I used to hate the term “Cougar” for all the obvious reasons. First, she conjured up images of Mrs. Robinson in a girdle and garters, smoke billowing around her alcoholic head as she seduced a vulnerable (but willing) Benjamin. She fast-forwards to leopard-clad women over 40 showing too much cleavage, sporting 4-inch stilettos, hanging out at bars, drinking wine, and dragging home young prey. Every time the media interviewed me, she’d shrug me off, knowing they’d ask the obvious questions: “Isn’t it just about sex?” “Isn’t it just about money?” I struggled to explain to them that in my 20 years of research as a behavioral research psychologist and the world’s foremost authority on intergenerational dating and psychosexual imprinting (translation: cougar-cub dating) they were wrong. The media is promoting what I coined “The Myth of Stiffler’s Mom” ​​as being in the movie American Pie. Stiffler’s mom seduces a young man, but he’s not the six-pack GQ model type. He is mature for his age, a smart one. He gets into his head before he gets into his bed. Young men and the media who think the young man/older woman relationship is all about sex or money have never been in a relationship with an older woman. If they had, they would know the truth.

The facts are pretty simple, and I say them with a lot of certainty, as this is a demographic of people I’ve formally studied for over 20 years. If you are familiar with the bell curve, you can easily see that the bell curve can be applied to almost anything in life. Let’s plot the dynamics of the young man and the older woman and see what we find: In the middle section of the curve we have most of the older women. “Older women” can be thought of as women over the age of 20 who date younger men. Most of these women who are in the middle section of the curve are in their 40s and 50s. These are the cougars. 30 year old women are Pumas. 20-year-old women are kittens. Pumas and Kittens fall outside the center of the bell-shaped curve. Let’s say they are 1 standard deviation from the mean, to the left of the midsection. Women 60 and over are Panthers. Let’s put them to the right of the middle of the bell-shaped curve. There are fewer kittens, cougars, and panthers than pumas; but for argument’s sake, they’re all “cougars.”

What is a cougar? Many women take offense to this nickname, as do I, for the reasons I’ve given above. People get mad at me for using the word in my articles and research. Don’t shoot the messenger. I didn’t coin the word and I didn’t brand it. Blame the media. They are the ones who want to make cougars look neurotic, cartoonish, wacky, wacky.

I really had a virulent reaction every time I heard the word mentioned, read it in an article, or saw my fingers type it on my computer screen.

Not anymore.

Here’s what I’ve come to realize and here’s what I’ve recommended to the thousands of members on my Cougar dating site: YOU define what a Cougar is for you. Don’t let the media. your friends, other cougars, younger men or so-called “experts” tell you how to define yourself as a cougar. There are basic ingredients that make up the definition: an older woman who dates, mates, and/or marries a younger man. That is the basic criteria. You don’t have to look like Courteney Cox, have Demi Moore’s money, Madonna’s confidence or Cher’s success to be a Cougar. People who say a cougar is a “sexy, confident, successful, mature woman who knows what she wants” are leaving out most women who consider themselves cougars but may not be successful, sexy, or confident. In fact, she may be fresh out of a stagnant marriage of 20 years, up to her neck in debt and feeling insecure about that extra 20 pounds, but she discovers that she is attracted and open to a relationship with a younger man.

There are “experts” who will try to tell people that a woman can only be a Cougar if she is over 40. It isn’t true. There are women on my dating site who are in their early 20s dating men 7-10 years younger who are considered cougars. Being a cougar is less about your age, financial situation, body type, or confidence level than it is about your desire to date a younger man.

I really work hard to set the record straight for the media; but they print the lewd angle of sex and money anyway.

In my PhD research project “Childhood Psychosexual Imprinting and the Effects It Has on Specific Adult Male and Female Relationships of Younger Men Dating Older Women,” I interviewed over a thousand men about their desire to be with an older woman. . Every man could give me a chapter and a verse about a “defining moment” in his life when he was imprinted with the desire to be with an older woman: a school teacher, a babysitter, an older sister’s friend, his mother’s best friend. , actresses in television and cinema; The list goes on and on. For these men, it wasn’t the myth of Stiffler’s mom. It wasn’t a roll in the hay with Mrs. Robinson, she was a powerful imprint that has stayed with them throughout their lives and keeps them coming back to older women again and again.

I have interviewed men in their 30s who have been married to older women looking for their next older wife. I have interviewed men in their 40s and 50s who refuse to date women their own age or younger and opt for the older woman. I met an 82-year-old man who told me, “I just married an older woman,” then added with a wink, “Sex with an older woman is always better.” 82!

Psychosexual imprinting is an area of ​​expertise of mine when it comes to the dynamic between a younger man and an older woman. The “psycho” part has to do with the psychological aspect of the imprint and personality of the young person and how it is formed and imprinted. The “sexual” part is obvious prima fascia. Imprinting is a very powerful and defining moment in a person’s life. We all have footprints, some positive, some not positive. The younger man who has been positively imprinted with an older woman will seek out and bond with older women for the rest of his life. It’s not a one-time thing, flash in the pan.

Here’s what the media don’t understand about this dating dynamic. And it’s not understood by many of the so-called “cougar experts” who are jumping on the bandwagon to sell books and speed dating sessions. My research in this area is extensive, comprehensive, and documented; that’s why CNN refers to me as The Uber Cougar.

So if you are a cougar, don’t be ashamed of this term. It is not derogatory. It is not a belittlement. “Wear your paw proudly” as we say on my dating site. Define who you are as a Cougar and dispel the myths out there. And feel free to email me with any questions you may have about my research and this dynamic. Ageism is the latest barrier we’re breaking down in dating. Even if you’re not a cougar, at least now you understand a little more about what it really is…and what it isn’t.

Happy hunting!