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. 

In Praise of Older Women

The recent gaga about older women-younger man relationships is much focused on the sex lives of celebrities (42-year-old Sam Taylor-Wood having baby with 19-year-old! Demi and Ashton still married! Madonna still with younger man!).

But most of us Himplus couples don’t attend star-studded parties or walk red carpets. We teach. We commute. We walk our dogs. We plant a peach tree in the spring. We wrestle with taxes, insurance, monthly bills.

I was reminded of the divide between my life and those celebrity Himplus couples when I read recently that Stephen Vizinczey’s “In Praise of Older Women,’’ initially published in 1965, is being re-released as a Penguin Classic.

Set against the backdrop of war, the semi-autobiographical book details the sexual education of the narrator through a series of relationships with older women, starting when he was 12. While the narrator discovers erotic pleasure, he also learns about life.

“Vizinczey is more interested in the metaphysics of sex than the mechanics; it is, for him, a means to forge a deep connection with another person, a way to liberate the soul,” writes William Skidelsky in The Observer.

In another recent interview in the Telegraph, Hungarian-born writer Vizinczey, now 76, says his fascination with older women was as much about the brain as the body.

“The most attractive thing about a woman is her intelligence. The older women in the book were intelligent enough to learn from experience. An older woman who is an idiot is clearly inferior to an intelligent 20-year-old but the intelligent 20-year-old will be even more interesting and exciting when she's 40 or 60."

He talks, too, more about relationships than about coupling. "Most relationships don't last,” he told the interviewer. “Enduring relationships depend not only on the ages of the couples but whether they are on the same wavelength.”

Still, there’s this too: "To be a young man and have a grown woman as your partner is not just attractive, it is paradise.”

Some like 'em REALLY young

Doonesbury strip takes note of Madonna's preference for younger men.