Claws out over Air New Zealand's 'cougar' ad
18 January 2010


An Air New Zealand plane taxiing past the air traffic control tower at Sydney Airport.

Air New Zealand has drawn the ire of a rape prevention group over a competition aimed at "cougars" — middle-aged women who prefer younger men.

The airline is offering 60 tickets for next month's Wellington Sevens rugby tournament to older women "who prefer their meat rare". The competition invites packs of up to four "cougars" to send in their photographs to the airline to gain a chance of winning the tickets.

An accompanying YouTube video parodying wildlife documentaries says cougars are known for living off sparse vegetation during the day and large slabs of meat at night. It goes on to show a "herd of young males gathering at a watering hole" or pub while the cougar waits to pounce on any straggler that separates itself from the herd. "Eventually the young male is dragged off to the cougar's inner-city apartment where it will cruelly be made to listen to Enya or the Eurythmics."

The campaign's manager, Duane Perrott, said Air New Zealand had been overwhelmed by competition entries and positive feedback on "a good bit of light-hearted humour".

But the Rape Prevention Education organisation said the advert was appalling and degrading to women. "My question is why is our national carrier promoting sexually predatory behaviour," director Kim McGregor told Monday's New Zealand Herald. "We have also had complaints from male survivors who have been raped by women and they are very distressed that their situation is being laughed at and made out to be humorous."

Air New Zealand is no stranger to attention-grabbing campaigns. Aiming to spice up its in-flight safety films, the carrier last year began featuring videos of male and female staff naked except for body-paint uniforms. An earlier ad featuring staff — including chief executive Rob Fyfe — in body paint said Air New Zealand had "nothing to hide" about its fares, in contrast to what it called the deceptive pricing of low-cost carriers.



Source: Breitbart AFP.

What's with all this talk of 'cougars'?

Why are women being labelled like animals in the zoo for dating younger men?

by Hadley Freeman
Wednesday 20 January 2010


Sam Taylor-Wood . . . engaged to a 19 year old. Photograph: Richard Young / Rex Features

Pot-bellied pigs? So 90s. Labradoodle? How noughties. There's only one animal to mention these days if you want to look ever so now, darlings, and that's the cougar. Flatteringly, this term does not refer to an actual animal but rather to women. To be precise, a woman who is involved with – no, no, cover the children's eyes! – a younger man.

With the likes of Demi Moore, Madonna and Sam Taylor-Wood all daring to date younger men, rare is the tabloid or magazine that has not featured "cougars" recently, and even rarer is the publication that does not feature the verb "prowl" in the story.

Cynics may point out that, despite the tabloids' unabated horror, powerful female celebrities with nubile younger men is not exactly new, with examples such as Mae West and Joan Collins (who surely earned the universe's eternal adoration when, asked whether she was concerned about her and husband Percy's 32-year age difference, replied, "If he dies, he dies") coming easily to mind. For every Samantha Jones, there's a Blanche Devereaux making double entendres in the background.

But these cynics are missing the point, because few things retain the ability to shock like the idea that a woman doesn't necessarily float off on an iceberg of chastity after her 35th birthday. And if the horrifying spectre of young male flesh brushing up against older female skin wasn't sufficient warning, here's Iris Robinson, now being treated for clinical depression, after her affair with a teenager was exposed, although it's hard to say what has horrified people more: her alleged financial improprieties in raising money for her lover's business or that the gentleman concerned was 19. Six of one, half-dozen of the other, really.

(Incidentally, my favourite cougarish tale comes from Peter Biskind's biography of Warren Beatty, in which Beatty took a more mature Lillian Hellman out to dinner. Most ladies worry about getting food stuck in their teeth on a date; Hellman went one further by dropping her teeth into her spaghetti. Nonetheless, Beatty was apparently quite taken. Who needs Oil of Olay when Beatty's around?)

Spaghetti splashes aside, the risks posed by these women are so great that an American cruise line has banned "cougar events" on their vessels (cruise ships known for being the last word in taste) and Air New Zealand recently ran an advert about the rise of "the cougar", which managed to make Australia in comparison look like the bastion of political correctness.

This nonsense is as predictable as the fact that Jay Jopling, did not, to my knowledge, get labelled with any animalistic terms when he was photographed with Lily Allen, 22 years his junior, unlike his ex-wife Taylor-Wood, now pregnant and engaged to a 19 year old. Is one less acceptable than the other? As long as everyone's legal that seems pretty moot. Less moot though is this: if Jack Nicholson has spent most of his life dating women born when he was already an adult, and been celebrated for it, why should women be labelled like animals in the zoo? Because of a woman, that's why.

According to a 2001 article in the Globe and Mail of Toronto, "cougar" first appeared in 1999 in the name of a dating website, cougardate.com, after one of the site's founders claimed her nephew told her that she was like a cougar, "in search of defenceless animals".

