I’m sitting in a Dublin superpub and I’m not having a good time. I’ve been dragged here against my better judgement – a friend of a friend’s birthday – and two mojitos and a glass of Champagne can’t disguise the fact that the décor is louder than the music, both of which are rubbish anyway.

Still, I’m here now, so I get down to some multi-tasking: trying to channel a vibe that says I’m much too knowing to be here of my own volition, sipping my drink and checking out the masculine talent. It’s then that I notice the girl gang at the next table.
The girls, glam, tanned and fashionably turned out, are British, half pissed and getting loud. One, a blondie that looks to be the ringleader, has just grabbed the arse of a passing lad. He jumps in surprise, smiles good-naturedly and hurries away. The girls cackle at his expense. And well they might – not one of them will see the right side of 45 again. Here’s to you, Mrs Robinson.
“Cougars,” says Triona and we both nod sagely. “Do you think we’ll end up like that?”
What I want to say is, no, of course not, but both of us have dated more than our fair share of younger men. There’s a good chance we’re cougars-in-training. That’s not a comfortable thought.
I decide to be honest. “It’s possible, but…”
“Yes,” replies Triona, picking up my uneasiness. “But not so… you know...”
“Oompah loompah orange?” I venture.
“That too.” She grabs my mojito, drains the rest of it in one go, and slams the glass back on the table. “C’mon, we need some proper drinks.”
The next day I got thinking – what is it about cougars that unnerve me? It’s not the younger men. Definitely not! I’m all for younger men. Science may say that time isn’t linear, but unfortunately that’s the way it acts. Since I’m going to get older, I appreciate the fact that twentysomething men are often more than happy to shack up with mature ladies. It’s like a sexual pension plan.
However, there’s a difference between women who date younger men and cougars. I call them the hunters and the gatherers. The gatherers have sex with or date younger men because they can. These ladies exude sexual confidence. They look good, dress well and men of all ages find them attractive. They are the real world equivalents of Madonna or Demi Moore. When I grow up, I’d like to be one.
Marie is in her mid 40s, but looks at least ten years younger. She’s been separated for five years and has a grown-up daughter. She’s also been seeing my friend Jim for the past three months. He’s happy, she’s happy. “It’s just easy,” says Jim. “We enjoy each other’s company, we have a good time.”
My friend Lucinda is in her late 30s. She’s has been shacked up with a bloke twelve years younger for the past two years. Lucky woman! “Sometimes I notice the age difference, but mostly I don’t. I guess he’s mature for his age and I’m not!”
Good for them I say. Older women, younger men, older men, younger women, so what? Society often frowns on age disparities in relationships, just like it frowns upon all kinds of pairings such as homosexuality or sex between people of different cultures, religions or races. But that’s society’s problem, not the couples.
Nope, it’s the hunters that bother me. These women target young men exclusively, but often it’s not really about sex or pleasure. It’s about ‘winning.’
Like the pick-up artists Neil Strauss writes about in The Game, cougars treat sex as a game.
The site UrbanCougar.com tells me that a cougar is “a sophisticated species of female who seeks the pleasure of younger males.” This is “the hunt.” UrbanCougar.com and Valerie Gibson’s book, Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men both describe younger men as “prey”. It’s meant to be funny, tongue in cheek, but is it really?
I presume that most of the guys targeted by these ladies are either flattered or at least well able to say no if they don’t want the attention, but this attitude depersonalises and dehumanises potential sexual partners as nothing more than a sexual snack. It’s insulting when men do this, and just as bad when women do too.
A lot of men don’t seem to mind – at least in theory. “I love the idea of sexually aggressive older women,” said Aaron. Jonathan agreed. “I wish they came onto me. More power to the MILFs!” Damien claimed to have been picked up by a fortysomething blonde who started massaging his crotch as he was innocently standing at the bar. “She looked well and she obviously went to the gym.”
From what I can see, like many things, it all depends on the context – it’s flattering if the cougar in question is attractive, harassment if she’s not, as my friend Eric knows all too well. “She wouldn’t leave me alone. I tried belching in her face, but she was drunk so she laughed,” Eric complained. He managed to escape from the nipped, tucked, botoxed and manicured harridan’s claws, but claims the experience scarred him for life. “A determined woman isn’t funny. You can’t hit her. All you can do is ignore her or act like an asshole and hope she goes away.”
My lovely ex Thomas has pheromones like ultrasonic sound – dogs and ladies of a certain vintage find him irresistible. Many an evening I had to bitch slap some old wan who had him trapped in a corner! No, just kidding, but he did get a lot of attention from older ladies. Most of the time he seemed to enjoy it, loved it, in fact, until the night he nearly fell down the stairs avoiding a group of aggressive glamorous grannies. “They mauled me,” he whimpered while I made soothing noises.
“The problem is the aggressiveness,” suggested Ciara, and I think she might be right. I admire sexual assertiveness and confidence, but booze, brashness and bingo wings? That’s not a good combination.
As a society, we tacitly allow women to be sexually assertive to the point of being pushy. If the sexes had been reversed in the pub and a drunken fifty-year-old man had grabbed a young lady’s peachy cheeks, chances are, the bouncers would have intervened. As women are generally smaller and weaker than men, sexual harassment committed by women is often brushed off as a bit of a joke. It’s not fair, but that’s how it is.
But Olivia had different theory.
“You know what your problem is?” she said. “You’re jealous.”
Olivia reckons we are only bothered by other people’s behaviour when we wish we could be like them, or fear that we secretly are. Unfortunately, this idea is not without merits.
“You think I wish I could be more sexually aggressive? Or sleep with 20-year-old boys?" I asked.
“Either. Both. You tell me.”
I said nothing. Muhammad Ali was right –“Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.”