Here's a guest post from Current TV's Sarah Haskins, whose videos will air weekly on Double X. Each week she addresses a theme in marketing, advertising, or entertainment aimed at women that she finds silly, such as the idea that yogurt is an unbelievably indulgent, wholly beloved miracle food for women. She's giving XXers a sneak peak of tonight's video subject:

Young American Men, this is your warning. For so many years, you've been safe: ensconced in fraternities, apartments with other dudes, sports bars, and post-college intramural leagues.

Yet the natural order cannot long survive without balance. And thus your herds, like deer in the backyards of New Jersey, must be thinned.

Enter the Cougar. Your natural predator. She is everything you fear. She is older. She is going to use you for sex. She doesn't care about your video games or entry-level job. She is going to go to a nice restaurant with you—by any means necessary.

She was formed in the crucible of cable culture: by people who think Sex and The City was a documentary, not a show, by our obsession with youth, and especially by trend-seeking journalists who need something to talk about. She is our modern jabberwocky, gyre and gimbling her way into your 400 thread count sheets.

For years young females have been stalked by male silverbacks, but the Cougars represent a reversal of this natural order. Like global warming or mortgage-backed securities, she is a sign of terrible times ahead. Older ladies and younger men! It does not make sense!

You can arm yourself against her, young men. Study the enemy. Begin by watching The Cougar on the TV Land network. Did you know that was a network? Neither did I. Enjoy.

Tags: sarah haskins, the cougar

Guest post from The Big Money reporter Chadwick Matlin:

Sarah, your clarion warning to men everywhere is too late. The cougar invasion has already begun. I found myself mingling amongst the mythical women a month ago, when, in the interest of journalism, I served as cub bait for a Slate piece on the cougar phenomenon. That piece, written by the estimable Troy Patterson, has already recounted most of the evening we spent with the cougars. But it didn't discuss the cub-cougar dynamic, one that felt very different from that of the typical night-club courtship. (Admittedly, I, as a slightly neurotic homebody, am not especially familiar with said dynamic. But I digress ...)

The party was part-PR stunt, part-meetup group, designed to host "confident, successful women 40+ and the younger gentlemen (21-35) who adore them!" Upon walking in, it was clear that the evening was about the women. They were the ones with wisdom, savvy, and game. I was the one (ostensibly) looking for a mature woman different than the normal Manhattan dating scene. The advantage was theirs.

The cub-cougar dynamic appears to run on power. Cougardom seems most attractive because of the spin it puts on the normal male-female dynamic. It is the men who are objectified; who are referred to as "boy toys" because of their youth; who are often treated as flings to make the women feel young again. When speaking with Shalah, a 40-year-old Pakistani woman, she told me that she once dated an NYU student more than 10 years her junior. She liked that she was his sugar mama, his caretaker, his overseer. She was the one in control; she was the one with the power. He was the one along for the ride, waiting for her to tire and move on.

Of course, it's difficult to maintain any relationship that features a power imbalance as its defining characteristic. Which is why of the three cougars I interacted with at the party (there weren't many more than that; the club was sparsely populated) all of them were still looking for a long-term relationship. It was clear they weren't going to find one that evening.

Tags: older women, sarah haskins, the cougar, younger men

‘Cougar Dream' is Anthem for Hot Mamas Everywhere, was the subject of the press release. I clicked through to the song, expecting to hear a woman crooning about her conquest of some sex-toy "cub" (like what The Big Money's Chad Matlin could have been, if only he worked that room a little harder!). Turns out the cougar anthem for hot mamas is sung by a man. It's his dream. One in which a "smokin' hot granny" who's "on the prowl" rescues him on the highway and preys on his young manflesh. Well, he says it's his dream. But seems patronizing to me.

In the press release, the psychologist-turned-singer Cooper Boone explains that "'Cougar Dream' comes from hearing older women talk about feeling invisible in a youth-centered world. He says he "wanted to write an upbeat song that honors ladies out there who might not be 22 but are still out there living a full life and looking great!"

Does this seem cloying and condescending to anyone else? I'll admit that I'm terrified of fading into invisibility as I age. But I don't think I'd take much comfort from some young guy calling me a "smokin' hot granny" because he thinks that's what I need to hear to feel good about myself. Or, worse, because that's his way of "honoring" me.