Ten years later, Courteney Cox decided to build on her Friends success by starring in the TV show, Cougar Town, which makes having sex after 40 look about as fun as having a smear test in the middle of Trafalgar Square.

As Gail Collins details with understandable regret in her new book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to The Present, women have shown a remarkable ability, ever since the 60s, to turn their liberation into self-exploitation, as anyone who has seen a teenage girl walk down the street wearing a T-shirt proclaiming that she is "Tight like spandex" knows.

So it is not surprising, merely depressing, that the term "cougar" has been propagated so heavily by women and the female-oriented media.

This weekend, a female columnist tutted that "cougars have a short lifespan . . . one day it's a hot thing, the next it's hard work". Shush, everyone out there, who's protesting "hmmm, that sounds like every relationship in the world", and let's give this journalist some credence. Of course, it would be easier to do that if she hadn't cited the recent demise of the relationship between Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins as proof that "cougars have a short lifespan", seeing as, reportedly, it was Sarandon, 63, who left Robbins, 51, not the other way round, despite Sarandon having "crossed the border", whatever that means.

There's no need to get carried away and claim, as one paper did, that Iris Robinson "is a feminist heroine", seeing as allegations of financial impropriety and depression don't feature in most feminist manifestos.

However, the clearly unwell Robinson aside, an alliance between an older woman and younger man suggests that not all relationships spin around the axis of procreation. Sometimes, sex is just about sex – even, heck, especially for women over 40 – and some people should take the hint from Chaucer's Wife of Bath who said 700 years ago, "Jhesu crist us sende / Housbondes meeke, yonge, and fressh abedde." Or, as the insurpassably glorious Golden Girl Blanche Devereaux put it, "I've decided to overlook that minor detail [of age] and succumb to the Vesuvius of Passion that is about to erupt from me."

Source: Guardian UK.

So not too heartbroken about your split from Madonna then, Jesus?
5th February 2010

It's only been a few days since Jesus Luz called off his May-December romance with Madonna.

While the superstar singer, 51, is keeping a low profile, it appears the 23-year-old model is relishing his newfound freedom in his homeland Brazil. The handsome DJ was spotted showing off his impressive physique as he paraded up and down Ipanema beach in Rio De Janeiro yesterday.


Back on the market: Jesus Luz eyes his young female companion as he spends the day at Ipanema beach in Rio De Janeiro

Luz was spotted lounging about on the sand chatting to his friends, including a mystery female companion. As temperatures soared to 34C, Luz headed for the beach shower to cool down, to the joy of admiring female fans. The model has spent the past two weeks in Brazil, while mother-of-four Madonna has been spotted in New York and London.

Apparently, Luz prompted the end of the couple's one year romance after realising they had nothing in common. Jesus Luz looked carefree as he enjoyed an afternoon at Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro


Cool down: Luz fulfils a few female fantasies as he showers on the beach


Refreshed: Carefree Luz sips coconut water


Madonna pictured getting a flight from London's Heathrow to New York

Friends of the pair were amazed their relationship lasted so long due to their 28 year age gap. A source told the Chicago Sun-Times: 'It was not only totally amicable, but it was Luz who initiated the split.' Another insider told the Daily Mirror: 'They are in different places in their lives. It's the age-gap, he's 23 and she is 51. How long could it last? How it even lasted a year seems a miracle to a lot of people. They had nothing to talk about. It's pretty much over now.'

The couple were last seen together in New York in the first week of January, but both have been kept apart in recent weeks due to their work commitments on different continents. Madonna and Luz met at a photoshoot for W magazine in December 2008 - just three months after the singer split from second husband Guy Ritchie.

Since dating Madonna, Luz's modelling career has been heavily boosted and he has also start DJing after she paid for him to have lessons. In November, Luz took Madonna home to Brazil to meet his mother Cristiane Regina da Silva, who was awkwardly 14 years younger than the pop star.

Source: Daily Mail UK.

A lover's guide to older women
3 March 2010


Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in "The Graduate"

In 1965 he published an explicit book about his sexual experiences across the age divide. As the erotic classic is reprinted, Stephen Vizinczey tells John Walsh why he still believes that every man needs a Mrs Robinson

In the mid-1960s, readers with a furtive interest in literary sex weren't exactly spoilt for choice. Lady Chatterley's Lover had been available in Penguin paperback since 1960, more than 30 years after it was first published and banned; it was worth hacking through the jungle of Lawrence's prose to find the rude dialogue and the daisies-in-the-pubic-hair scene. Lolita had been around since 1959, making us swoon with its sensuous inspections of flesh and the American landscape, though it was frustratingly metaphorical and imprecise about sexual mechanics. Then in 1966, a new star appeared in the heavens: In Praise of Older Women by Stephen Vizinczey hit the shelves.


