Cougars

There is a term out there, "cougars", which is used to describe an older woman who dates a younger man (i.e., Demi Moore, Mira Sorvino, etc). This whole concept was brought to the front of my brain today when I read an article about how a 104-year-old woman in Malaysia married a 33-year-old man - and the woman is poor. Granted, this is an extreme and quite frankly, gross exaggeration of the concept, but, nonetheless, the whole "cougar movement" seems to be the new "it" thing.

And this is worrisome for a woman in her 20s.

For the first time in, well, perhaps the history of human beings, women in their 20s are getting the bum deal. We always compete with the younger babes and now the cougars are out and hotter than ever. So where does that leave us?

First of all, don't get me wrong, I'm all for it. It's nice to finally see that women don't "expire" at 30 as it seems they have in the past - particularly in the media. You can see it in the movies (can you say "Basic Instinct 2") on TV ("Desperate Housewives") and the magazines (Meg Ryan is gracing the cover of Allure this month - what is she - almost 50?) - hot cougars everywhere.

But if you think about it, us women in our 20s, we're in this strange abyss. The days of the tight little bods and youthful innocence of our teens are gone and we're not as seasoned as the cougs. We're definitely still hot to trot but in a strange purgatory. [Clarification: I am NOT trying to age myself, I just think it's interesting that we're the forgotten generation of women right now.]

I was reading an article on askmen.com about "cougars" and there was a very simple explanation. Older women rock because: "More often than not, an older woman has faced her insecurities and fears head on... she likely has enough life experience to know what matters and what doesn't... Older women have the self-confidence that could only come from experience and the knowledge that they can handle whatever life throws their way." We women in our 20s are still dealing with those insecurities (ha ha - hello, my blog) and men really want a woman who could just plain give a shit what you think.

It's a bittersweet concept. It's about time that men realize that women retain their beauty and sexiness with age - it also reinforces the idea of finding yourself and settling into a career before settling down. But it also depletes the fish pool of eligible bachelors in their late 20s early 30s for those of us stuck in the middle.

We're fermenting - not freshly bottled but we're still waiting to be adequately aged.