It's Official: Cougars are Mainstream

The cougar movement has been gaining momentum for years but until now it's existed just on the outskirts of the mainstream. Well, that's no longer the case. When a prominent and respected magazine like Newsweek explains "Why 2009 is the Year of the Cougar" you know your little counterculture revolution isn't so counterculture anymore. While the magazine is a little slow on the uptake (mainstream news outlets usually are), and we argued that 2008 was, in fact, the Year of the Cougar, it's hard to argue that 2009 hasn't been something of a watershed year for cougar.

It's a little bittersweet for us here at urbancougar.com, of course. For more than five years now we've been promoting the cougar lifestyle and have been quietly proud of our pioneering ways. Our goal has all along to help give cougar women the attention they so deserve. So we're ecstatic that that attention has finally come. But we're also a little sad to see our mission overtaken by the mainstream powers-that-be. It's sort of like having been a die hard Metallica fan your whole life and watching as your beloved little discovery becomes the biggest band in the world and every Tom, Dick and Harry claims to be a fan. But we rejoice nonetheless!

An excerpt from the article:

Hollywood used to put women over the age of 40 in the retirement home, while old dudes like Sean Connery kept seducing ever-younger babes like Catherine Zeta-Jones. That started changing when HBO let not-so-young actresses steal the TV spotlight in shows like Sex and the City, and major and cable networks followed by casting Sally Field, Glenn Close and Kyra Sedgwick in dramas, among others. Now we're about to enter the summer of the cougar at the multiplex. You might even say that the older women are outnumbering the younger ones at the movies, and they're getting all the action from leading men so young that they'd probably rather hang out with Zac Efron than Ashton Kutcher. (Then again, who wouldn't?) In Cheri,Michelle Pfeiffer (51) returns to the big screen and jumps into the sack with a guy about half her age, Rupert Friend (27). In My Life in Ruins, Nia Vardalos (46) romances the Greek actor Alexis Georgoulis (34), and there's not a word of dialogue in the screenplay about her robbing the cradle. In Julie & Julia, Meryl Streep (who turns 60 on June 22) plays real-life kitchen cougar Julia Child. Mr. Julia Child is played by Stanley Tucci, 11 years younger than his leading lady; the real Paul Child was older than his wife. And we're not even counting The Rebound, Catherine Zeta-Jones's (39) September movie about dating a 25-year-old guy, the Courteney Cox TV show Cougartown or the Bachelor-like reality dating show The Cougar.