AARP's advice for Cougars

How to be a cougar? First, get rid of the old-lady underwear. Go for the sexy stuff, advises AARP. Get a thong! A push-up bra! Garter belts!

AARP has joined the Cougar Nation. In “How to Be a Cougar: 7 steps to snagging a younger man,” author Pamela Satran tells older women to get flashy and trashy.  Forget about “making love.” Just “have sex. ” Oh, and this: be sure to tell that young man how AWESOME he is.

“Let’s practice,” writes Satran.

Young guy: "I'm in my third year of law school." You: "Awesome!"

Young guy: "I'm into skateboarding and hanging out with my dog, Spike." You: "Awesome!"

Young guy: "Let's get naked." You: "Whoa there! I mean, awesome!"

We burned our bras 40 years ago for this??  Well, OK. I never did actually burn a bra, but I did have that “click” moment of radicalization so aptly described by Jane O’Reilly in the first issue of Ms. Magazine in 1971. (Mine wasn’t about lingerie; it was about being assigned to make coffee for the men in the office.)

Probably I never burned a bra because I had so few of them. I once had lots of lacy lingerie when I was too young to make much use of it. (Although my sister did introduce me to the man who became my first husband by saying, This is my sister who wears black underwear. That was in the pre-Gloria Steinem days. Thanks, sis.)

In the heady days of liberation, we protested being sex objects and trashed the Frederick’s-of-Hollywood look. Now, apparently, buying hot pink pushups is a way to feel good about yourself, for women young and old, married or single, cougars or not. That’s probably good, in a full-circle kind of way. But what about flaunting that slinky bustier?  Some young women in the post-Steinem era seem to be reframing the underwear question in a provocative way, leaving little to wonder about. We are sexy, they say. But we are not sex objects. And we will not be told to make coffee for the guys in the next office.

Perhaps older women can take a lesson from their young sisters in the Advanced Lingerie department. But that advice about attracting a younger man by flashing your thong and pandering to his ego seems creepy to me. It prowls at the edge of an era when women thought they couldn’t be both sexy AND smart, when they believed they had to act stupid before a man would find them interesting. Really, AARP? Awesome?

That’s a little like asking, Coffee, tea, or me?

Elizabeth Taylor's younger man

was also her last husband. Larry Fortensky, poof-haired, side-burned, cleft-chinned, ever-silent, twenty years her junior when 59-year-old Liz married him in 1991. They divorced five years later.

Looking for his public comment on Taylor’s death? You won’t find it. He doesn’t talk about her, nor does he seek the camera. When the glamourous Hollywood icon married her younger teamster in 1991, People magazine reported that he never made public comments about his wife. They divorced five years later, and still, he had nothing to say. Now he’s 59, traveling around the country in a trailer, according to a tabloid’s interview with his sister. And though the website Third Age put Elizabeth Taylor in its Cougar Hall of Fame for her marriage to him, he’s never turned his five years of mega-fame as Mr. Elizabeth Taylor into a gig on Survivor or Celebrity Apprentice. Big ups to you, Larry.

But that doesn’t stop the tabloids and gossip websites from speculating about their relationship even now. Did she buy his silence? Did she help him out with house payments? Did she instruct her manager to shield her from his calls?

My problem with the tabloids and their speculations is that their imaginations are so limited. I don’t care if she bought Larry’s silence. I’d rather imagine what he said the last time they spoke. I’d like to know where he was sitting when he learned that she had died, the light by which he read it, on a computer or in the newspaper. Did he notice her name on a Fox News crawler while drinking coffee at a truckstop in New Mexico? Did one of her children call him? Or send a text? When he heard, what did he remember first? The time he first walked into a room at the Betty Ford clinic and saw her, how he tried not to stare? Or how he did stare because what else was there for him to do? When he learned about her death, did he fork another bite of spaghetti, or light a cigarette, because, what else was there to do? Did he want to tell the waitress that the way she carried herself reminded him of someone he once knew?

Tell me that, National Enquirer. Answer those questions, Daily Mail.

Sarah Palin as Cougar

Cougarish?

Sarah Palin may be losing the hearts of the American people, but she has the libidos of more than a few young men all atwitter.

In a recent poll by Bloomberg News, only 28 percent of respondents in the telephone survey, taken from March 4-7, viewed the former Alaska governor favorably, at least in a political way. Sixty percent disapproved, more than half of them telling pollsters they viewed her very unfavorably.

But over at cougared.com, an online dating website matching older women and younger men, 250 young men polled in January gave Palin their top ranking as cougar fantasy woman.

Men in the survey ranged from 18 to 46+, with almost half in the 20-25 range.

Palin, 47, was the top crush for young men, with almost 1 in 4 (24%) naming her their top fantasy cougar. Respondents were asked to rank 12 older women, including tea party favorite Christine O’Donnell (2%), news anchor Diane Sawyer (3%) , and Kim Cattrall from "Sex and the City" (6%).

Right behind Palin were TV cougar Courteney Cox (21 percent) and cougar legend Demi Moore (19 percent). Madonna, at age 52, got 10 percent.

What turns on a younger guy?

Half the young men in the survey said this: maturity and confidence. Palin sure has one of those. 

Meanwhile, across the pond ...

A few weeks back we noticed a new square in our palette of followers. It wasn’t a face like this

or even a blogspot human representation like this

Instead, it was this.

Turns out that’s a paw print, and it belongs to a British blogger married to a “much younger man” and author of Beyond Cougar. On her site, Jo writes,

Beyond Cougar is for women, like me, who just happen to love a younger man, but can't stomach being branded as a 'Cougar'. … I write about relationship issues, and when I'm not doing that, I'm working in a senior marketing role - for now - the freelance world beckons! Enjoy your visit - I'd love to hear from you with comments and suggestions.

Jo xx

Jo's subjects have included Ten Reasons to Date a Younger Man and The Pressure of Looking Good When Dating a Younger Man. This week's topic is the backlash against Cougs.

We duck in to Beyond Cougar from time to time, and back when we first noticed it we added it to our blogroll. We’d follow Jo’s blog if it offered a function for following (it's WordPress, not blogspot).

But we notice that Beyond Cougar’s blogroll lacks any HimPlus17 action … Hey, Jo! How about a little love for the Yanks?

The New York Times

is "Rethinking the Older Woman-Younger-Man Relationship." In an article that appears online in today's NYT, journalists wring their hands over "cougar hype" (see previous post) while sociologists are discovering what some of us have already known for a while:

[B]ehind the unleashing of cougars in pop culture is what a growing number of sociologists say is a real demographic shift, driven by new choices that women over 40 are making as they redefine the concept of a suitable mate.

The article cites a 2006 study of couples in an older woman-younger man marriage, which found "surprisingly positive attitudes among the couples."

The study, published in the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, reported that the couples thought their age difference mattered more to the outside world than to them.

This news comes just in time for Michael's birthday (tomorrow), in which he turns the same age I was when we married 16 and a half years ago. I'd count us among those with "surprisingly positive attitudes," although it's probably not surprising to anyone who knows us.

Happy Birthday, Michael.

CougarCon 09

California leads a grateful nation, once again ...