Tags: cooper boone, cougar dream

On the subject of "cougar dreams" and older women pairing off with younger men, the concept did not originate with Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. Although the term "cougar" seemed to spring into the lexicon about 10 years after I could have qualified, I remember fondly a brief romance with a recent college grad of 23 who courted me when I was 29. Problem was, I couldn't stop humming Maggie May by (then still boyish) Rod Stewart and wondering when my boyfriend would need to be "back at school." As attractive as young gentlemen can be, it's nicer to be "honored" by men who are entirely grown up.

More importantly, sweet Samantha, you need not fear vanishing as you mature. In our youth, it is easy to be noticed but throughout life, the only people who really see us are the ones who love us. In your short 2 decades + change you have already accumulated quite a collection of admirers. To them and the many more you'll have, you'll always be three dimensional.

Personally, at your age, I looked forward to my post-youngster days when I'd have substance and could enjoy the fruits of my new ability to labor. My husband and I are almost exactly the same age. Now that we are indisputably un-young, I realize I may have been a bit too enthusiastic about my romantic plan of how he would "grow old along with me." Notwithstanding glowing affirmation that the best was yet to be, my life partner and husband of a quarter century, now as handsome as a grey wolf, has had to accommodate my weakening vision, failing hearing, and other reminders of organic wear. The good news is, to him, I am never, ever, invisible.

Tags: ageism, Ashton Kutcher, demi moore

Sandra Bullock is right that The Proposal, out today, is not about cougars. The movie ignores the age gap between leading lady Bullock, almost 45, and leading man Ryan Reynolds, 32. Which is good, according to Bullock: "The word cougar makes me want to throw up in my mouth,” she told USA Today.

But Bullock is wrong when she tries to duck the romcom label. “It's a comedy that has romance in it,” she insists. ‘When you say romantic comedy, everyone cringes.” Sorry, but the plot is as romcom as it gets: cold, mean woman threatened with deportation makes hard-working underling who hates her marry her so she can get a green card. Need I even say “spoiler alert” to reveal that through all the bickering and feigned romance come brief moments of sincerity, a forced but ultimately pleasurable kiss, and then, bam, they’re in love?

Cringing, in fact, was my default expression throughout the 107 minutes of The Proposal. I cringed when Bullock’s character, a high-powered, successful book editor, doesn’t know what YouTube is. I cringed during her excessively long nude scene (again, she seems inexplicably moronic, having failed to bring a towel with her to the shower, and then proving incapable of walking to the linen closet to get one). And I did a full-body cringe when Bullock stumbles upon the very white Betty White, who plays Reynolds’ grandma, in the woods, wearing a sort of headdress while chanting and dancing to invoke tribal spirits.

The only part of the movie that didn’t make me cringe was the romance, and Bullock has Reynolds to thank for that. He played the love scenes with more John Cusack than Moe Howard—as is fitting for a romcom.

Tags: cougars, romcom, ryan reynolds, sandra bullock

Breaking news ladies: Cougars are oh-so-real. Yep, science has proved it. In fact, the word “cougar” is basically a scientific term now. Thanks, science!

Except not really. This is all according to a New York Times article highlighting the demographic shifts in dating and marriage for women over 40. The shocking new trend: Older women are dating and marrying younger men now—that is if you can count the scanty 1.3 percent of marriages where a woman is 10 years older than her mate as deserving of a trend piece. (Note: Demi is in that one percent, if that sways your opinion.)

And what’s more, the miniscule number of cougar marriages aren’t even that unhealthy! A finding that evidently surprised the lead author of the study, Nichole R. Proulx: “Initially I thought I would find more issues ... but it’s a relationship like any other, despite what society might say.” So here comes the breakthrough: A relationship between a 40-plus woman and a younger man is ...  a relationship. I hope you're taking notes.

So why publish an article about barely-there demographics and studies that state the obvious? To ground another baseless cougar trend piece in a false sense of scientific validity, of course! You see, the real point of the article is to expand on an already overwritten, painfully stale cultural myth. According to the piece, there are TWO different types of cougars—the clingy, sexually desperate, pathetic older women, and the robust, sexually confident older women. Of course, the latter group can’t simply be called robust, sexually confident older women, so they’re called “real cougars.” Roar.

