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Predator and Prey

Ashton and Demi, parodies on SNL, even a string of popular dating websites. The public is fascinated with older women who seek the company of younger men. But what about their sapphic counterparts? Tricia Romano tracks the growing phenomenon of the lesbian cougar.


There was an especially intense electric charge in West Hollywood on the night of Thursday, May 15. The California supreme court had ruled that morning in favor of gay people’s freedom to marry, and the thousands who had gathered in WeHo for a celebratory rally were now pouring into the nightclubs along Santa Monica Boulevard. Among those carousing at Platinum, a popular women’s party at the bar East/West, was Jackie Warner, the star of the Bravo reality series Work Out. Tanned, blond, buff, and 39 years old, Warner was beaming as two of her 20-something ex-girlfriends, Mimi and Brianna, circled nearby.

The following day, Ellen DeGeneres, 50, proudly announced on her TV talk show that she would marry her longtime love, 35-year-old Portia de Rossi. And when Melissa Etheridge turned 47 a few weeks later, she undoubtedly celebrated with her 33-year-old wife, Tammy Lynn Michaels.

The common thread among these high-profile couples is the presence of “cougars”—older women dating younger women, proving that Demi Moore, Madonna, and Ivana Trump aren’t the only ones who get to enjoy the company of a sexy younger partner. Women are extending the prime of their youth well into middle age. Acting their age no longer means being a boring homebody or settling down. As Mariah Hanson, the 47-year-old founder of the modern Dinah Shore Weekend, puts it, “I think women are suddenly realizing it’s not over at 40.”

Cougar Video screen grab | Advocate.com
See JD Salvatore's video of the photo shoot

ON THE PROWL

Cougars are everywhere: At the box office the ultimate chick flick, Sex and the City, features four middle-aged women, including sexpot Kim Cattrall, whose character turned 50 and still eats younger men for dessert. In porn, once solely the domain of women under 25, lesbian cougar flicks regularly join MILF titles in sexy solidarity. Cameron Diaz recently turned in a cougar parody on Saturday Night Live with her current big-screen costar Ashton Kutcher (himself dating the world’s most famous cougar), and The L Word’s last season featured a prominent cougar story line.

Lesbian cougars are more visible these days, largely because lesbians are more visible, but age-disparate relationships among women have “been going on forever,” says Savage Love sex columnist Dan Savage. “That is what Sappho was: an older lesbian attracted to a younger lesbian.”

The lesbian cougar’s motivation is as age-old as the island of Lesbos itself: Being around younger women simply makes an older woman feel young. And, as Grace Moon, a 40-year-old adjunct professor in New York City and the managing editor of OurChart.com, says, “Being able to relate to someone in their 20s—and keeping a flexible attitude—is a healthy thing to do.”

Adds comic Poppy Champlin, who gives her age as “40s,” when you date a younger woman, “you pick up a sense of their youthfulness. And hopefully they’ll want to have more sex—it’ll keep my sexual libido pumping.”

Plus, the younger your partner, the less likely you’ll have to deal with the romantic baggage and bitterness of women who’ve been around the block, says Kennedy Varellas, a Glendora, Calif.–based customer service rep for a prominent straight dating website. Although Varellas is only 31, she considers herself a cougar because she routinely dates women eight to 10 years younger. “They have fewer stories to tell about being screwed over by somebody,” she says.

Varellas also sees her younger girlfriends as a way to balance her own 30-something pessimism. “These women have so much potential,” she says. “They have these huge dreams and goals. As opposed to me—I’m so cynical. They are still so determined in their goals and who they want to be as a person. They kind of string me along for the ride.”

Though older men both straight and gay have long enjoyed the pleasures of younger company without too many raised eyebrows, women taking on younger mates have earned the moniker cougar, a term loaded with aggressive insinuations. Cougars are constantly on the prowl for prey. “It’s about a wild time, even just the word cougar,” says queer sex columnist Rachel Kramer Bussel. “The Demi Moore model is an interesting thing. It’s been an actual relationship, and that sort of throws that cougar stereotype on its head.”

