Cougar (slang)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cougar is an English slang term for women who are looking for a much younger man for a relationship or as a sexual partner . In a non-figurative sense, the word means “ puma ” (silver lion). The term alludes on the one hand to the hair color, on the other hand to the image of the “hunt” for partners.

Concept history

Emergence

The exact origin of the term is unclear. It was possibly first used in the 1980s on the Canadian ice hockey team Vancouver Canucks as a term for "older single women who went to the team's games to sexually stalk players". Its popularization appears to go back to an article and book by Toronto Sun Canadian columnist Valerie Gibson in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Gibson said he had picked it up from an acquaintance and adopted it as a "name for women over 40 who like to have younger partners and do not want to commit themselves". According to other sources, " Cougar Annie " (Ada Annie Rae-Arthur, 1888–1985) is said to have been formative for the development of the term in British Columbia . Rae-Arthur, who was married four times (including a man twelve years his junior), was considered independent and self-confident; her nickname comes from the fact that she is said to have shot around 100 cougars in her life.

Allusions to predators and hunting are common in the world of sexual terms. However, other expressions associated with cats (such as “ pussy ”) are more of a cliché of the female role than “small”, “weak” or “passive”. Cougar reverses this field of meaning by using the largest feline predator in North America as an analogy. The woman is not passive here, but rather goes actively “hunting” for younger sexual partners.

Another story

The term first appeared in the New York Times in January 2006. Six months later - also in a New York Times article - Elizabeth Hayt used the term to refer to the main female characters in Laurent Cantet's film In the South (2005) which premiered in the US on July 9, 2006.

Cantet's film portrayed older women looking for romantic adventures with young men in a differentiated and sensitive manner. In 2008, Donna Moore brought out a musical Cougar in New York City ( Off-Broadway ) , which also centered on a trio of mature and disaffected women who amused themselves with young men and found self-confidence and self-love in the process. The US sitcom Cougar Town followed in 2009 (until 2015), which tells sensitive and entertaining stories of the promiscuous love adventures that a freshly divorced 40-year-old has with significantly younger men. The leading actress Courteney Cox received a Golden Globe Award for her performance in 2010 .

In January 2010 , the Wiener Standard was one of the first national newspapers in German-speaking countries to use the term. ORF Eins began broadcasting Cougar Town in July 2010 , which was marketed in the dubbed version with the subtitle “40 is the new 20”. Moore's musical had its German premiere in 2016 at the Coupé Theater in Berlin.

The term made a career: in 2007 it landed in second place in the US Word of the Year competition at Oxford University Press, and Newsweek named 2009 the “Year of the Cougar” after books, mainstream films and Contributed in well-known newspapers such as the New York Times and even fallen in a debate in the New Zealand Parliament. According to researchers from Victoria University of Wellington , media attention is exaggerated, even though the number of couples in which the woman is significantly older than the man has increased since the 1980s. According to a 2003 study by the American Association of Retired Persons , one in three single women in the United States between the ages of 40 and 69 had younger partners. According to the US Census Bureau , men were at least ten years younger than women in fewer than 500,000 couples in the United States in 1997. In 2003 there were around 3 million couples in which the man was at least six years younger than the woman. A 2015 study by McGill University concluded that approximately 13% of 35- to 44-year-old women in the United States had slept with a man who was at least five years their junior. Author Mark J. Penn describes the phenomenon and social trend in detail in his 2007 book Microtrends in a chapter entitled Cougars .

Nonetheless, the term also meets with criticism: Sociologist Eric Fassin criticizes the use of the word cougar for Brigitte Macron , wife of French President Emmanuel Macron , as sexist , because one can see in him "a kind of admiration" for the subversion of traditional norms , but also “animalize” the woman with the title: female desire is “desirable, but also threatening to masculinity”. In general, the term can be an insult, but it can also serve as a metaphor for sexually emancipated women.

In January 2010, the New Zealand airline Air New Zealand ran a controversial commercial in which cougars were portrayed as aggressive , promiscuous , tragic, intoxicated women on the prowl. The campaign was so controversial that it was discontinued.