Point being: if you’re a single woman over 40, you’re going to fall into one of the cougar categories. You might as well make it the good one. Christie Nightingale, founder of a matchmaking service, tells the New York Times what makes a good cougar, one that she can do something with. “I have to be conscious of how many cougars I’ll actually work with,” she said. “If a woman is truly stunning, a really pretty woman who has a good attitude, who is hip and youthful, I can call some of these men on the fence and maybe get them to go with someone older."

So just make sure to be really stunning and beautiful, and also maybe enjoy Lady Gaga, and you’ll totally rock the cougar thing. And maybe someday, if you're really lucky, you’ll have a chance at being part of the 1.3 percent of happily married cougars. And in five years the New York Times can interview you and your cougar household when they need yet another way to frame the same 'ole sexist crap.

Tags: cougars, new york times, science in society

Oh, hey! Great news! There’s a new predator-type female in town, this one created by Spencer Morgan of the New York Observer. Welcome the cheetah: a young woman, fresh out of a relationship, on the prowl to take advantage of helpless, drunk, out-of-her-league men. She's the girl who stays for two games at the sports bar, not to watch football, natch, but to feast on juicy man tidbits. The cheetah is described nonsensically in the title as the “cougar’s younger cousin,” though later in the piece Morgan disowns the comparison, writing that the cheetah’s “hunting methods and psychology bear no resemblance to the cougar.” And that’s just the beginning—the article is full of comparisons and leaps that don’t make any sense. Welcome to the world of bogus trend pieces! Hop aboard! Let’s take a ride through this murky tale.

The first page: Seth is drunk. Dana offers to share a cab with him. Next thing you know, Seth has been violated: ““I woke up with a condom still on my dick.” Of course, nothing is said about how drunk Dana is, and what exactly she did that's so egregious. Are we supposed to think she date-raped him? I doubt it, but what happens in between the cab ride and the morning is left out of the story, making the cheetah, most probably, a girl a guy takes home and then regrets hooking up with in the morning, so she's conveniently labeled a "predator." And the insinuation that Dana committed some sort of violation (i.e., date rape)? Well, that’s super classy, considering one out of six women is sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

Of course, if said female violator were smoking-hot, perhaps she wouldn’t be considered a predator at all. You see, the cheetah is continually described as someone who has to connive for sex, because they’re not attractive, or at least not as attractive as they used to be.

Here:

He rightly pointed out that the cheetah isn’t just looking for whatever carcass she can haul out of the bar—incidentally, cheetahs are one of the few animals that will not eat carrion—but rather it is about women past the first flush of youth wanting to date or at least fuck “above their station."

Here:

Recently out of a relationship, K.C. has discovered that getting a man was no longer as easy as it once was. “It seems like whenever she can, she winds up going home with the drunkest guy in the bar,” said Angela. “Of course, in the back of her mind she’s hoping that her pussy’s still good enough to keep him."

And here:

He added that the cheetah was not necessarily unattractive but that for some reason or another, she was not aware of her attractiveness. That said, the cheetah he had in mind was notorious for looking dreadful without her makeup on and, as with Dana, working her way through his friend group.

In these passages, the cheetah is painted as an insecure girl, trying to find out if she can still bed cute guys, the assumption being, of course, that it's taking advantage because she doesn’t deserve to bed men “above her station.” But near the end, the aims of a cheetah change suddenly and dramatically (Bogus trend alert No. 3), with Morgan concluding that the goal of a cheetah is really just to find long-term love:

... the cheetah, who hopes that her victim will find something in her searching eyes when he rolls over the next morning, and will try to subtly guilt him into another round next time they meet: “Hey, where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in so long."

So let’s go through the checklist:

You sleep with a drunk man, you’re a cheetah.

You watch two football games in a row at a bar, you’re a cheetah.

You hook up with someone casually, you’re a cheetah.

You hook up with someone with the aim of starting a relationship, you’re a cheetah.

You’re single and looking to meet guys, you’re a cheetah.

So, uh, according to the standards of this "trend," exactly who ISN’T a cheetah among us? Oh yeah, hot girls.

