Mon 01 Feb 2010 |
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 The days when animal names were the exclusive preserve of seek-and-destroy SEAL teams and…well, erm, animals seem to belong, firmly, to the last century. In the 21st century the ages of a woman seem to be described by jungle-themed predatory terms such as: puma, cougar and panther. With Hollywood’s Cougar Town (starring Courtney Cox) due to be televised in March this year I am willing to wager that everyone knows pretty much what it stands for, particularly as the first LA Cougar Convention was on just this month. For those still catching up however I will be more detailed. A woman in her thirties dating younger man is, apparently, a puma, a woman in her forties and fifties, doing the same thing, is a cougar while a woman in her sixties is, officially, a panther. Now there are many issues to discuss here, any of which could happily fill several books. One is perhaps that that, so called, age-appropriate relationships (you know the ones where both partners are the same age) are an anachronism and really not that cool any more. Young women do feel more secure with older men, older men do covet younger women (as they seek to recapture their youth), younger men do feel more secure with older women and older women are more sexually liberated and understand just how to please younger men, so everyone, according to this, everyone should be pleased and there should be no issue. And there isn’t if we are honest about it and admit that the younger partners in any of these combinations are seeking some kind of financial and emotional security and looking for experience and the older ones are in it for the sex and the feeling of recaptured virility. The thing is that the moment we start to talk about love things begin to get really muddled not because it isn’t possible across age gaps but because pretending age does not matter at some point is, obviously, false. Another issue of course is emancipation. The temptation here is to say it’s really cool women are so liberated that they can chase younger men at any age but there is something quite unsettling behind the feeling that these predatory terms one of which was, until recently, not all that complimentary, are reserved just for women. Older men chasing women young enough to be their daughters are just men chasing women and there doesn’t seem to be any need to attach labels to them like they are some oddity at a zoo, which means that the feeling of sexual liberation and equality between the sexes one gets is tempered by the notion that there is some form of discrimination is still going on. Then there is the issue of whether relationships formed of mutual needs are as stable and long-lasting as ones which are based on real love and finally let’s not forget to question whether any relationship is designed to last the test of time. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins announced they were splitting, last Christmas, after 23 years together and one cannot help but wonder just how much a part their 12-year age gap play in this. When they first met and she was 40 and he was 28 things may not have looked out of the ordinary but with her now 63 while he is just 51 time is not on their side. I sometimes point towards answers to the questions posed in my articles or, at least, indicate where we should be looking for answers but here, I’ll admit, I am in the same boat as you. The landscape in which we have our relationships is clearly changing. So called, traditional, relationships no longer seem to be the norm, though historically that is also questionable as tribal societies as well as the ancient world seemed to have had different social models, and the future, as we know it seems to be written in our lifetime. What do you think? Tags: 
Comments (1)Subscribe to this comment's feedOlder men and women with younger females and males
Alisa, how can a person put a name to love, or to a special partner in someones life? It is not fair that men are not judged for dating or having an afair with a girls old enough to be his daughter. It seems to be ok cause when man does it no big deal. When women fall in love with younger men why such a crime. Some date younger men to be able to stay young or try to prove to theirself that they still have it.... But some times we can find that person 10, 15, 20 years younger than ourself and love does happen and they have a happy life. As we get older with our partners we loose track of what we should notice and the things we should say to each other we get lost and think it is fine and the other will be there for ever. Until we feel no longer a part of our partner and the younger ones come around we get from them what we forget what was important to us when we first met. I still do not feel it is wrong to love or have a realtionship with some one younger, your heart is the only thing that can tell you how to feel.
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February 02, 2010
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