Eva Longoria Parker is sevens years older than Tony Parker

Once we'd established that it wasn't some pervy encomium about grandmothers, it quickly became a favourite in school locker-rooms: copies were passed from hand to hand, pored and sniggered over, heads were shaken about the "amorous recollections of Andras Vajda". The pages were full of unclasped housecoats and fumblings in pants, hot kisses and hard nipples, a countess in a shower, a virgin in a white chiffon dress, a fat prostitute called Fraulein Mozart on a picnic blanket. There was a poem about masturbation. And to our head-spinning envy, the priapic Andras started his Don Juan career when he was our age. There it was, in black and white, on page 22: the little beast discovering oral sex at 12, from a soldier's wife in her 40s.


Barbara Hershey is a staggering 21 years older than bow Naveen Andrews

Many people found it unputdownable. It sold five million copies in 21 countries and was filmed twice, once in Canada with Tom Berenger, once in Spain with Faye Dunaway, neither time with much distinction. And now, after lying fallow for a few years, tomorrow it joins the ranks of Penguin Classics, along with Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique.

I went to meet the author, to see how he felt about his canonisation. Vizinczey lives in a posh apartment near Earl's Court. Still handsome at 76, he's a short, self-possessed man with bright brown eyes, exiguous white hair and the look of a Russian sailor. He insists visitors remove their shoes to save his new carpet, while his Canadian wife, Gloria, brings tea in a wonderfully old-fashioned silver pot.


There was a 28-years age gap between Madonna and recent boyfriend Jesus Luz

"The worldwide success was a nightmare," he says gloomily. "I spent three months self-publishing the book in Canada. It was no joke, borrowing money, doing accounts, arranging distribution. Everyone said I would fail. Then I became, in 10 days, the No 1 bestseller and everyone said, 'Stephen, you really know what you're doing.' And that's when you fuck up. I should have been locked in a padded cell for three months, but everyone said I knew what I was doing, and I went to a crooked publisher." Vizinczey sold world rights to the book and saw not a penny for two years. "I was starving in Montreal, all the money went to New York. Seeing headlines in the paper about being a worldwide bestseller when you're having to borrow money to eat, that's a soul-destroying experience." It left him so bruised – and exhausted after a seven-year court case, finally settled by the personal intervention of Harold Macmillan – that it was 18 years before he published his second novel, An Innocent Millionaire.


Barbara Windsor and younger husband Scott Mitchell

The genesis of In Praise was a young girlfriend of the author's who wept on his shoulder, at 21, because she was growing old. "So I wrote in a short story about what a stupid thing this was. And then, because you come from another culture, you put in some of your background."

Rereading the book now, it's striking how much it deals in Hungarian history and the shadowy presence of Communist secret police, who called the young Vizinczey an "unreliable element." His father was assassinated by the Nazis when he was two, his uncle killed by Communists 20 years later. He fought in the Hungarian revolution of 1956 before fleeing to the West – and it's the eidetic memories of the world he left behind that fuelled his first novel: the bosomy perfumed aunties, his time as a pre-teen whoremaster to US troops billeted in post-war Austria, his developing obsession with grown-up flesh.


Susan Sarandon is twelve years older than husband Tim Robbins

How much difference was there between Stephen Vizinczey and Andras Vajda? "Unlike Andras, I wasn't an only child," he says. "The book isn't a memoir. It's autobiographical in the background," says the author firmly. "The novel is in the little movements of the soul."

The little movements of Andras Vajda's fingers over Maya, Klari, Ilona, Zsuzsu, Bobi, Margit, Agi, Mici and several other mature ladies left a generation of boys aching with jealousy. Had they all been fictions? "They're compounds of different people," he says. "Most people don't understand that, for a character to live on the page, it must be more than one person. Otherwise they won't have enough qualities to convince the reader they're real. The model for Paola, for example, wasn't Italian, but I needed her for the scene. And I did have my own experience to draw on. I was very lucky, at 14, to have a girlfriend, a neglected wife in her 30s. I learned a great deal from her about English poetry." His voice takes on a dreamy quality. "One thing I share with Andras is that I always wanted to learn. I hate men who want to rule women. I never did."


Julianne Moore is a decade older than husband Bart Freundlich

The convergence of an intense young man and a wise-but-bored older woman is more than a sex thing to Vizinczey and his hero. "It's the ideal relationship. It's the essence of European civilisation to a degree. The only trouble with it, for a young man, is that when you've something wonderful, you don't always appreciate it."

What, I ask, does he make of the new phenomenon of "cougars" – ladies of mature years who make no bones about acquiring very young boyfriends. Iris Robinson and her 19-year-old lover, whom she helped financially. Sam Taylor-Wood and her leading-man fiancé, half her age. Madonna with her own personal Jesus ... Does he think 2010 is a good time for Older Women? "No no, that's very different," he says dismissively. He wouldn't praise them? "I don't praise or dispraise, but these are not the women I was writing about. My book comes from a different civilisation."


