Blogflog: Am I A Cougar?

[pith]

Sorry for the lacklustre 'flog: I'm in a wee bit of a rush, so I may edit some things in later.

Link: http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2008/08/am-i-cougar.html



You know, with LKH, a title like that could mean so many things. Maybe she was trying to find her spirit guide, or her inner lycanthrope. Alas, not.

I had heard the word cougar for an older woman who dated younger men, but I thought it meant in a predatory sort of way. An older woman who dated younger men in a casual, and potentially hurtful manner. I learned last night at the party that it's now referring to any older woman who dates exclusively younger men.

I love how she makes it sound like some mysterious term. I get that Sex in the City is too "mainstream" or whatever for her to follow, but "cougar" is fairly common as a term now.

And "exclusively younger men"? That would mean the men would be exclusively young, yes? That they never get old? So… she wants to date Peter Pan? Well, that explains a lot.

But I found that the men in my age range had the same problems with me that we'd all had in college. I was too dominant, too interested in my own career, and, strangely, too successful.

I don't think it's so much "too interested in [her] own career" as much as "too interested in herself". I wouldn’t want to date someone as self-centred as she is either.

I mean if I was a firefighter, you wouldn't expect me to be an arsonist in my spare time.

Hey, that happens. Who better to know how to get away with arson than someone who makes a living investigating arson?

Men in my age bracket were still suffering under the delusion that once you're down a man, you NEED one.

Again with the sexism. She likes to slam people into these narrow little roles. "Women don't [x]". "All men [y]." I know it makes conversing easier, because if you are truly politically correct, it feels like it takes 10 minutes to say hello, but for someone who prides herself on making unique characters, her stereotypes are a few decades out of date. I know plenty of men (of varying ages) who are open-minded, awesome, and actively seek out women who are "independent", for lack of a better term. Yes, there are generational attitudes, but they certainly aren't one-age-fits-all. Maybe she didn't luck out and find the "right" men her age, but to say that all the men in her age bracket were suffering under the same delusion is hardly fair.

And "down a man" just makes me think of shopping for your significant other at a grocery store or something. "Oh, gosh, I'm almost out of boyfriend! I better stop by Wal-Mart on the way home from work tonight. Maybe I'll try that new [whatever] model I saw on TV!"

To keep you from makng some horrible mistake, modern technology takes the edge off guys, get a grip on your creepy selves.

I confess, I don't exactly know what she was going for here. Was she championing online dating? (Which is fine.) Was she saying that the Internet has made men more open-minded?

So, I guess, by definition, since I only successfuly dated men that much younger than myself after my divorce, and married a man who is twelve years younger than me; that yes, I am a cougar. Meow.

Punctuation abuse aside, I have to cringe at the cougar/"meow". Cougars may have a roar of sorts, but I'm pretty sure it's only the young cougars that have an equivalent to a meow. Any strength she found in being a cougar seems rather diminished by a 'meow'.

Comments

[pastygothchick.livejournal.com]

I thought she was trying for something in the blow-up doll direction.

[katekat]

To keep you from makng some horrible mistake, modern technology takes the edge off guys, get a grip on your creepy selves.

I think, once again, she's inappropriately punctuated. The sentence might read: To keep you from mak[i]ng some horrible mistake modern technology [can] take the edge off[.] [Thus allowing] guys [to] get a grip on [their] creepy selves.

Or something like that. But honestly? It's indecipherable.

Thank you for rapidly flogging - i was waiting for someone to beat this up. And the Meow is absolutely horrible.

[merchendiver.livejournal.com]

Is this one of her failed attempts at being introspective. Really she should just quit. Her blogs make her sound awful, I agree. For someone that loves to tell us how progressive she is, she sounds more like Ward Cleaver than anyone I have read in a long time.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

So… she wants to date Peter Pan? Well, that explains a lot.

Dear god, woman, I did not need the image of Jon dressed as Peter Pan in my head! O_o

[windiain.livejournal.com]

Worryingly, that's slightly less disturbing than Jon in green tights. XD

[notadoor.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think what's happened is that "guys" is supposed to be vocative, and it's a poorly constructed and punctuated sentence.

I think what she was going for was, "Hey guys? [Here's some advice] to keep you from making some horrible mistake: modern technology takes the edge off, so get a grip on your creepy selves."


Also, did anyone notice it was posted by Jonathan? Probably just a case of wrong log-in, but it did give me a moment's pause.

[siedhr.livejournal.com]

I had a moment of sheer disbelief when I read this one. Then I promptly burst into laughter.

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

Jon isn't young enough to be considered cougar bait in my neck of the woods. To me a cougar is a woman over 40ish who is interested in dating men in their 20's. Dating, not much else. I bet Laurel just thinks the idea is 'cool' and wants to feel like she's this edgy middle-aged hottie when in fact she's a work at home mom/wife and isn't that special.

Men in my age bracket were still suffering under the delusion that once you're down a man, you NEED one. To keep you from makng some horrible mistake, modern technology takes the edge off guys, get a grip on your creepy selves.

I could not decipher what she meant here. Unfortunately I went and read her entire blog. :( Ew.

I think she's advising men that she's discovered 'modern technology' that takes the edge off of her need for sex with a man. Therefore, these older men she's ranting about didn't need to swing by and offer their 'creepy' services to her.

TMI, Laurell. Just. TMI.

*passes brain bleach all around*

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Wow, Laurell! Way to catch up on the hot new slang from 2002! What are you going to post about next? "Bling"? "Baby mama"?

[gwynethfar.livejournal.com]

I thought you had to be single to be a cougar.

