It's been three months since I began my research on the cougar phenomenon. In order to observe first hand, I joined some Cougar & Cub websites. What an eye-opening experience it's been. In three months, on one site alone, I've had nine thousand hits; notes and flirts. Never in a million years did I anticipate so many to be curious about a woman my age. My profiles and verbiage are much different than most. I'm writing more articles to include dialogs because they are so telling.
Even though I've been attracted to and dated younger men for two decades, never did it dawn on me to coin a phrase or join a movement to explain or justify my activity; my likes, my choices in men. Nor have I ever felt that I needed to join a group of women who call themselves 'cougars'. I entered the cougar world to see what this hullaballoo was all about.
Recently I watched Tyra Bank's TV show featuring a panel of cougars, (40+ women and 50+ women). There were no women representing my decade which was telling. I would have given my eye teeth to have been on that panel at 65 years wise.
As I sat there, watching Tyra's show, I was mesmerized by what I was seeing. The theme was a cougar pageant, the crowning of Ms. Cougar Arizona, yielding accolades and prizes for the winner. Some of the women had formed a clique of sorts and the winner of the contest was not a part of that group. I watched as the women in the clique became very judgmental of the woman who won the contest.
My first emotion was anger as I looked deeper to find the root cause of all this malice. Because I'm writing articles on this subject matter, I have to force myself to watch some of today's so called 'reality' shows. Most recent, Housewives of New Jersey, but it could have been any one of the Housewives' shows. They all have one common theme and that is to pit women against women. Notice how the scripts cause women to not only say terrible things about each other, call each other deplorable names, they even go so far as to engage in physical violence. Women are paid to make a lot of money to sell their soul by the men who produce these shows. This is who I'm after, the men who profit financially by demonizing women in such a way it undermines the very essence of womanhood.