Photograph of Cheetah by Tona Karumba/AFP/Getty Images

Tags: bogus trends, cheetahs, cougars

There's a funny lady-on-funny lady interview in the December/January issue of Bust magazine. Rachel Dratch interviews longtime friend and former SNL cohort Amy Poehler on the enviable attitude of tween girls ("Girls between the ages of 9 and 13 keep reminding me of how fun it is not to care about what other people think"), Poehler's love of her son Archie, and their fantasy yupster vacation to Pinot Grigio Island. Unsurprisingly, neither of them are too fond of the term-du-jour "cougar."

Amy Poehler: Can I ask you how you feel about this term cougar? I hate that fucking word.

Rachel Dratch: Me, too! Since the dawn of moving-making, there have been so many scenarios where an older guy is with a younger woman and we don’t bat an eye. But if it’s reversed and a 40-year-old woman is with a 35-year-old guy, she’s called a “cougar.”

So Poehler and Dratch do one better than complaining and even the playing field by coining a term for the male equivalent of a cougar—"Gray Balls." Incidentally, this use of "Gray Balls" is not related to the peg-footed, scurvy-sick ship's captain of your imagination whom you've always fondly referred to as Captain Gray Balls or, when you're feeling frisky, Captain Gravy Balls. (Maybe this is just my thing?) Anyway:

Poehler: I know ... there are these derogatory boxes that people have invented that they have to put themselves in. And why isn’t there a word for the inappropriate older guy with the younger girl? What is the exact word for that?

Dratch: I don’t know ... Gray Balls?

Poehler: Old Gray Balls! Oh he’s a real Gray Balls! (laugh) Maybe we should make it Clark Gray-Balls. There is just something about a 20-year-old calling someone a cougar that makes me want to punch them in the mouth.

Tags: amy poehler, bust magazine, cougars, rachel dratch

—Stieg Larsson, writer of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, has a new book coming out. So what's the appeal of this writer's trilogy, and why are we so excited for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest? [Salon]

—Sarah Palin isn't alone. More women are buying guns than ever before according to a 2009 survey by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Meet some of the surprising stars at a recent NRA convention. [NY Daily News]

—A study shows that women who marry much older or much younger are at a higher risk of death. [The Daily Beast]

—Former first lady Laura Bush gave a surprising seal of approval to Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court early yesterday. [New York]

—Where do the jokes of Tina Fey come from, and why are they funny? [New York]

Photograph by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images.

Tags: cougars, laura bush, Sarah Palin, Steig Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Tina Fey, we're talking about

Kudos to model-turned-writer Léon Bing for her essay in the August issue of Vogue, about her relationship with a man 20-some years her junior. Bing’s measured description of her life with Gareth—36 to Bing’s fifty- or sixtysomething—does good work to dismantle the cougar meme that has become insipidly familiar of late.

Bing’s method is simple: She calmly and frankly details the specifics of her relationship, demonstrating in the process that an older woman and a younger man can have a partnership in which the power balance is no more creepy or perverse than that of a more traditional relationship. If anything, the relationship Bing describes seems to prosper because both partners genuinely know and understand their own needs—the wisdom of age and experience. As she says:

The truth is, aside from the gulf in years, we’re pretty much like any other couple. We like the same kinds of music—Bach partitas and barrelhouse blues, and there are times when all we want is a few cuts of vintage Luiz Bonfá. … We prefer separate bedrooms. Let me back up on that one: We live in rather large quarters. He likes to sleep early; I do not. Late night is my favorite reading time.… We’re together from afternoon until after dinner; we enjoy a little cable TV and any other activity we feel like. Then everybody goes his or her way, and everybody’s happy.

While a younger woman might feel angst about the message that separate sleeping quarters projects (I know I would), Bing is unapologetic and unreserved about what works best for her.

I also admire Bing’s attitude toward the realistic limitations of her life with Gareth. He wants children; she can’t give them to him. His mother cannot warm up to her (and is unlikely to once she reads the portrait Bing paints of her in this essay). Many of her cultural references are lost on him. But her remarkably Zen response to those advice-givers who caution her that her relationship is ultimately doomed would be well-taken by anyone embarking on a love affair, no matter what the age difference between partners:

Of course I know [that the relationship will end]. The same way I know that change—all kinds of change—is inevitable. My choice is not to dwell upon that single point, what with all the great stuff we have going for us in the present. Why would I want to ruin what we have now with dismal musings about a future I can’t reasonably predict?

Tags: cougars, Leon Bing, Vogue