Flirt Glossary – Cougar Dating
The trend from the USA in which mature women date younger men and which is now spilling over into Europe via Australia is called Cougar Dating .
This primarily refers to women over 40 who are looking for and dating younger men - not (just) as toyboys, but as serious life partners. Also – according to statements from men interviewed – demand is high on the men’s side.
The term cougar is the English slang term for older women who are looking for a much younger man either for a relationship or as a sexual partner. In normal usage the term means cougar or mountain lion.
The parallel lies on the one hand in the silvery fur of the puma (silver lion), analogous to the hair color of some older women, and on the other hand in the characteristic of hunting (for women on younger men, for the puma on prey).
The phenomenon itself is not new and has been widespread for many years, as shown, for example, by a 2003 study by the American Association of Retired Persons. After that, one in three single women in the US aged 40 to 69 were dating a younger man.
Strongly growing trend: Even according to the US Census Bureau, in 1997 there were still fewer than half a million couples in the USA with an age difference of at least ten years. In 2003 there were already around 3 million couples in which the man was at least six years younger than the woman.
Between 2002 and 2005, according to the online dating service match.com, the proportion of women in the database who would like to meet a man ten or more years younger than them doubled.
Origin of the term for this social phenomenon: Author Mark J. Penn describes the phenomenon and the social trend in detail in a chapter Cougars in his 2007 book Microtrends.
In recent years, the term has taken on an increasingly positive connotation and is no longer just a denigration of these women. This also speaks for a new self-image and a greatly increased self-confidence of this group of women.
In fact, the term is also being heard and read more and more frequently in the media. Numerous TV shows make this phenomenon a topic. This also applies to the US series “Cougar Town”, which started in September 2009. Since then, it has been celebrated as an expression of a new attitude to life among women over 40.
Demi Moore, Madonna and Kylie Minogue are also doing it.
There are now countless websites specifically for “cougar dating” .
