‘Cougars’ turn tradition on its end

Coo, coo ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson. Look what you started.

Older women pairing up with younger men is becoming mainstream, barely raising eyebrows as women in great shape and good health find themselves attracted to men sometimes young enough to be their sons. All those baby boomer girls who watched Anne Bancroft seduce Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 film “The Graduate” are middle-age and trying out May-December relationships for themselves.

“Younger guys are more fun,” says Mary Walsh, 59, a single woman and nurse. “Men in my age group are fat, have high cholesterol and are not in good shape.”

A 2003 AARP survey on sexuality among single Americans ages 40 to 69 found that 35 percent of women want to date younger men, and 34 percent are. Three percent of women date men 15 or more years younger, 5 percent date men 10 to 14 years younger, and 11 percent date men 5 to 9 years younger.

There’s a manual for such women. Valerie Gibson, author and sex-relationships columnist for the Toronto Sun, titled her guide for older women dating younger men “Cougar” (Firefly Books, $12.95). Once a derogatory term for the stereotypical older woman trying too hard to look young, sexy and available to younger men, “cougar” no longer implies an unsavory predator, Gibson says: “A cougar is a beautiful animal: sleek, powerful and in control.”

“It’s an important trend; it’s a significant trend,” says Duffy Spencer, a social psychologist on Long Island, N.Y., and host of the radio talk show “Just Relationships.” “It makes male-female relationships topsy-turvy. It turns everything on end.”

In the past, women tended to hook up with men their age or older.

“This is moderating,” says Pepper Schwartz, a professor in the sociology department at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Women are keeping themselves trim and attractive and are staying sexual into old age. They have careers, higher incomes, a wealth of experience and good connections.

“They bring something to the relationship,” Schwartz says. “Their antennae are out.”

Part of the credit goes to the beauty industry, which has helped middle-age women remain youthful, psychotherapist Marjorie Schulte says.

“Women are feeling like, ‘Hey, I look great and I can be with this young pup who turns me on,”’ Schulte says.

Cougar is no pussycat

Married five times and organizing her fourth annual Cougar Cruise (there’s a waiting list) on Lake Ontario, Gibson considers herself a pioneering cougar. In her late 50s or early 60s (she declines to give her age), Gibson said being a cougar is an attitude, not a number.

“They’re professional, often entrepreneurs, corporate climbers. They’re very much in command, very independent,” she says.

Not all older women dating younger men are cougars, she says.

“It doesn’t really count if you are in your late 20s or early 30s because it’s experience and wisdom that makes a cougar a cougar,” she says.

“Over-35 (women) have strength and control. If you’re 40-plus, you have the condo, the car, and you’re fit and together.”

Commitment also distinguishes cougars. They aren’t interested in permanent relationships.

“They want to have fun with a good-looking guy on their own terms,” Gibson says.

It’s what men have done for years.

Susan Swartz, a relationship columnist and author of “The Juicy Tomatoes Guide to Ripe Living After 50” (New Harbinger Publications, $16.95) says age isn’t the bugaboo it used to be.

“We have choices. And we think we should have as many choices as men,” she says.

Women comfortable with a younger partner are usually attractive and self-confident. Many describe themselves as not looking their age.

Psychologist Spencer cites a survey showing that men prefer attractive older women to plain-Jane younger ones: Looks transcend age.

Sexual attraction

It’s their very independence that makes older women attractive to younger men, says James Bassil, editor in chief of askmen.com, a Canadian-based Web site that attracts 7 million mostly American male readers monthly. Like the average visitor to the Web site, Bassil is 28 years old. (He dates a woman his age.) He says there has been a steady appetite for information about finding and dating older women.

Sexual experience is part of the allure, but the independence factor is also critical, Bassil says.

Susan Winter, New York author of “Older Women, Younger Men” (New Horizon Press, $15.95), finds the taboos against these relationships are rapidly disappearing, but Gibson and Swartz say they remain, especially in Canada and areas of the United States like the Midwest and the South.

Even though baby boomers as a generation have debunked many social mores, eliminating the raised eyebrow when an older woman pairs with a younger man will take lots of time, Gibson says.