Actor Aaron Johnson and artist Sam Taylor-Wood

What was the difference?

"This ... snogging," he says disgustedly. "This idea that you just fuck somebody and move on. They call them all-night stands, or one-night stands, just recreational sex." Snogging? I say. Do you mean shagging?

"Shagging, yes. In the world I grew up in, sex was never just sex. It started with some kind of connection. The older women wanted to give something – not money, not a loan – to give something of themselves. You were friends, you had some point of unity. Intelligence was very important."

Has time changed his attitude to younger women? Does he find 25-year-olds attractive? "I'm sure they're very attractive. But I'd say to them, 'If you are 25 and intelligent, you'll be a more intelligent and worthwhile person, at 40 or 50.' I'm not against youth. But I think I'm a wiser and better person than at 25." But are you sexier? He laughs. "You know what Mark Twain said? A man after 50 isn't much to talk about, but his grandmother could still put a dozen men out of action and keep going." He laughs heartily.


Mira Sorvino is forteen years older than husband Christopher Backus

He met Gloria, six years his senior, when they both worked at Canadian Broadcasting Co in Toronto. "We worked across the corridor from each other. We were the only ones working there on Christmas Eve." ("My children were with their father," puts in Gloria by way of explanation.) "And it's true," concedes Vizinczey dreamily, "that I proposed to go to bed with her right away in the café."

Aha, I say. After all your faux-fastidiousness, you propositioned her the first time you spoke? I bet you said: "Fancy a shag, darling? After all it is Christmas Eve ... "

"NO! NO! I never would," Vizinczey shouts. "I'm an old-style European gentleman! I would never start a conversation in this way. We used to meet in the corridor. Every time we met, her eyes lit up. It went on for months but we never talked until Christmas Eve."


Hollywood stars Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore

They make a very sweet couple, the pugnacious literary man (he dislikes Joyce, Nabokov and Flaubert, but reveres Stendhal and Kleist) and his doll-like wife of 47 years, with her merry eyes and her habit of talking across him. He absent-mindedly strokes her grey, page-boy bob. They resemble an afternoon-TV commercial for a happy retirement home. After the legal and personal storms he's endured because of his timeless tribute to ladies d'un certain age, Vizinczey and his Older Woman deserve it.


When Cameron Diaz dated Justin Timberlake she was nine years older

In Praise of Older Women is published by Penguin Classics. To order a copy for £9.99 (free P&P) call Independent Books Direct on 08430 600 030, or visit Independentbooksdirect.co.uk

Source: The Independent UK.

Taiwan man ties the knot at 96
26 March 2010



A 96-year-old temple keeper has become Taiwan's oldest groom on record after marrying a woman less than one third his age, a report said Friday.

Lin Chung, who runs a Taoist temple in south Taiwan's Tainan county, is the talk of town after wedding a 30-year-old woman from mainland China's central province of Hunan, said the Taipei-based Apple Daily. Lin, who has two adopted children although he was single, told the paper that he was "instructed" by the gods to go to Hunan three years ago to find his future wife.

He recently decided to tie the knot despite strong objections from his 68-year-old adopted son, who suspected that the elderly man was conned, the report said. "I must have a companion in my old days... I've never been married before so why can't I marry her? (My son) is unfilial," he was quoted as saying. Lin is currently applying for his wife to come to Taiwan to live with him, the report said.

In 2009, about 13,000 Taiwanese married people from China, Hong Kong and Macau, accounting for about 60 percent of island's international marriages, according to the interior ministry.

Source: Breitbart AFP.

From The Times
April 10, 2010
Cougar, moi? I don’t care about our 13-year age gap

Her track record’s not good, but Julie Burchill, 50, says she got lucky with her old man, a toyboy


Julie Burchill and Daniel Raven.
Julie Burchill

Next month — once the black and purple zebra-print wallpaper is up, the gerbera-print tiles are down, and the £4,000 New York bed (black leather, superking-size, with a flatscreen TV rising up from the foot at the touch of a button) is installed — I’m moving in with a man who lives across the road from me, in the most beautiful seafront square in all of Brighton and Hove. This isn’t so unusual — I’m 50, and have been married three times since I was a teenager.

No, the odd thing is that the man I am taking the plunge with is already my husband, whom I have been with for 15 years.

I’m not smug; for all I know it could be over by Christmas. But they say three times is a charm, and I’ve got a good feeling about this one. I’m a perverse soul, for one thing, and I take great pleasure in thinking of all the friends and exes who said it wouldn’t last — and who now appear somewhat lonely, bitter and/or trapped in what look to me like extremely dull unions, with very little of the hell-raising, micky-taking and five-star sun-chasing that have made my time with Daniel such a scream (as opposed to the screaming matches my first two marriages were).

