Cougars on the prowl? New perceptions of older women’s sexuality

Cougars on the prowl? New perceptions of older women’s sexuality. In the past decade, the term cougar has become a popular descriptor of older, unmarried women who express their sexuality by publicly pursuing younger men for casual relationships or sexual encounters.

Highlights

• •We explore the term “cougar” to understand views on older women’s sexuality.
• •Cougar is a new sexual script countering discourses linking aging and asexuality.
• •Most women object to the word cougar due to its predatory and forceful connotation.
• •Some women note that cougars recognize older women’s sexual desire and appeal.

Abstract

Images of women’s sexuality beyond the age of forty are lacking in popular culture. Recently, however, the term cougar has been embraced by American media as a label describing “older” women who assertively pursue younger sexual partners. This term and women’s opinions of it can be viewed as exemplary of two competing ideologies about aging and sexuality. These are: 1) recognition of older women’s sexual desire, consistent with new trends that promote lifelong sexual health and sexual activity; or, 2) linking aging and asexuality, when the term cougar is used as a pejorative that reinforces age and gender stereotypes. Based on in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of 84 women in their 20s–60s, we explore reactions to this term and its implications for women’s aging and sexuality. We find that the majority of women viewed the label cougar negatively, or had mixed feelings about what it suggests regarding older women’s sexuality, particularly as it marked women as predators or aggressors. Some women, however, embraced the term or its meaning, as indicative of the reality of older women’s sexuality and continued sexual desire.

Introduction

It’s dangerous business tracking a cougar—a sophisticated species of female who seeks the pleasure of younger males. These are 40-ish women who have no qualms about picking up—or getting picked up by—the same boys they sent off to bed for being naughty when they were babysitters. Men their own age? They’ve been there, done that, and collected the alimony…. [In New York City clubs] you can see cougars in their natural habitat—strappy heels, cleavage, a little too much makeup and a glint in their eye.(New York Post, Kane, 2006)

In the past decade, the term cougar has become a popular descriptor of older, unmarried women who express their sexuality by publicly pursuing younger men for casual relationships or sexual encounters. This term is unique in its acknowledgment of sexual desire among older women. Although cougar is often used as a pejorative or caricature of a desperate divorcee, it recognizes the fact that women can continue to have sex lives beyond the age of forty. This is a new way of viewing older women, who have generally been perceived as disinterested in sex or as undesirable and unattractive sexual partners.

As a common descriptor for sexually aggressive older women, the term cougar is relatively new. According to lexicographer Barrett (2007), it appears that the term first became popular in North America after the 2001 publication of a self-help type book by Valerie Gibson entitled Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men. However, Barrett traces the word’s origin to 1999 when a dating website designed to match older women and younger men was founded, as was later documented in a 2001 article in the Toronto Globe and Mail. He noted that, “the story … is that one of the two women who founded the website was told by a nephew that the two ladies were like cougars in search of small defenseless animals.” A search of major American newspapers shows that the first time the word cougar was used in print in such a capacity was in 2006, in an article in the New York Post called, “Cougar hunting—Prowl into NYC’s hottest scene: Older women, young guys” (Kane, 2006). Later that same year, an American film called The Cougar Club, about older women who pursued sexual relationships with younger men, was released. It was not again until 2008 that the word cougar was used in a major U.S. newspaper, when it was the subject of eight articles, and then it appeared in twelve articles in 2009, fourteen in 2010, and eleven in 2011. This is evidence of the increasing commonality and popular use of the term.

Furthermore, in 2009 both an American reality television dating series, “The Cougar,” and a situation comedy, “Cougar Town,” began to air. And, in 2012, there were numerous online dating services that focused specifically on pairing older women with younger men, such as “dateacougar.com,” “cougarlife.com,” “maturekiss.com,” and, “datemrsrobinson.com.” Cougars have become ubiquitous representations of older women’s sexuality; yet, attitudes about them have not been explored. In this paper, we examine attitudes about the term cougar and the behavior associated with this identity as a way of understanding ideologies about women’s sexuality and aging. As there are no other similar identifiable tropes or images of a libidinous older woman, we find analysis of this word to be especially useful as an example of deviation from traditional/dominant sexual scripts both in terms of age and gender.

It is important to study the ways in which ideologies about women, aging, and sexuality are constructed and negotiated, particularly those which differ from dominant understandings of sexual expression because behavior is influenced by culture. Norms for age-appropriate sexual expression influence interpersonal behavior and social interaction and may create self-fulfilling prophecies (Kuypers and Bengtson, 1973, Simon and Gagnon, 1984). When people view older women as asexual, women may feel less sexual or believe they should be disinterested in sex. This may present problems as research suggests that a decrease in sexuality dampens the enjoyment of later life (Katz & Marshall, 2003), and desire helps older people maintain a sense of cultural engagement and personal satisfaction (Dowd, 2012).

Thus, analysis of attitudes regarding the term cougar illuminates contemporary mores of sexual display for older women and provides insight on how women who show their sexuality in an assertive or obvious manner are regarded by their peers and women more generally. We look at the term cougar as demonstrative of competing ideologies about aging and sexuality. These are: 1) the dominant discourse which links aging and asexuality, found within the health and gerontology literature, as well as in some sociological studies of sexuality; and 2) an alternate discourse which recognizes older women’s sexual desire, as noted in qualitative investigations of older women’s sexuality.

The study of “older” women’s sexuality

Women’s sexuality during mid-life, between the ages of thirty and sixty, has largely been neglected in research. Several recent survey-based studies (Carpenter et al., 2006, Koch et al., 2005, Kontula and Haavio-Mannila, 2009, Waite et al., 2009) have been notable exceptions to this dearth of literature and examine how private sexuality, primarily defined as sexual activity and satisfaction, changes for women as they age and experience the middle years (see Edwards and Booth, 1994, Levy, 1994,

Following sexual scripts

To contextualize women’s opinions of the term cougar we look at the perceived behavior of the cougar as a new sexual script (Simon and Gagnon, 1984, Simon and Gagnon, 1986, Simon and Gagnon, 2003). Sexual scripts can be seen as social guides that shape individual awareness and actions, as well as appropriate contexts of interaction, and function to elicit expected emotional experiences. There are three types of sexual scripts: cultural scenarios, which are models for behavior that allow

Method

Between September 2008 and July 2011, the first author conducted in-depth interviews with ninety-five women aged 20–68. Participants were primarily recruited by snowball sampling. The aim was to recruit a sample stratified by age, race, marital, and parental status. The primary focus was age, thus the first author sought a minimum of fifteen and a maximum of twenty women in each of the age groups between the ages of twenty and sixty. Thus, twenty of the women interviewed were in their 20s, 20

Findings

The term cougar was familiar to most women interviewed (82%), and most had an opinion on its use and implications for women’s sexuality. Only fifteen women had never heard the term before, and these women were from all age groups. Approximately half of the women who did not know the term were in their 50s or 60s; but, three women in their 20s, three in their 30s, and two in their 40s had never heard the word cougar used in reference to women’s sexuality. Reactions to the term were diverse;

Discussion

Sexual scripts call attention to the interplay between cultural scenarios and intrapsychic scripts; that is, the way that individuals process or make sense of societal expectations for sexual behavior (Simon & Gagnon, 1984). People are rewarded for conformity to dominant sexual scripts. Resistance to the term cougar was due to the fact that the image of the cougar violates traditional sexual scripts that label women as passive and men as aggressive. Many women disliked the idea that cougars

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Penn State Abington Career Development Professorship and the Abington College Undergraduate Research Activities program, which provided support for this research. We also thank the two reviewers for their very helpful comments…