Since when did being labelled a "cougar" become a dirty word? According to the Miami Herald, Cougar cruises are being banned, the Globe and Mail reported that advertisements for cougar websites are being taken down and an entire study was carried out to prove the whole cougar phenomenon didn't really exist and was instead all one big "cougar myth".
The survey, which was carried out by the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff, analysed the age preferences of 22,000 men and women using online dating sites across 14 countries. It found that most daters preferred the traditional older male/younger female combination. But does that mean cougars don't exist? I think not.
Yet even if Madonna, Demi Moore, Halle Berry and my colleague Carla (she's 36 dating a 24-year-old) aren't enough to prove that dating a much younger man is not only more socially acceptable but also the trend du jour, then you just have to take a look at the divorce statistics to see that, mathematically speaking, it's probably the better way to go.
Which is probably why Canadian cougar Claudia Opdenkelder decided to create the dating website Cougarlife.com.
She was in town last week to promote the Australian launch of the site and I pounced at the chance to chat to her one-on-one about cougars, cubs and cup sizes ...
"The website is extremely popular because it's a service for younger men looking for older woman and vice versa," she said.
"The women are comfortable signing on because they don't have anything to hide; they're not pretending they're something they're not."
In addition to matching up age-inappropriate singletons, Opdenkelder's aim is to revamp the term "cougar" and to take away the negative stigma that is attached to it.
"I want to turn it into a representation of powerful women who are in their sexual prime."
When I asked her if younger men on the site were just looking for casual romps with sexually experienced women, she assured me that not all young men were the same.
“When I met my fiancé, he was 24, and he was ready for all that," she said.
At 26 he popped the question; she's just turned 40.
"There's a stigma with younger men that they all want to party and play video games. Not all of them are like that. There are plenty of young men who are cultured and come from good families and are therefore looking for a relationship early on."
But what about the pressure to keep up with her younger counterparts who may, too, be vying for her young man's attention?
The Demi Moore effect
A while back I was asked to write an article for a magazine on the Demi Moore effect. While she's long been described as smoking hot (who can forget that shaved head for her role in G.I. Jane, or her seductive pole dance in Striptease?), she's also long had an obsession with achieving and maintaining the perfect body, which seems to have been exacerbated since she hooked up with her much younger bloke Ashton Kutcher.
She recently admitted to going so far as to have leeches suck on her blood in the hope of cleansing her body and rumours are circulating that she paid a whopping 226,000 pounds for plastic surgery to whip herself into tip-top younger man-eating shape.
Included in her overall makeover is (allegedly) liposuction to her hips, thighs and stomach, breast implants, a breast lift, brow lifts, a chemical facial skin peel, collagen injections, teeth whitening, knee surgery, exercise coaches and more.
The problem that I found through my research, is that many older women ensconced in relationships with younger men are left scratching their heads and wondering what lengths they, too, need to go to in order to get and keep a super hot young man on their arms.
According to plastic surgeon to the stars Dr Joseph Ajaka from Cosmos Clinic in Sydney (who I interviewed for the story), the growth in plastic surgery among the women of Australia aged 40-plus has grown significantly as they opt for more botox, juvederm, liposuction and breast lifts.
But Opdenkelder assures me that not all older women feel the same pressure.
"All women feel some sort of pressure whether they're older than the man they're dating or not," she said, assuring me that she's all natural.
But hey, no one ever said that love was blind ...
What do you think?
PS. I just met a man who recently turned 32. He told me that suddenly cougars were on his sexual menu.
"Now I can date women who are 10 years younger than me, but also 10 years older than me," he said. "It's great."
Do you think that a man has to be of a certain age and maturity in order to handle an older women? Do older women have a real future with younger men? Or are Demi and Claudia (who both don't look a day over 30) exceptions to the rule?
The survey, which was carried out by the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff, analysed the age preferences of 22,000 men and women using online dating sites across 14 countries. It found that most daters preferred the traditional older male/younger female combination. But does that mean cougars don't exist? I think not.
Yet even if Madonna, Demi Moore, Halle Berry and my colleague Carla (she's 36 dating a 24-year-old) aren't enough to prove that dating a much younger man is not only more socially acceptable but also the trend du jour, then you just have to take a look at the divorce statistics to see that, mathematically speaking, it's probably the better way to go.
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In 2007, the median age for women getting divorced had risen to 41.3 years, compared with 34.8 in 1988 (according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics). And with more 40-plus newly single women out there scouring the town for available men (whether it's for commitment or just a casual shag), I doubt they're going to find gents their own age hanging out in bars or nightclubs.Which is probably why Canadian cougar Claudia Opdenkelder decided to create the dating website Cougarlife.com.
She was in town last week to promote the Australian launch of the site and I pounced at the chance to chat to her one-on-one about cougars, cubs and cup sizes ...
"The website is extremely popular because it's a service for younger men looking for older woman and vice versa," she said.
"The women are comfortable signing on because they don't have anything to hide; they're not pretending they're something they're not."
In addition to matching up age-inappropriate singletons, Opdenkelder's aim is to revamp the term "cougar" and to take away the negative stigma that is attached to it.
"I want to turn it into a representation of powerful women who are in their sexual prime."
When I asked her if younger men on the site were just looking for casual romps with sexually experienced women, she assured me that not all young men were the same.
“When I met my fiancé, he was 24, and he was ready for all that," she said.
At 26 he popped the question; she's just turned 40.
"There's a stigma with younger men that they all want to party and play video games. Not all of them are like that. There are plenty of young men who are cultured and come from good families and are therefore looking for a relationship early on."
But what about the pressure to keep up with her younger counterparts who may, too, be vying for her young man's attention?
The Demi Moore effect
A while back I was asked to write an article for a magazine on the Demi Moore effect. While she's long been described as smoking hot (who can forget that shaved head for her role in G.I. Jane, or her seductive pole dance in Striptease?), she's also long had an obsession with achieving and maintaining the perfect body, which seems to have been exacerbated since she hooked up with her much younger bloke Ashton Kutcher.
She recently admitted to going so far as to have leeches suck on her blood in the hope of cleansing her body and rumours are circulating that she paid a whopping 226,000 pounds for plastic surgery to whip herself into tip-top younger man-eating shape.
Included in her overall makeover is (allegedly) liposuction to her hips, thighs and stomach, breast implants, a breast lift, brow lifts, a chemical facial skin peel, collagen injections, teeth whitening, knee surgery, exercise coaches and more.
The problem that I found through my research, is that many older women ensconced in relationships with younger men are left scratching their heads and wondering what lengths they, too, need to go to in order to get and keep a super hot young man on their arms.
According to plastic surgeon to the stars Dr Joseph Ajaka from Cosmos Clinic in Sydney (who I interviewed for the story), the growth in plastic surgery among the women of Australia aged 40-plus has grown significantly as they opt for more botox, juvederm, liposuction and breast lifts.
But Opdenkelder assures me that not all older women feel the same pressure.
"All women feel some sort of pressure whether they're older than the man they're dating or not," she said, assuring me that she's all natural.
But hey, no one ever said that love was blind ...
What do you think?
PS. I just met a man who recently turned 32. He told me that suddenly cougars were on his sexual menu.
"Now I can date women who are 10 years younger than me, but also 10 years older than me," he said. "It's great."
Do you think that a man has to be of a certain age and maturity in order to handle an older women? Do older women have a real future with younger men? Or are Demi and Claudia (who both don't look a day over 30) exceptions to the rule?
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