Not every lesbian cougar identifies with the predatory image. Mariah Hanson says that the first time her production managers called her “the Coug,” she laughed. But “I don’t relate to that,” she adds. “I’m in a relationship with someone who has so established herself,” she says of her girlfriend, Kathy Valenti, 34. “She’s so amazing. She’s just very mature and together.”

As Hanson sees it, “someone who’s 25 and taking up with a 45-year-old because she’s got a career path in mind—that’s not a cougar relationship, that’s a relationship of opportunity.”

Kiki Fries, a 30-year-old psychology researcher based in Miami, is even more blunt: “I don’t mind the term cougar, but I hate the term sugar mama.”

Savage points out that the rise of power lesbians such as Hanson and DeGeneres has contributed to the visibility of lesbian cougar relationships. “There are more women out there who can be the set-up, well-preserved, powerful cougar than there could be a generation ago,” he says. “But 30 years ago there weren’t rich and powerful women, let alone rich and powerful lesbians who were out and who you could identify.”

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Reader Comments
  • Name: Cin
    Date posted: 7/26/2008 3:12:00 PM
    Hometown: AZ

    Comment:

    As a 45 year old woman, I make it a point to stay away from women younger than 30, and I prefer they're at least 35. I have no interest in some young hot, hardbody girl with an empty head. Give me older, wiser and mature any day and leave the young girls to others their own age (or the predatory cougar types)

  • Name: Des
    Date posted: 7/20/2008 12:49:00 AM
    Hometown: Las Vegas

    Comment:

    I agree with 'j'. I'm 24 and have always been attracted to and have predominately dated older nay mature women because I relate to them more. There's something so intoxicating about a woman who knows who she is, like 'Nena' stated. I feel that mature women have ripened and sexiness exudes from them. ;-)

  • Name: Nena
    Date posted: 7/17/2008 3:23:00 PM
    Hometown: St. Louis

    Comment:

    Great article but I do ask, have we as lesbians started to equate sexy with age just as they do in the straight world? Realizing the article is about the older dating the much younger I am concerned that we've fallen prey to the ideals of what is / is not sexy. I'm 40 and in that I do not feel like I am the older, non-sexy lesbian. I know who I am, what I want and what I expect from life and others. In that confidence I feel more open, free and sexier than I did in my 20's and 30's. So if faced with the question of dating someone older or that hot, sexy younger person... I'd choose the older sexy mind well over a younger, sexy shell.

  • Name: Vivi
    Date posted: 7/10/2008 5:10:00 PM
    Hometown: New York

    Comment:

    This article was really great to read. I came out at 21 years old and from the very beginning dated women who were anywhere from 16 - 22 years older than me. I never found the age difference to be a problem. I am now in a serious relationship with a woman 17 years older than me (i'm late 30's now) and I do find it a little scary at times. But I think the important thing to remember is that age does not define someone's attractiveness, value, power, sexiness, libido, energy level...it is simply and truly a number and nobody falls in love with a number.

  • Name: Viv
    Date posted: 7/10/2008 5:08:00 PM
    Hometown: New York

    Comment:

    This article was really great to read. I came out at 21 years old and from the very beginning dated women who were anywhere from 16 - 22 years older than me. I never found the age difference to be a problem. I am not in a serious relationship with a woman 17 years older than me (i'm late 30's now) and I do find it a little scary at times. But I think the important thing to remember is that age does not define someone's attractiveness, value, power, sexiness, libido, energy level...it is simply and truly a number. Nobody falls in love with a number.

  • Name: Cheryl
    Date posted: 7/7/2008 9:09:00 PM
    Hometown: Palm Coast, FL

    Comment:

    My partner and I had to laugh at the article. We are 24 years apart in our age but she's not a "lesbian cougar". It was a mutual attraction between us. Sometimes age just doesn't matter when it comes to love and it should not be a boundary.

  • Name: j
    Date posted: 7/5/2008 1:13:00 AM
    Hometown: little rock

    Comment:

    and one more thing... the woman in the photo above, would be the first one i would go after :)

  • Name: j
    Date posted: 7/5/2008 1:09:00 AM
    Hometown: little rock

    Comment:

    i loved this article. i can totally relate! ... i'm the 26 year old who preys on the 40 year old women out there. they just seem so much more agressive and powerful than the women my own age. i love that the older women don't realize they are actually the prey, not the predator.



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