The following article was written by Jane Ganahl, author of Naked on the Page: the Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife.

My comments follow:

“For the uninitiated, a cougar is a powerful, sexy woman of a certain age. She is not looking to get married or have babies. She loves nothing better than to pick up man-cubs and have her wicked way with them. Think of the 40-something Samantha on Sex and the City, who rode off into the night with her beloved 20-something Smith, howling an (ahem) ecstatic tune.

I had a cougar phase in my 40s, and sweet it was. I was just coming off a divorce, my daughter was just off to college, and it was playtime! I salved my “empty nest” heartbreak with a series of enthusiastic younger lovers who brought a wonderful energy to my life and reminded me that there were plenty of miles in me yet.

Like me, many women hit a self-esteem dip in their 40s due to divorce; for those women, I heartily endorse reclaiming self-esteem by dating younger guys—they are generally far more worshipful than our contemporaries.

I grew out of my cougar phase when I realized that great sex, while an important part of a relationship, wasn’t as important to me as shared life experience. (As Nietzsche famously noted, “A good marriage is based on the talent for friendship.”) I became more interested in a suitor’s brain, spirituality and music preferences than I was his washboard abs. And I definitely viewed my cougar activities as just-for-fun; it didn’t occur to me that a December-May relationship could have a future.

Perhaps it should have! Many so-called cougars have found long-term love with their junior swains. The 15-year age difference between Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher — so tittered about at first — now seems like a big so-what; their marriage seems solid and real and adoring.

But taking the cougar route is not for the faint of heart. There are still some ugly stereotypes out there that suggest cougars are pathetic, lonely, bored creatures, rather than powerful sexual beings.”

Pshaw, says Valerie Gibson, author of Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men.

“If the sexes were reversed, would they say that about an older man bedding a young woman? Of course not!” she says indignantly. “I’ve spent the last several years trying to change that image, but society hasn’t quite gotten it yet.”

She points out that this social phenomenon has a lot to offer mature single women: “The whole cougar movement is about giving women the opportunity to think differently about aging. Where it used to be all over at this age, now it’s only beginning. These women have everything to offer and should not allow society to put them down.”

Gibson also sees no reason why such unions can’t lead to love and marriage. “It’s foolish to assume that love can’t blossom no matter what the age difference. And unlike the old days, when women had to marry someone older than they were, dating younger expands romantic opportunities significantly,” she says.

Cougar, the slang term that describes women who date and marry younger men, has slipped into mainstream usage.

WowOwow.com lists 12 of its favorite “cougars,” including Jennifer Aniston, Demi Moore and Halle Berry, as the trend appears to be on the rise in Hollywood.

1. Jennifer Aniston, 39, who is dating John Mayer, 30.
2. Halle Berry, 41, who has a child with partner Gabriel Aubry, 31.
3. Demi Moore, 45, who is married to Ashton Kutcher, 30.
4. Kim Cattrall in real life, 51, dates chef Alan Wyse, 28
5. Madonna, 49, who is married to Guy Ritchie, 39.
6. Susan Sarandon, 62, who has been with Tim Robbins, 50, for 20 years.
7. Mary Tyler Moore, 71, who has been married to Dr. Robert Levine, 54, since 1983.
8. Joan Collins, 75, who is married to Percy Gibson, 32 years her junior.
9. Queen Elizabeth I, 48, and her one-time fiancé, François, Duke of Anjou, 22.
10. Cleopatra married the younger Ptolemy (her brother). She also married her other brother Ptolemy IV, who was also younger.

Whatever…

There are approximately 303,000,000 people in the United States. For those of you not used to seeing so many zeroes separated by commas, that would be three hundred and three million [people]. And I’m not sure whether or not the figure includes the tens of millions of undocumented immigrants, which might bring the figure closer to the 400 million mark.
  
With this in mind, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are two people; two unique people; both famous celebrities; both wealthy beyond this economic downturn’s ability to impact, and as a result, different from the rest of us.
 
Drag both of them out of the context of Hollywood and you’d have a married guy with a job at IBM; a wife five years his junior; two kids in Little League; and a middle class suburban home. The woman [Ms Moore] would be a divorcee with a job at the make-up counter at Macy’s, and a premium account at Match.com.
  
All I can say is God help women if this relationship craters and he starts dating a 25 year old athlete with enough Teflon in her perky butt to deflect a direct blast from a deer rifle.
    
This notwithstanding, all of you know by now that I’m the poster child for generational dating — no matter which gender is on top. But let’s be real about it: Most people in their 20’s – and, perhaps, very early 30’s - would prefer to couple with people their own age. The older/younger relationships tend to be fall-back positions when women need a break from a bad marriage, or when men see the end of days and then decide to turn around.

Older women can always find buyers when they’re passing out free sex. Conversely, men can expect the same attention when passing out first-class airline tickets to all-expense paid vacations to Jamaica.

But these relationships are, more often than not, nothing more than morphine for the pain of loneliness and despair. By their very nature they are escapist. I’m not knocking them, but I’m also not going to sit here and tell you that your Hawaiian Tropic girlfriend is totally enthralled with your 62-year old body. Or that the surfer dude with the medical illustration quality abs wouldn’t prefer the chick on the board next to him, if only she had beachfront property in Malibu.

If young people had their way, their peers would have money, maturity and good looks all at the same time. But because nature tends to work backwards, their fantasy of finding a human WalMart is about as likely as finding a Smoothie King in an adjoining star system.
    
So they adapt. I’ll take the older woman as long as she’s extraordinarily hot, willing and loaded. I’ll take the older man if he’s more attentive than my arrogant young boyfriend…and 100 times richer.

And while there are exceptions to every rule, they remain exceptions. The only reason we’re seeing so many more of these generational divides is because seventy-six million American children were born between 1945 and 1964, and since most of them are now divorced, they want dates. So what we have is adaptation on an epic scale, where people leverage what they do have in order to acquire what they don’t.
  
So while older women enjoy society’s broader acceptance of generational dating, the men in question make out like bandits, getting free sex, along with their own all-expense paid vacations to Jamaica.
 
So now women know what it feels like to be valued for something other than their physical beauty.