‘Urban cougars’ relish in thrill of the hunt
Urban cougar: a sophisticated species of female who seeks the pleasure of younger males.
I could be one. I’m over 40 and wear hoop earrings, cool shoes and have steered clear of acid-washed denim since Harry met Sally. I’m not half bad. Just ask the college frat boys who thought my friends and I were 29, after we took them to school playing beer pong in a New York City bar.
With our husbands cheering us on nearby - OK, from an inconspicuous dark corner where a football game blared from a plasma TV - we clinked plastic cups as we beat frat boy after frat boy at their game.
Winning wasn’t even the highlight. As psyched as we may have been, our opponents graciously acknowledged they’d been beaten by a couple of experienced - and I quote - “29-year-olds.”
Well hot dayam! I knew I’d make a good cougar!
Upon returning home, naturally it was the first story I told about our wild trip to the Big Apple. Actually, it might have been the only story I recounted.
Seriously, though, I’m not sure if I’d be able to date a younger man, but there’s something wicked about being attractive to one. It certainly was exciting enough to flirt with one.
While I can’t speak from recent experience - those university boys merely wanted to beat us, not date us - I can attest that naughtiness transcends age. I wasn’t alone spending my teens wildly pursuing upperclassmen. Social mores were as rigid on Long Island in the ’80s as they are today: accessorize, spray lots of Aqua Net and never, ever date someone your own age.
Problem being, I was stuck with guys my own age until the college boys came home from break.
Whether it was absurd or adventurous or gratuitous, I engaged in an affair with a freshman. In high school. Socially speaking, it would have been more acceptable if I shacked up with the custodian. I can’t fully explain it except to offer weakly that it was indeed naughty. And off limits. And kept under wraps. And exciting. It was the only time in my entire life I’ve been with a younger man - and trust me, even now referring to him as a “man” is admittedly very disturbing, in a Mary Kay Latorneau-esque kind of way - yet even after all these years I remember it to be incredibly, beguilingly thrilling. Likely because it just simply wasn’t supposed to be. More likely because it was empowering.
I imagine even a self-assured and confident older woman might glance in a mirror a bit too often if she were hoofing around town with a man half her age. Seriously, for as hot as Demi Moore is, does she ever have days of insecurity when, say, Carrie Underwood is walking in front of Ashton on the red carpet? Or Scarlett Johansson? Come on, even sexy Cameron Diaz - in her early 30s - must have known she was a bit long in the tooth for former Mouseketeer Justin Timberlake. After a while that ooh-I’m-so-naughty impiety must turn to apprehension and uncertainty.
I much prefer the idea of being a cougar way more than I would enjoy actually being one. The thought of keeping up with a 20-something seems more exhausting than all the trips to the gym to keep off the midnight Domino’s pizza binges. Way too much work.
The truth is, it’s probably obvious that creepy, wrinkly old women with Chippendales escorts might send universal shivers of ick down spines. And regardless of how comical it may appear on cable television, the same holds true for Hugh Hefner. That’s just wrong on every level. But a mother of four getting the once-over from a few beer pong-playing frat boys? Now that’s hot.
Tina Drakakis, Carver