On the other hand (and that phrase alone, as unknown to me previously as “just a glass, not a bottle, please” — see how I’ve mellowed), I can see why they might have felt justified in their back-biting nay-saying. The prognosis wasn’t good. A serial bolter and child-abandoner (me), my intended was not only the younger brother of the young girlfriend I left my second husband for, he was, at 23, a whopping 13 years my junior.

So far, so Jeremy Kyle. So why is it that my first two marriages — to men a “suitable” number of years older than I was ( the first six years older; the second five) lasted “only” five and ten years respectively, while this “inappropriate” union has lasted as long as both of them put together?

A lot of it is to do with Daniel. When I first got together with him, my friends who got to know him gave this 23-year-old Brighton slacker boy the unlikely nickname Dad — because of his ceaselessly even temper and effortless knack of sorting out any SNAFU. This led to some interesting situations; walking along a blisteringly hot Brighton beach with my friend Sara one day, I pointed up at the majestic Metropole hotel and leered drunkenly: “There’s where I shagged Dad for the first time!” Mothers covered the ears of their children as we staggered along, howling at the horror.

My real dad (I once shouted at Dan during a row, “You’re not my real dad!” which quickly brought the disagreement to an uproarious end) had been the ultimate strong, silent, gentle giant, and perhaps in reaction against this vision of perfection my first two husbands were as hysterical and histrionic as — well, as me. It wasn’t a good combination. It’s really hard to respect a man once you’ve seen him having a temper tantrum worthy of Violet Elizabeth Bott — and, looking back, I’m only amazed that it took me till the age of 35 to work out just how boring a “volatile” relationship can get.

In 1995, no one ever used the word “cougar” unless it was about a long-toothed predator (no change, then) — they just thought it was weird, what we were up to. Particularly when, on holiday, I’d tell people I was his mum (a habit of mine that Dan hates) and then later they’d see us making out in the deep end. And, obviously, the old broad/young blood thing is always a sex thing to start with, though I don’t care to discuss that here.

But, over the years, so much more has made me think that this could be The One. The laffs (cheap and otherwise) literally never stop. And the future, as well as the present, seems a gift. Neither of us is in the best of health — I am a cripple and Dan is a slave to his stomach — but whereas death seemed a preferable option to being stuck indefinitely with my first two husbands in perfect health, the idea of growing old looking after Dan, if his condition should worsen, seems an absolutely wonderful prospect to me. OH MY GOSH, I can’t believe I just wrote that. I’m meant to be Lucretia Borgia, not Florence Nightingale. But it’s honestly the way I feel.

Not having children — one of the things the Greek chorus of false-hearted well-wishers said would count against us — has actually worked towards our happiness, I feel. Apparently, nearly 90 per cent of couples say that their “marital satisfaction” (ooo-er!) drops after the patter of tiny feet replaces the language of love and, looking around at my friends, frankly, I can’t see much evidence to the contrary among my own boho set.

Lots of men just don’t want children, and young women overpowered by the ticking of their boring old biological clock quite brutally override this.

An old broad is very unlikely to do this, unless she’s still a childless nutter, and in this way she and her younger man are far more likely to maintain a more equal, playful, hedonistic alliance.

I’d hate it if Dan died; but when you marry a young man ( because men tend to die younger) you cut your chances of lonely widowhood drastically. It’s a very practical choice, above all. I used to like the cold-eyed elegance of Joan Collins’s line about her much younger husband: “If he dies, he dies.” These days I prefer the sexy affection of the wonderful Barbara Windsor’s statement on deciding to leave EastEnders: “I’m looking forward to the future and I suppose, when all’s said and done, I should spend a bit more time with my old man, as he’s not getting any younger.”

Even if he doesn’t let me put down AstroTurf in the hallway, as I’m longing to, this time I’m in it to win it with My Old Man.

Source: Times Online UK.

"Cougar effect" boosts lingerie sales
29 April 2010


Lingerie is displayed in the new Playboy store in central London September 19, 2007. REUTERS/Alessia Pierdomenico

LONDON (Reuters) — Sales of sultry lingerie among older women are booming in Britain thanks to the glamorous 40-somethings of "Sex and the City 2" and "Cougar Town," retail chain Debenhams reported on Thursday.

The hit TV show, and forthcoming movie, featuring the bedroom antics of women in their 40s and 50s and their much younger partners, is being credited with a rise in demand for lingerie from women of the same age, Debenhams said. The department store said a nationwide analysis of the most popular lingerie styles from October 2009 to April 2010, revealed that women over 40 have given the more seductive side of the lingerie industry a big boost.

"Positive female role models in this age group such as the women in the Sex and the City movies and Courteney Cox in TV's Cougar Town are giving the women confidence to splash out on themselves," Debenhams head lingerie buyer Annette Warburton said in a statement. Women over 40 were rediscovering their figures, often after having children or getting divorced.

Previously, the store said, the main purchasers of cleavage-enhancing bras, basques, thongs, stockings and suspenders, have been women in their early 20s. "With women's 40s being touted as the new 20s, and lingerie designers stepping up to the mark to feed this demand, it's a market we expect to see grow further in the future," Warburton said.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; Editing by Steve Addison)
Source: Reuters.

