# Explain the whole "cougar" meme to me.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [September 21, 2007, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011 "2007-09-21T17:50:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/1 "2007-09-21T17:50:43Z")
It seems like I see mentions of “cougars” everywhere recently. (for the uninformed, evidently, “cougars” are forty-ish women who go after younger guys) Where did this term come from? Has it always been around? Am I just way more sensitive to it 'cause I just turned forty? It seems to be both a good term (there are “future Cougar” groups on Facebook) and a term of derision (guys mock women who date younger men). What identifies a woman as a “cougar” and is it a good or bad thing?
---
### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/2 "2007-09-21T18:12:28Z")
I just heard the phrase last week and since then, I’ve run into it twice more in different places.
---
### Author:  [@cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cherry)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/3 "2007-09-21T18:19:13Z")
I’m suprised so many have just heard of the term cougar including my husband. I heard of term cougars when I was in highschool in Toronto in the early 90s I guess. I’m 34 now. Most of the cougars I’ve observed at bars are a little aggressive. I’m not sure if that is good or bad. FWIW, when the movie referred to Elen Barkin in Oceans 13 as a cougar, I thought she was too old to be called one IMO.
---
### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/4 "2007-09-21T18:34:18Z")
[QUOTE=tremorviolet]
What identifies a woman as a “cougar” and is it a good or bad thing?
[/QUOTE]
It’s good if the cougar is also a MILF\*! 😃
\*“Mature lady I’d Like to have Fun with”, of course
---
### Author:  [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/5 "2007-09-21T19:04:40Z")
I first heard the term cougar on the show “How I Met Your Mother” they did a whole episode on cougar hunting.
---
### Author:  [@nonymouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nonymouse)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/6 "2007-09-21T19:07:42Z")
I want to know where to find one.
---
### Author:  [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/7 "2007-09-21T19:08:21Z")
[QUOTE=nonymouse]
I want to know where to find one.
[/QUOTE]
Geez, it feels as if every nightclub is full of them.
---
### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/8 "2007-09-21T19:21:13Z")
They are a grown up sex kitten. But much deadlier.
---
### Author:  [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/9 "2007-09-21T19:21:33Z")
“Cougar” is a pretty old term. It means any older woman who persues younger men (doesn’t need to be a woman in her forties, just a woman who is _significantly_ older than the men she pursues).
I heard it back when I was a teen and was told it the term partly comes from appearance: bleached blond hair that doesn’t quite disguise the grey hair (creating a puma-colored hairstyle) and is loosely related to the term “minx” or “sex kitten” for younger women.
---
### Author:  [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/10 "2007-09-21T19:30:16Z")
(Missed the edit window.)
“Cougar” while seldomly used in a positive way, doesn’t mean that the older woman is unappealing. It just means she is older and a bit of a predatory flirt. “Cougars” can certainly be attractive.
An ugly cougar is a “haguar”.
---
### Author:  [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/11 "2007-09-21T19:31:22Z")
[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
An ugly cougar is a “haguar”.
[/QUOTE]
This would have made me spit any beverage in my mouth at the time I read it. 😛
---
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/12 "2007-09-21T19:40:48Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed]
It’s good if the cougar is also a MILF\*! 😃
\*“Mature lady I’d Like to have Fun with”, of course
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure if we’re being wooshed but the M in MILF usually stands for “Mom”.
I think what distinguishes a “couger” is the way they almost stalk their prey like a big cat toying with a bird or mouse. Well known cougers from popular media include:
Mrs Robinson from The Graduate
Samantha Jones from Sex and the City
Stifler’s Mom from the American Pie movies
---
### Author:  [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/13 "2007-09-21T20:09:39Z")
I just heard this for the first time as well. I was having a drink with a friend on Tuesday, and a woman of _exactly_ the descriptions given in this thread came into the bar, sat a few barstools down from us and started up a very flirty conversation. I don’t believe I’ve ever been eye-fucked as aggressively as she was doing. My friend and I both loudly and pointedly mentioned our wives, and she didn’t back off one bit. It was kind of alarming.
So my friend and I made our exit, and he later referred to her as a “cougar.” First time I’d heard the term, though there is now, of course, a [Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cougar_%28slang%29) about it.
---
### Author:  [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/14 "2007-09-21T20:32:22Z")
I’d always thought it to mean an older women who dresses and acts like she’s 22 and goes after 22 year olds. I don’t think a normal 40 yo dating a 30 yo would be a cougar.
Think soccer mom in a college bar dressed in hip huggers and a super tight shirt aggressively hitting on all the college dudes.
