Saturday 27 November 2010

Cougaring!!


Cougar is a domestic cat living in wild. It is a big game predatory cat. But now the word “Cougar” has become synonymous with a middle aged woman who goes ‘hunting for a cub’! This solitary cat prowls and preys on a man almost of her son’s age!!

The word can be new to you but the phenomenon is age old. If we go back to the 1500's we would find that Queen Elizabeth was notorious for her strong inclinations towards younger courtiers!

The concept might definitely sound weird to the Indian psyche since we are made to believe that 'respectable' ladies DO NOT behave like this! But the fact is that, it is a fast developing phenomenon. It has become quite common in western countries especially in U.S where you would come across many such examples. You must have heard of Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher who have 15 years of age difference while and Barbara Hershey and Naveen Andrews have an age gap of 21 years. The modern woman is seen as strong figure in society and thus her attitude towards cougar dating is less secretive now.

Somebody has rightly said, “The human mind is so complex and things are so tangled up with each other that, to explain a blade of straw, one would have to take to pieces an entire universe”. Thus whole lot of factors…psychological, biological, emotional…here also, get involved into converting a woman into ‘a cougar’ and a young man going after her, completely mesmerized.

A woman in her late 40’s and early 50’s reaches her sexual peak..the time which coincides with the male menopause. She might feel deprived of her physical needs at this time. She finds a man quite younger than her age, full of energy in comparison with her spouse. Things begin to get exciting, enticing and interesting for her when she finds an untiring stamina and an unstoppable intensity in a young man! Modern day educated, empowered, professionally successful and financially secure woman would like to seek some thrills with a man who can help in fulfilling her unmet desires.

Cougaring may sometimes go beyond physical infatuation. The woman may want someone to appreciate her, to be with her and to be tied to her. The reason behind it may be that she might be suffering from “Empty Nest Syndrome”. It is a time when her children leave home after becoming independent. The ‘Goody Goody Momma’ now becomes ‘Ms Independent’. Finding her relationship with her spouse stale and unadventurous, she enjoys mentoring a young man since she has got a lifetime experience which the young man doesn’t have. She tries to find a man who is romantic, chivalrous and, above all, relatively free of the emotional baggage. Her man should be alone, free and available for her.

And the man involved, gets attracted towards her maturity and self confidence which she has developed during the course of her life. Those young men who have a broken heart sometimes find women of their age boring, manipulative and selfish get attracted towards wiser, spirited and older women. So the emotionally stunted man looks for a motherly figure in her.

But unfortunately such unrealistic expectations, misplaced affections and pseudo-attachments in no way offer a solution to the problems caused by middle life crisis for women. The solution to their problem lies in their real set ups and in their own surroundings rather than in going berserk and haywire.

Leisure time activities, hobbies and career pursuits can give fuller meaning to their lives along with a kind real contentment.Both the spouses can rediscover each other and should dedicate more time to each other and thus connect to each other in a more meaningful way, since THEY both have spent their lives together.













2 comments:

  1. wooooo! I am glad not being prey of a "cougar"!... brilliant piece (as usual)!

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  2. Very Rightly written Abha ji, at this some men are also like their opposite sex, they like to be get interested in younger females............

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