Saturday Night Live (SNL) on NBC has run a skit a few times called "The Cougar Den" featuring three actresses playing deep-throated, menopausal nightmares drooling over teenage boys. TV Land has a reality show called The Cougar in which 20-something males compete for the affection of a hot 40-something female. ABC Studios will premiere a half-hour comedy series in their Fall 2009 lineup called Cougar Town and straight from their online site is the following synopsis:

"Can a woman of a certain age be a mom, a successful career woman and still be on the prowl? Jules Cobb is about to give it a try. In a small Florida town, the center of high society is the Cougars high school football team... which is wildly appropriate since this town is the natural habitat for over-tanned, under-dressed divorcées prowling for younger men. Jules desperately doesn't want to be one of them, but with an ugly divorce behind her and 40 staring right back at her, she's longing for a little more action in her life..."

Courteney Cox is the star and one of the producers of Cougar Town and both she and ABC are trying to cash in on a pop culture topic that is en vogue and coming to the fore front. So sadly and much to my dismay or rather my ire, the slang term that refers to a woman who is 40+ and dates younger men, does not appear to be going away anytime soon.  

Why does it stick in my craw?

Because it is just one more label, one more category, one more way to objectify and diminish women.  

Popular cultural myth is that a woman must have anxiety when she is 40 or older. Because once she hits 40, she's middle-aged, over-the-hill, dried up and desperate for a man or any validation since she's no longer a 20 or 30-something. The United States is a youth obsessed culture and females are under so much more scrutiny than their male counterparts.

We are analyzed every step of the way from the moment we begin to walk to the day we are no longer walking. When I was a girl of 11 or 12, I began to feel the eyes of men looking at me I in way that was completely inappropriate since I was far from being a woman. As I grew older and more confident, I had to walk that fine line between embracing my own sexuality and yet not using it as a way to get ahead. Too little sex and we're given the label prude. Too much sex and we're given the label whore. Women make a choice early on if they will use their sex to gain acceptance or their brains. Both can leave us struggling for equality and respect.

Men don't go through this kind of scrutiny by women. They can date whomever they want, whenever they want, their sexuality doesn't determine their worth and there are few derogatory labels associated with men dating younger women. I've heard the term "silver fox" which does indicate a kind of slyness, but he's not considered a predator. The cougar implies a woman is hunting down her prey, manipulating a young man who isn't her equal.

What makes me mad is that age shouldn't matter for a woman anymore than a man, but it does. Labels shouldn't have power but they do. So while men have been doing it with much younger partners since the beginning of civilization, women have to endure belittlement and judgement when it's finally their turn. Regardless of age, race, sexual preference or anything else that makes us unique, we like who we like, love who love, lust who we lust, and who am I or anyone else to impose limits? And it makes perfect sense that a woman in her 40s and a man in his 20s would be attracted to each other. Both parties are in their sexual prime and so it really comes down to a primal need. Plus a woman with money and social standing should enjoy the power that comes with controlling her own sexual identity.  

So on principle, I'm not an objector to people dating whomever they want if they are both consenting adults.  

But I do question why.  

Why, after the initial titillation and wonder, why would anyone who has been on the earth for 40 years or more be even remotely interested in a young human of 18, 21, or 25?  

The age of 18 seems to be the right age for consent. And anyone 18 or over should certainly not be interested in anyone that is under 18. Why? Well besides all the moral issues, how about the fact that humans under 18 are children. They are immature. They haven't had enough life experience to make them terribly interesting or equal in a romantic or sexual relationship. I was mature beyond my years at 16 and 17, and most of my male peers were adolescent twits, but whenever I got to be around a man in his twenties or older, I could feel I wasn't ready. I wasn't seasoned enough. I wasn't fully cooked. I needed some years of life to shape me.  

And when I look at male and female 20-somethings now, most of them come across as too young. Definitely not children anymore, but far from being developed, sophisticated adults that carry enough fascination on a romantic level for me in my mid-thirties let alone a man or woman in their 40s, 50s or 60s. How attractive can a person be when they don't know where India is or a reference to Beethoven (the composer, not the dog from the movies you attractive little nitwit!) or have never heard of popular idioms such as "not for all the tea in China"?

I'm not suggesting older people should never date younger people. There can be great benefits to the mentor/student relationship. But I am suggesting that human beings need to evolve beyond the labels, beyond the fear of getting old. Because maybe you aren't going to conquer the world. Maybe you won't ever come close to writing the greatest novel of the 21st century or winning a World Cup or hobnobbing with Bono. Maybe your life is simpler than you imagined. Maybe you are just an average middle-aged person with sagging breasts or a limp penis whose greatest accomplishment was being kind to your kids. And once you embrace who you are in the every day, maybe then we'll have less cougars and silver foxes and more thinkers and lovers and poets. Now that's my cup of tea.