Cougars Inc.: the Lady Predator lifestyle

Is it ACEs on the young or spur the economy?

By Peter Savodnik

Karryn Russo goes through "jerzee" and refuses to reveal her age. She also has a very dark, unhealthy-looking tan. On 29 april, Jerzee — which seems to be in her mid-40s and, not surprisingly, comes from New Jersey — was on the Manhattan nightclub greenhouse gases in a very short skirt decorated with tie-dyed peace symbols. As younger men stopped to talk, Jerzee began to dance. "She is a Cougar," crooned the rapper on stage, "I think I love her, I no one above her."

Jerzee was one of the more than 30 contestants vying for the title of Miss Cougar America, the marquee event of the third annual national Cougar Convention. And she seemed the odds on favorite to the election of emcee, Rich Gosse — attracting a black shirt, a yellow and orange paisley tie, and a thick mustache, unmanicured — announced the shocking news: the Crown had gone to Aalsa Lee of Palm SpringsCalif. "We was robbed!" yelled a supporter that sorry Jerzee the admission price of $ 20 paid. Lee, who is not a secret of her age, it is 73.

In the ten years since the publication of Valerie Gibson Cougar: a guide for older women Dating younger men, the whole idea of older women dating younger men has gained acceptance in popular culture, partly thanks to the emergence of high-profile women — such as Demi MooreKatie Couric and the fictional character Samantha Jones in Sex and the City — which have no scruples about dating younger partners. "There is a new archetype that arise," says Amy Luna Manderino, the reigning Miss Cougar International. "There have always been libertine, vital women older than 40. The difference today is that our numbers have reached a critical mass. " Christine Lehtonen, a principal at Asterix group, an agency for marketing and advertising in San Francisco, says that there are more women in the USA in the age 51 than any other single age. "Can you imagine what can happen," she says, "if all of these women were sold to?"

Increasingly, they are. A transcontinental economy develops around conventions, dating sites, tourism and other cougar-themed business ventures. Miss Cougar America is part of a larger hierarchy pageant with Miss Cougar Miami, Miss Las Vegas Cougar, Cougar and Miss Sydney. (The first known cougar election was held in 2009 in Palo Alto, California) Aalsa Lee will soon head to Jamaica's Hedonism II — an x-rated version of Club Med — which hosts the Miss Cougar International.

But the burgeoning cougar industry is threatened by an existential problem. The ideal cougar — a fortysomething Manolo Blahnik-wearing with a fantastic Manhattan loft, wonderful friends, and a fantastic sexual appetite for younger men — is actually a media-construction. Bridget Brennan, chief executive officer of the marketing firm female Factor in Chicago, declares that "cougar" that's just the label society assigns divorcées financially independent. "Because I'm over 40, I have this special name," says Manderino. "We don't give special names if they are men over 40 and they date younger women."

Nevertheless, a special name is all that it takes to be a marketing frenzy. The larger cougar industry has extended to (a Cougar, Hot Cougar sex, a Christian Cougar Dating), books, television (real-life cougar Courtney Cox's Cougar Town and the reality TV show The Cougar), and even the big screen. Four decades after Anne Bancroft American viewing audience introduced to the phenomenon in The Graduate, follows the recently released Cougar hunting a band of young men to Aspen on a quest for older women. Denise Richards, the former wife of Charlie Sheen, will try to revive her career as the star of Cougars, Inc., from this month.

The cougar industry of other dirty little secret is that it is not necessarily women who encourage its growth. "This thing is really cub-driven," explains Gosse, referring to the growing ubiquity of young men dating older women. "It is a very hot economic trend in the dating world." Miss Cougar international Manderino has six categories of cubs, including "fetish cubs," "Mama's boy cubs," already identified and cubs who just want to tell a story to their friends.