Cougar is a

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

term for a woman who seeks romantic or sexual relationships with significantly younger men.

Terminology and age

The origin of the word ''cougar'' as a slang term is debated, but it is thought to have originated in

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and first appeared in print on the Canadian dating website Cougardate.com possibly as early as 1999. It has also been stated to have "originated in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, as a put-down for older women who would go to bars and go home with whoever was left at the end of the night". Though, as with many formerly derogatory terms, there has been an increasing effort to " reclaim" the term in recent years. The term has been variously applied to middle-aged women who pursue romantic or sexual relations with men more than ten to fifteen years younger than they are. Occasionally, the slang term "puma" (itself a literal synonym for cougar) is used to denote a woman under the age of 40 who prefers to date significantly younger men, that is, a younger cougar.

Academia

A 2010 British psychological study published in '' Evolution and Human Behavior'' asserted that men and women, in general, continue to follow traditional

gender role A gender role, or sex role, is a social norm deemed appropriate or desirable for individuals based on their gender or sex. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity. The specifics regarding these gendered ...

s when searching for mates, and thus concluded that the posited "cougar phenomenon" does not exist, or more precisely, exists but is rare. The study found that most men preferred younger, physically attractive women, while most women, of any age, preferred successful, established men their age or older. The study found very few instances of older women pursuing much younger men and vice versa. The study has been criticized, however, for limiting their results to online dating profiles, which are traditionally not used by those seeking older or younger partners, and for excluding the United States from the study.

Media

The cougar concept has been increasingly used in television shows, advertising, and film. Barney Stinson in the TV Show ''

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'' used the term in 2006. The 2007 film '' Cougar Club'' was dedicated to the subject. In spring 2009,

TV Land TV Land is an American pay television channel owned by Paramount Global through its networks division's MTV Entertainment Group. It was originally launched as Nick at Nite’s TV Land as a spinoff of Nick at Nite programing block consisting e ...

broadcast '' The Cougar'', a reality series in which an older woman would pick a date from twenty younger men. Similarly, '' Extreme Cougar Wives'' was a reality television special broadcast which aired on TLC in 2012. It followed several women and their journeys dating younger men. The 2009 sitcom ''

Cougar Town ''Cougar Town'' is an American television sitcom that ran for 102 episodes over six seasons, from September 23, 2009, until March 31, 2015. The first three seasons aired on ABC, with the series moving to TBS for the remaining three seasons. AB ...

'' originally explored the difficulty and stigma of many so-called cougars. In ''

The Graduate ''The Graduate'' is a 1967 American independent romantic comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols and written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, based on the 1963 novella by Charles Webb. It stars Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddoc ...

'' (1967), a married mother pursues a much younger man (21 in the film). On the soap opera ''

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'', character Eve Donovan is a cougar, repeatedly sleeping with the much younger JJ Deveraux. The "cougar phenomenon", as it is called, is frequently associated with present-day, glamorous celebrities such as

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...

Sam Taylor-Johnson Samantha Louise Taylor-Johnson ( Taylor-Wood; born 1967) is a British filmmaker. Her directorial feature film debut was 2009's ''Nowhere Boy'', a film based on the childhood experiences of the Beatles' singer and songwriter John Lennon. She is ...

and

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. However, it has been claimed that the trend of influential women dating younger men extends back a lot further through history to notable figures including

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...

Catherine the Great Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...

and

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudo ...

. Rasa von Werder, also known as Kellie Everts, had become a self-proclaimed cougar herself and photographer of younger men in her later years, in and around the

college town A college town or university town is a town or city whose character is dominated by a college or university and their associated culture, often characterised by the student population making up 20 percent of the population of the community, bu ...

Binghamton, New York Binghamton ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the c ...

. At

Binghamton University The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public university, public research university in Binghamton metropolitan area, Greater Binghamton, New York, United States. It is one of the four uni ...

, she was interviewed by and featured several times on the front page of their student newspaper. She has written extensively about her experience as well as the general social phenomenon in several books, including ''Old Woman, Young Man: Why They Belong Together'', Parts I and II (2011 and 2019, respectively), and more recently in ''The Man Whisperer: How an Old Lady Snags Young Men for Sex'' (2024).

References

External links

{{Portal, Human sexuality Sexuality and age Sexual slang Slang terms for women Metaphors referring to animals Age-related stereotypes Pejorative terms for women

Terminology and age

Academia

Media

See also

References

External links