Cougar women in pornography

Although some language users wanted the term "post-feminist" and some women who identified with the term associated it with empowerment or the "comparison to a powerful, lithe and very attractive predator" they liked, Cougar women also dive as a genre in pornography (cf. MILF ), which, however, focuses on men's preferences for older women instead of women's interest in younger men. The pairing “older woman, younger man” occurs most frequently on the pornography website YouPorn . The first porn films that deal with scenes with cougars were made in 2006. For example, film series are Cougars On the Prowl or Seduced By a Cougar .

See also

literature

  • Rosemary-Claire Collard: Cougar figures, gender, and the performances of predation . In: Gender, Place & Culture . tape 19 , no. 4 , August 2012, p. 518-540 , doi : 10.1080 / 0966369X.2011.610179 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Cougar  - explanations of meanings, origins of words, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Zoe Lawton, Paul Callister: Older Women-Younger Men Relationships: the Social Phenomenon of 'Cougars'. A research note . Institute of Policy Studies Working Paper 10/02. Wellington January 2010 (English, online [PDF; 415 kB ; accessed on May 15, 2017]). Older Women-Younger Men Relationships: the Social Phenomenon of 'Cougars'. A Research Note ( Memento of the original from April 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ips.ac.nz
  2. Valerie Gibson: Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men . Firefly Books Ltd., 2002, ISBN 978-1-55297-635-7 .
  3. Maridel Reyes: Field Guide to the Cougar - Why society has not quite accepted the May / December relationship. In: Psychology Today . November 1, 2010, accessed May 13, 2017 .
  4. Collard 2012, p. 526 f.
  5. Collard 2012, p. 532
  6. Allen Salkin: Love (and Leave) Thy Neighbor. In: The New York Times. January 8, 2006, accessed July 20, 2018 .
  7. Elizabeth Hayt: Libidos of a Certain Age. In: The New York Times. June 16, 2006, accessed July 20, 2018 . Heading South. In: IMDB. Retrieved July 20, 2018 .
  8. ^ Cougar The Musical. Retrieved July 20, 2018 .
  9. On the hunt for fresh meat. In: The Standard. January 21, 2010, accessed July 20, 2018 .
  10. Cougar the musical. Retrieved July 20, 2018 .
  11. Ramin Setoodeh: Why 2009 is the year of the Cougar. Newsweek , June 17, 2009, accessed May 13, 2017 .
  12. Milaine Alarie, Jason Carmichael: The “Cougar” Phenomenon: An Examination of the Factors That Influence Age-Hypogamous Sexual Relationships Among Middle-Aged Women . In: Journal of Marriage and Family . tape 77 , no. 5 , October 2015, p. 1250–1265 , doi : 10.1111 / jomf.12213 (English, researchgate.net [PDF; 289 kB ; accessed on May 20, 2017]).
  13. ^ Mark J. Penn, E. Kinney Zalesne: Microtrends: the small forces behind tomorrow's big changes . Twelve, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-446-58096-0 .
  14. Patrick Kovarik: Brigitte Macron, cible de remarques sexistes: "Dire cougar, c'est animaliser". Le Parisien , May 10, 2017, accessed on May 13, 2017 (French).
  15. Josie Tetley, David Lee, James Nazroo, Sharron Hinchliff: Let's talk about sex - what do older men and women say about their sexual relations and sexual activities? A qualitative analysis of ELSA Wave 6 data . In: Aging & Society . November 15, 2016 (English, whiterose.ac.uk [PDF; 226 kB ; accessed on May 21, 2017]).
  16. Collard 2012, p. 528
  17. Collard 2012, p. 529
  18. Vanessa Murdock, Charles Clarke, Jaap Kamps, Jussi Karlgren: Current Research on Search and Exploration of X-rated Information . In: Workshop on Search and Exploration of X-Rated Information . Rome February 5, 2013 (English, uva.nl [PDF; 142 kB ; accessed on May 21, 2017]).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / humanities.uva.nl  
  19. Derrell Cox II: What Drives the Human Sex Drive? Peering into the Portals of Virtual Sex . P. 8 (English, researchgate.net [PDF; 282 kB ; accessed on May 21, 2017]).