Being a 'cougar' can send a woman to an early grave

Cougars beware — having a much younger husband can send a woman to an early grave.

By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
13 May 2010


The 'cougar' phenomenon is epitomised by celebrities like Demi Moore, whose husband Ashton Kutcher is 16 years younger than her. Photo: REUTERS

Experts warn that settling down with a ‘toy boy’ can reduce a woman’s life expectancy. However, older men with younger wives appear to live for longer. Researchers said that while cougars, older women in their 30s and 40s who date much younger men, may believe that having a younger partner will help to keep them youthful the opposite appears to be true. The phenomenon is epitomised by celebrities like Demi Moore, whose husband Ashton Kutcher is 16 years younger than her.

A new television series on the idea, Cougar Town, stars Courtney Cox, the former Friends actress. But despite the celebrity endorsements, researchers warned that cougars still face social pressure for dating much younger men. Their findings show that having a partner seven years younger increases a woman’s chances of dying earlier by 20 per cent.

Sven Drefahl, from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, in Rostock, Germany, who carried out the research, warned: "The greater the age difference, the lower the wife's life expectancy. The best choice for a woman is to marry a man of exactly the same age."

The study used statistics on two million Danish couples. The findings also revealed that men who married younger women lived longer. "The mortality risk of a husband who is seven to nine years older than his wife is reduced by eleven per cent compared to couples where both partners are the same age," according to the report.

Dr Drefahl, a sociologist, believed that having a toy boy may mean more stress for women because they are "violating social norms and thus suffer from social sanctions." They could be regarded as outsiders and receive less social support, resulting in "a less joyful and more stressful life, reduced health, and finally, increased mortality," he said.

The findings are published in the journal Demography.

Source: Telegraph UK.

Google Tells Sites for ‘Cougars’ to Go Prowl Elsewhere


United Artists MRS. ROBINSON, ARE YOU...Anne Bancroft played the original cougar in “The Graduate.” Dustin Hoffman was the cub.
By SARAH KERSHAW
May 14, 2010

If you’re a woman who would like to date younger men, you can find lots of articles about these relationships by doing a Google search.

But as a woman looking for a man, you might be a little confused by the advertisements that accompany these articles. One promises to help you find sexy Latin women, and another, hot Latvian ladies. But there are no links to the growing number of “cougar” dating sites, matching older women with younger men, on content sites that show up in a Google search. Google has recently deemed those dating sites “nonfamily safe,” and therefore its ads for such sites containing the word “cougar” will not be allowed on so-called content pages.

The Google advertising system has two components: one for ads that appear next to search results, and one for its content network. For a company like CougarLife.com, now banned from the content network, that means its ads will no longer appear on more than 6,700 Web sites, including Ask.com, YouTube and MySpace, which accounted for 60 percent of its traffic, said Thomas Koshy, vice president for marketing at CougarLife, a Toronto-based site that says it has a half-million members, men and women.

Google continues to allow similar advertising for the many sites that match older men and younger women, like DateAMillionaire.com, which assures its clients they can meet “sugar babies.” So cougars and cubs are out, but sugar daddies and sugar babies are in.

Blurbs and “sponsored links,” which typically pop up on the right side of the screen, for dating sites like CougarLife.com and other “nonfamily” sites (one screams “Date a hot cheating wife!”) will still appear along with a list of search results.

Google, which has more than a million advertisers, would not comment on why sugar-daddy sites are still considered family safe, but cougar sites are not. The company’s decision, made public this week by CougarLife.com, has rankled not only advertisers but women who have embraced the cougar concept as a symbol of empowerment, of older women bucking dating stereotypes.

Many feminists still take issue with the word “cougar” because it may conjure the image of a predatory, aggressive older woman on the hunt for a boy toy. And plenty of cougar dating Web sites are salacious, as are other dating sites.

With television shows like “Cougar Town,” many movie plots based on these May-December romances (not always portraying cougars in a positive light) and a steady stream of tabloid reports on the comings and goings of celebrities like Demi Moore, the concept has taken hold in pop culture.

But that’s a far cry from a societal stamp of approval. Experts on female sexuality and women’s history say Google’s decision provides a glimpse into a pervasive discomfort with older women as sexually active players on the dating scene.

“It’s relatively new that women have felt O.K. to be sexual and be attractive and continue to be alive in that way as they aged,” said Lonnie Barbach, a psychologist in San Francisco who specializes in female sexuality and relationships. “It’s always been an acceptable part of culture for men to be sexual at all ages and all levels.”

Last week, CougarLife.com, which was paying Google $100,000 a month to manage its advertising and place it on content pages, was notified by the company that its ads, which had been appearing since October, would no longer be accepted.

