celebrity?

The hideous term "cougar" is just another way of making women's aging and sexuality seem terrifying and absurd.  But the cougar title comes with the added hypocritical bonus of classifying younger men as "cubs." I love that society spends 99 percent of its time depicting men in their twenties as ultra-sexual beasts going "on the prowl" (to turn the cougar lingo around) for women, and then uses the other 1 percent to paint them as innocent, meowing victims of the beastly, tragic older woman's advances.

The painful, bile-raising dialogue between this smarmy ABC commentator and the organizer of a ground-breaking cougar Carnival cruise (yes, you read that right) really drives the point home. The two men, side by side on the screen, one with his slicked-back 'do and the other with his 'stash, talk about the behavior of cougars and cubs on their "party cruise" as if they were analyzing a National Geographic documentary.

The interviewer consistently tries to squeeze some allusion to sex out of the cruise organizer -- will the women be looking for long-term relationships or ... something else (wink,wink)? What will they do on this cruise? Why will they go on this cruise? This isn't an embrace of older women's sexuality. It's an appalling reinforcement of our society's depiction of older women as tragic freaks, whose sexuality we observe as if it were part of a twisted, amusing nature film.

Only The Guardian has come through with a piece questioning why cougars have been such a media sensation, and why we feel such horror and shock at the thought that older women are sexual beings. As the cougar sensation spreads (Courtney Cox, have you really sunk this low with Cougartown?) the media is reveling in another opportunity to examine older women's bodies and sexuality with the same half-bemused, half-disgusted tones.

Worse, men come off as innocent "victims" of said sexuality or as part of some bizarre sect of fetishists who could somehow enjoy being with an older women. Sigh. Is it possible to find older women attractive, to allow them to choose partners and to be sexual beings without having to create a media circus of animal metaphors out of it all?

Photo: Tambako The Jaguar's Photostream