Juicy Tomatoes

Monday, August 07, 2006

Juicy Women Say Grrrr...

You know the term cougar? It refers to an older woman who goes out with younger men. You can think of a creature on the prowl. Or you can imagine someone sleek and proud strutting her stuff. I prefer the latter which is what I told a Phoenix newspaper reporter doing a story on the once-phenomenon now growing trend of older women/younger men.
I also said that it makes sense that today a woman over 50 would not limit her partners to men of her own age or older.
Men have been doing it for as long as we can remember. Why shouldn’t we have the same variety of choices?
But the match is still noteworthy and inevitably conjures up Mrs. Robinson seduction scenes from the 1967 film “The Graduate” with Anne Bancroft playing the older woman bedding the younger Dustin Hoffman.
A trivia point: “Older woman” Bancroft was in reality only six years older than Dustin Hoffman. But that still happens with actresses. Past a certain age they have to play mothers and grandmothers and women much older than they area. Bancroft was 36 years old when she played that lovely, nasty Mrs. Robinson.
An East Coast friend recently called to say her 30-year-old son had fallen in love with the perfect woman (in his mind) who happens to be 47. I told my friend that she obviously raised her son not only to be open-minded and non-ageist but to appreciate the finer things.
About the same time I was met up with a TV personality who went to her 40th high school reunion and took along her current escort, a man 10 years her junior.
She enjoyed the eye-popping response from her old high school friends and got to be the talk of the party until she was upstaged by the homecoming queen. She had married the football hero after high school but they had long divorced. The homecoming queen's date for the reunion was her new woman partner.
The TV woman has been exploring the age differences in partners since she resumed dating in her 50s. She said that on either side, with younger or older, she only goes as far as an eight to 10 year gap. After that it’s too much of a stretch to enjoy and appreciate the generational differences.
What makes older women attractive to younger men, according to the Phoenix newspaper's research, is their experience and wisdom. And of course, women look and feel better than they used to at 50 and older. And that makes them confident. And isn't confidence a seductive thing?