[bloodredroses1.livejournal.com]

Are you guys really that dense? This is LKH we're talking about here --- think more along the lines of a battery powered "mother's little helper". Do I need to be more blunt? *quirks eyebrow*

Yeah she's generalizing a whole hell of a lot but unfortunately the attitude she's talking about isn't that uncommon among aging male baby-boomers. Add to that the fact that she's so self-centered and you've got an instant recipe for disaster when it comes to dating someone her own age.

As for the whole cougar thing, not every female watches Sex in the City. The only reason I came across it was, I'm embarrassed to say, because of a porn title. Otherwise I'd have gone blissful about my life with never a clue that this referred to a woman w/ a preference for younger men.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Holy fuck, Laurell, enough with the gender essentialist bullshit. I swear, I have been gnashing my teeth over every one of her blog entries lately. A very good friend of mine, who is biologically/physically female and mentally/emotionally male, has been snarking the Anita Blake books up down and sideways concerning the gender essentialism. The books are full of it.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Oh... wait... is that what the "modern technology" that "takes the edge off" means? Oh my gods, no. Gah.

[fadeinthewash.livejournal.com]

I learned last night at the party that it's now referring to any older woman who dates exclusively younger men.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into the placement of the word "now," but my immediate thought was that she has no idea how hold that sentences makes her sound. Y'know, like, "Kids these days! I hear the television set is now referred to as a 'tee-vee.'" Or something.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I never heard of the cougar thing before this blog. (Of course, I don't watch Sex in the City, either.)

To keep you from makng some horrible mistake, modern technology takes the edge off guys, get a grip on your creepy selves.

Yeah, I was pretty sure she was talking about a vibrator in that sentence, too.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

What's gender essentialism?

[rin-x-x.livejournal.com]

LAWL.

"A potentionally hurtful manner." So having casual sex IS GOING TO HURT THEIR WIDDLE FEELINGS? AWWWW.Q-FUCKING-Q.

Holy shit she is fucking delusional.

[mystickiwi.livejournal.com]

I thought a cougar was just an attractive older woman, I had no idea it had anything to do with who you wanted to date.

There are a lot of sentences in this blog that I find bloody indecipherable. I honestly can't even guess at what she's trying to say. I guess I get the jist of the blog (LKH is a superspeshul cougar who doesn't just LIKE to date younger men, she has to because they are the only ones who truly understand her soooooooouuuuulllllllllllll!!!1111111!)

[naeko.livejournal.com]

That bit about dating Peter Pan had me in a serious gigglefit XD

I have to wonder if a lot of Hamilton's views on men and women just come from her age bracket in the mid-west. My husband grew up in the mid-west, and I've met his mother. She's... got a lot of views in common with LKH and, from how my husband talks about his childhood, most of his mother's ex-boyfriends, and most of his family in that age group have similarly... archaic views on gender roles and gender actions.

I did actually think LKH made a few good points, surprisingly, but they were surrounded by her ego, so they got all mashed out of shape.

But I found that the men in my age range had the same problems with me that we'd all had in college. I was too dominant, too interested in my own career, and, strangely, too successful.

She was too successful in college for boys to date her?
"Will you go out with me, Timmy?"
"No, Laurell. Your grades are too good and you just got promoted to Assistant Manager at the Dairy Queen. You're too successful for me."
":("

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2006/06/essentialized_social_categorie.php

In a nutshell, gender essentalists insist stereotypical things like "all women love makeup and all men love fast cars because they're hard-wired to." That we all behave a certain way because we have to, because it's who we are and we can't change that. That we are women because we have vaginas and we are men because we have penises and that's that and nothing else.

Here's a good definition:

Essentialist positions on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, or other group characteristics, consider these to be fixed traits, while not allowing for variations among individuals or over time. Contemporary proponents of identity politics, including feminism, gay rights, and/or racial equality activists, generally take constructionist viewpoints, agreeing with Simone de Beauvoir that "one is not born, but becomes a woman", for example. However, this is a vexed issue. To the extent that essence implies permanence and inalterability, essentialist thinking tends to agree with political conservatism and militate against social change. But essentialist claims also have provided useful rallying-points for radical politics, including feminist, anti-racist, and anti-colonial struggles. In a culture saturated with essentialist modes of thinking, an ironic or strategic essentialism can sometimes be politically expedient.
In social thought, essentialism as a metaphysical claim is often conflated with biological reductionism. Most sociologists, for example, employ a distinction between biological sex and gender role. Similar distinctions across disciplines generally fall under the topic "nature versus nurture." However, this conflation can be contested. For example, Monique Wittig has argued that even biological sex is not an essence, and that the body's physiology is caught up in processes of social construction.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Another good link that probably explains some of LKH's opinions:
http://purtek.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/gender-essentialism-from-all-sides/

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

That's one of my big disgust factors with her books AND her blogs. Especially the blogs, I think.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. They absolutely drip with the insistence that women are one way and men are another and it's just not possible for a person to just be, you know, a person, without distinctly feminine or masculine qualities.
I'm all for acting feminine and acting masculine, but I can do both. At the same time, even! And sometimes the stuff I do and the stuff my husband does is neither feminine nor masculine. Hamilton's head might explode if she knew that.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

She also seems caught up in the idea that certain objects/viewpoints/attidudes/behaviors are just inherently "male" or "female", like the idea that walking around on her HURT ankle too much is "being a guy" or that cooking and cleaning is "being a girl". Gawd. I would say that being a guy means having a penis and being a girl means having a vagina, but that's not even the whole truth, as evident by your pal. Some men have or were born with vaginas, some women have or were born with penises. And frankly, I think "gendering" an act like cooking or an object like a gun as being male or female is not only wrong and limiting, it's also just STUPID. Which she is very, very good at, especially in this regard.

[dreadnot.livejournal.com]

I thought she was talking about how modern technology aka vibrators takes the edge off aka helps with the horniness that might make her need a guy.