Google confirmed that “cougar” would now automatically place a site into the adult category, but would not say which other words would do that.

“We can’t comment on specific advertisers, but our policy is that adult dating ads are classified as nonfamily-safe, meaning that they will not show on the Google Content Network,” the company said in an e-mail message.

When notified by Google of the decision, CougarLife proposed substituting a different ad for the ones that were running, picturing older women and younger men together. Cougarlife said it would use an image of the company’s president, Claudia Opdenkelder, 39, without a man in the picture (she lives with her 25-year-old boyfriend).

But the advertising department was told in an e-mail message from its Google representative that “the policy is focused particularly around the concept of ‘cougar dating’ as a whole,” and asked if the company would be open to changing “the ‘cougar’ theme/language specifically (including the domain if necessary).” CougarLife forwarded the e-mail messages to The New York Times. Google would not comment on the messages but did confirm that they were consistent with the new policy on cougar sites.

“It’s just wrong all around,” Ms. Opdenkelder said. “It’s age and gender discrimination. It’s just about older, successful, independent, strong women who enjoy someone that’s younger. Some of the men sites, they are borderline prostitution, and Google has no problem having them advertise.” CougarLife said it was considering filing a discrimination complaint with a Canadian agency that oversees equality issues between private parties, and was looking into possible legal recourse in the United States.

CougarLife.com is owned by Avid Life Media, which also owns ArrangementSeekers.com, which describes itself as “the original Sugar Daddy service catering to ambitious and attractive girls seeking successful and generous benefactors to fulfill their lifestyle needs!”

Avid Life Media executives said that while some specific advertisements for the ArrangementSeekers site had been rejected, the ads were evaluated on a case-by-case basis and the site was still advertising with Google.

Mr. Koshy of CougarLife.com said his site was, however, continuing to advertise on Facebook, spending $100,000 monthly. Facebook, he said, had objected to some specific content of proposed ads but had not objected to the cougar concept.

A Facebook spokeswoman said there was no “broad ban on ‘cougar ads,’ ” but that any advertisement’s “image and language cannot be overtly provocative or sexual.” In the messages to CougarLife, Google said it might revisit the new policy. But for now, the cougars would be confined.

Source: New York Times.

Miss Cougar Canada takes home tiara in Toronto, not looking for a cub
July 10, 2010
by Ciara Byrne

TORONTO (CP) — A Toronto woman crowned Miss Cougar Canada confessed on Saturday that she's not actually on the prowl for a young cub, despite taking home a tiara for the title.

Alison Brown, who would only reveal that she's in her forties, was given the honour Friday night at the Tattoo Rock Parlour during a cougar convention. "I've dated some younger guys but it's not like I'm out there lecherously looking for young boys... I've got two teenage sons. I've go to be careful," said Brown, who couldn't stop chuckling a day after the event.

Brown was actually on a date at a restaurant down the street from the bar, when she spontaneously decided it would be fun to check out the event. "He thought it was a laugh," said Brown, as she tried to contain her hearty laugh at the image of her date accompanying her to the unique singles event. "I really wasn't prepared to be entering a contest to tell you the truth," she added. The young men at the event were handed a coin and told to give it to the woman most deserving of the title. Brown decided to march right up to each man and simply asked them for a coin. "I was very direct. It was funny, because a few of them were quite surprised because no one had gone up and asked them," Brown said.

Brown admits she kind of crashed the cougar party. She doesn't consider herself one, but sees the value in the term. She said younger men are attracted to older women because they are sophisticated, intelligent and liberated.

The cougar convention organized by author and event planner Rich Gosse brought older women — and the men who lust after them — together for the night. Gosse is based in San Francisco and publicizes worldwide cougar events from his website cougarevents.com. He is also the author of "The Cougar Imperative."

Brown has won a free vacation during International Cougar Week which runs from March 27 through April 2, 2011. The prize includes a week at the Hedonism II Resort and Spa in Jamaica, but Brown said she will still have to dish out the money for plane fare. She still hasn't decided if she will go.

The cougar phenomenon has been in full-swing since 2002 when Toronto relationship expert Valerie Gibson published her book "Cougar." In recent years celebrity couples like Ashton Kutcher — who is in his early thirties —and Demi Moore — who is in her late forties — have given a public face to the term.

Source: Breitbart / Canadian Press.

The 'Cougar' concept: older women preying on younger men is a myth, claim scientists

Madonna and Demi Moore may prefer toyboys but the trend of older women going out with younger men is a myth outside of the world of celebrities, a study claims.

By Richard Alleyne
19 August 2010


Demi Moore is said to be influencing a whole new generation of 'cougar' women Photo: AP

British psychologists said that the phenomenon of the "cougar" – older women on the prowl for younger men – does not actually exist in the real world. They studied a number of online dating sites and found that men and women are still rather traditional when it comes to searching for their ideal partner. Women generally seek an older and, therefore hopefully, wealthier man whereas men desire a young and attractive female, and often prefer a much younger partner as they themselves age.