---
### Author:  [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/15 "2007-09-21T20:44:13Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed]
I just heard the phrase last week and since then, I’ve run into it twice more in different places.
[/QUOTE]
That’s the thing, I’d never heard it and all of a sudden it seems to be everywhere.
I wonder if the usage in _Oceans 13_ that **cherry** mentions popularized the term.
> [@jk1245](#):
>
> I don’t think a normal 40 yo dating a 30 yo would be a cougar.
So if I’m forty and persuing a 28-year old but my hair isn’t blond (but I do have fake nails and probably dress too young), am I a cougar? 🙂
---
### Author:  [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/16 "2007-09-21T20:58:29Z")
[QUOTE=tremorviolet]
So if I’m forty and persuing a 28-year old but my hair isn’t blond (but I do have fake nails and probably dress too young), am I a cougar? 🙂
[/QUOTE]
Hmmm… let’s see…
enter…carry the 3…add in the remainder
Nope! You are a bobcat.
Actually, I’m 35 (interesting aside: what’s a male cougar called?) so, I really can’t say for sure what is an what isn’t.
---
### Author:  [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/17 "2007-09-21T21:10:36Z")
[QUOTE=jk1245]
Actually, I’m 35 (interesting aside: what’s a male cougar called?)
[/QUOTE]
Older men pursuing younger women doesn’t seem to be the target of as much derision. (Totally unfair IMHO). Although that movie that had Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones kind of skeeved some people out.
Like, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart is portrayed as the media more romatically as a “May/December romance”, whereas Demi Moore And Ashton Kutcher got all kinds of “cougar/toy-boy” comments until they got married.
But depending on your SQ (suave quotient) a male cougar would either me a “mature gentleman” or a “dirty old man”.
If you’re a gay man after young male hotties, they call you “chickenhawk.”
**JK** if you’re 35 and hitting on 18-year-olds, if you have a lousy SQ, you’re too young to be a dirty old man, so the girls would probably just call you “creep.”
---
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/18 "2007-09-21T21:20:55Z")
[QUOTE=jk1245]
Actually, I’m 35 (interesting aside: what’s a male cougar called?) so, I really can’t say for sure what is an what isn’t.
[/QUOTE]
An older guy going after a 20 something year old girl? That’s just called “some guy”.
Actually, we had a friend who was notorious for dating much younger girls. We used to call him “Joey Buttafuco” (since he was also big and Italian).
[QUOTE=jk1245]
I’d always thought it to mean an older women who dresses and acts like she’s 22 and goes after 22 year olds. I don’t think a normal 40 yo dating a 30 yo would be a cougar.
[/quote]
Not exactly. When I think of 22 year olds, I generally think of young, immature and a bit silly or naive. Cougers don’t act like 22 year olds. They are generally attractive, mature, confident and sophisticated. A couger would be wearing a sexy Versace party dress drinking a Cosmopolitan, not swilling dollar drafts and wearing a tight T-shirt with some stupid quote on it.
---
### Author:  [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/19 "2007-09-21T21:29:53Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537]
Cougers don’t act like 22 year olds. They are generally attractive, mature, confident and sophisticated. A couger would be wearing a sexy Versace party dress drinking a Cosmopolitan, not swilling dollar drafts and wearing a tight T-shirt with some stupid quote on it.
[/QUOTE]
Mrs. Robinson from _The Graduate_, as you said in your earlier post, is probably the archetypal cougar.
ETA: The thing is, not all woman have the sophistication and sex appeal to pull it off as well as Mrs. Robinson. Hence the term is mildly derisive.
---
### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2007, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011/20 "2007-09-21T21:34:35Z")
Wow. Cultural expectations are so startling, sometimes.
I figured this thread was about the catamount. A couple miles from here is the grave of a 6 year old boy who was killed by one. I think he was one of the last people hereabouts to be taken by one of these terrifying beasts. Every time I hear some car company naming their product after them, or a musician naming himself likewise, or see similar themed references to them, it makes me jumpy. Imagine hearing one stalking you, maybe spotting it, and wondering - should you run? stand perfectly still? try to climb a tree? look for a big stick?
I mean, they’re absolute killing machines, aren’t they? The power, the speed, the cunning. The teeth. The smart, level stare.
Maybe they sound all badass and cool and whatnot, and for all I know they do sell automobiles (though if my car killed somebody I’d feel pretty bad about it). But I think the less we mess with them, and the less they mess with us, the better.
Besides, what would one of us last them, a week maybe?
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-whole-cougar-meme-to-me/420011.md?page=2)