Aw, shit. It's a Cougar Convention.

Why do the dudes at this event look so damn creepy?

Hmm, how to feel about this cultural movement? I think people need to be encouraged to feel sexy at any age, particularly because our media values the young, unblemished, and practically undeveloped to a sickening degree. But the reason this movement even exists is because these women are defined as good at being young, unblemished, and practically undeveloped despite themselves.

Feel free to skip straight to 2:24 where the lady in pink encourages women to define the "cougar" as "beauty, balance, power, and leadership". Fair enough (quite Socratic, too), but this tells me that a woman of any age could take the label, similar to Simone de Beauvoir's idea that feminism is for everybody (which slightly undermines the "age" qualification that Cougarism is based on). More pragmatically, the unidentified comedian says that all the exciting men her age are dating younger women, so it's only natural to seek out younger men. Meanwhile, the guys in this video couldn't talk their way through a wet dream.

I'll tell you what I see in this video. I see okay-looking 30- men (all of whom I'd wager are somewhat socially inept) mingling with women who are 40+, bored, and somewhat attractive (not as scorching as the cougars in my neighborhood). The men complain that the women their own age are fickle. The women claim the men their age are boring. In other words, both are compelled (yeah, right) into the cougar-boy relationship and they seem to be having fun.

But there's a whiff of settlement in the air. I'm not essentialist. Consenting adults are allowed to do what they want together. But I'm gathering that this cougar movement business is needless, dishonest, and slightly pejorative. The subjects are forgetting that feminism is already here. These older women and younger men need to screw the nay-sayers, the half-baked philosophy, the empty label, and then, ahem, each other.

[L&R: Slate]

Comments

[Erika Kiel]

If you have to walk around telling people how ok you are, you probably AREN'T ok! lol... This is too funny. You are right. The men DO look creepy! Especially that guy that who checked somebody out in the middle of his interview. Now THERE'S a winner! Cougars, you can HAVE him!