The findings, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, disputes the phenomenon popularised in TV shows and movies like "Cougar Town" starring Courteney Cox and "Sex and the City" of women aged over 40 seeking "cubs".

Dr Michael Dunn, a psychologist at the University of Wales, led the study which involved analysing the age preferences of 22,000 men and women using online dating sites across 14 countries and two religious groups. "A critically important consideration for advertisers on online dating sites appears to be the age of a potential partner," Dr Dunn said. He said it was a commonly held assumption that with the advent of female financial independence, women were now free to target men of any age group, as securing financial security from older, wealthier males was no longer a priority.

"The transference of female desire from relatively older men to relatively younger men, it has been argued, is reflected by the growth of the toy boy phenomenon," he said. "The results of our research challenges these assumptions. Although there was some cultural variation in extremes, the results showed clearly that women across all age groups and cultures, targeted males either their own age or older."

Dr Dunn said a strikingly different pattern of age preferences was evident in men. Younger men, aged 20 to 25, either targeted females their own age or marginally younger. But as males aged, they clearly expressed a preference for women increasingly younger than themselves, with this pattern also being cross-culturally consistent.

"These findings are clearly supportive of evolutionary theory," Dr Dunn added. "A wide variety of evidence has shown that women, when considering a potential long-term partner, focus more than males on cues indicative of wealth and status and these logically accumulate with age. Males conversely focus more intently on physical attractiveness cues and these are clearly correlated with the years of maximum fertility."

The study concluded: "Madonna and Demi Moore are said to be influencing a whole new generation of 'cougar' women who see much younger men as their goal when looking for a long-term partner. But this notion of the 'toyboy' phenomenon is dispelled as a myth which only exists in the world of celebrity rather than reflecting real life."

The countries involved in the survey were Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Greece, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and Ukraine.

Source: Telegraph UK.

Hmm, using dating web sites as a basis for a scientific study... maybe if each person had been more intensively interviewed the data may have carried more weight.

But I didn't need this 'research' to tell me that nothing much has changed overall. Financially secure single older women are a very small part of society and just because it is, more or less, socially accepted that they can now date younger men openly that doesn't mean it's a complete overhaul of more traditional dating and mating between men and women.

Younger men are queuing up for a cougar to love

Older woman's allure is not just a Tinseltown fad

By Victoria Richards
Sunday, 22 August 2010


Courteney Cox (centre), who plays a divorcée back on the dating scene, and cast of the US sitcom Cougar Town
KEVIN FOLEY / ABC

A middle-aged man is determined to shatter the myth that men are attracted only to younger women. He says that the "cougars" – toyboy-loving women such as Demi Moore and Madonna – will find the young 21st-century man highly receptive to their charms.

Rich Gosse, an American who has spent the past 15 years championing older women, will attempt to prove "there are millions of men who find older women attractive" at a convention dedicated to so-called cougars and pumas – women who date younger men. Mr Gosse last night said, "We're trying to shatter the taboo that says women can't date younger men. We're also doing it because there just aren't enough older men to go round. Men die five years earlier than women – so there's a smaller dating pool."

Although television shows such as Sex and the City and Cougar Town, which stars Courteney Cox, have helped to popularise the cougar phenomenon, Mr Gosse said older women have been "victimised by our youth-obsessed society". He added: "Age discrimination is perhaps the most pervasive prejudice in society." He wants cougar dating – 40-year-olds who go out with younger men – to become the norm.

He defended the concept of cougars after research last week suggested that, beyond the world of celebrity, the trend of older women going out with younger men was a myth. A study of online dating sites found that men and women followed tradition when it came to searching for partners, with women tending to seek older men and men younger women, especially as they themselves age. The findings, which analysed the age preferences of 22,000 men and women using online dating sites across 14 countries, were published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

Michael Dunn, a psychologist at the University of Wales, said his research showed the cougar phenomenon was "a myth and a media construct". He added: "Only the showbiz elite buck this evolutionary trend, and it could be because stars such as Madonna have already achieved their own wealth and status. But these relationships don't tend to last."

Yet Dr Dunn's conclusions go against the Hollywood trend for toyboys. Moore, now 47, the star of Ghost, married Ashton Kutcher, now 32, in 2005, and Madonna, 52, has an "on-off" relationship with the Brazilian model Jesus Luz, 24. Sam Taylor-Wood, aged 43, the artist-turned-film-maker, had a baby girl last month with her 20-year-old fiancé, Aaron Johnson.

Mr Gosse added: "Dr Dunn correctly concluded that women prefer older men. Nothing new there. Women have consistently preferred older men for thousands of years. But his study only covered preferences, not who these women actually are dating. If his study had analysed who women are actually dating, he would have found that many are breaking out of the younger woman/older man stereotype and dating younger men."

Source: The Independent UK.