Derogatory labels and a Sixty Minutes story

I don’t know why I watch it every Sunday evening. It just makes me furious. But sometimes there is an uplifting story. Rarely though.

A recent segment that ‘got my goat’ was entitled Women on the Prowl.

I hate the word ‘prowl’. The word has such negative connotations except in relation to animals who––out of necessity––prowl or ambush their prey in order to survive. It has associations with men stalking, lurking, lying in wait. ‘On the prowl’ is often used to describe men moving about rapaciously in search of sexual contact. Is that what women are coming to now?

Since the story was about ‘cougars’ (older women going for younger men), I guess the producer of the story, thought the word appropriate and sensational. I hate labels, and groups of people who announce things like, ‘I’m a Y Gen, I’m an X Gen, I’m a baby boomer’. Now, according to some of the women interviewed on the program, they are proudly proclaiming their membership of the Cougar Club. Thankfully one woman admitted she hated the term and thought it unnecessary and silly.

The presenter, in his introductory blurb, announced ‘Let's hear it for older women.’

Well I’m all for the older woman; I am one myself. And I’m all for older women taking life by the scruff of the neck, getting out there, following a dream, having equal opportunities as men and dating or marrying a younger man if they wish. I am married to a much younger man myself (twenty-eight years younger). I agree it’s time we did away with all the 'shoulds' and 'should nots' and overturned the old double standards that it's okay for an older man to marry or date a much younger girl while it's still––despite Sixty Minutes’ claim–– rather shocking for an older woman to marry a younger man, unless of course you’re in Hollywood.

Oh, I forgot, it’s also not so shocking if you are attractive, sophisticated and savvy, but it probably is shocking if the woman makes no real attempt to dress herself up like a barby doll and get a makeover. On the show, one hideous blonde, done up to the nines, called herself Lucia, Queen of the Cougars. Oh please give me a break! Asked why the title, she replied that she was the top cat. Who made her top cat? She claimed to be the top cougar, leader of the cougar revolution. God, only in the USA!

The statement in the show that ‘more than a quarter of all Australian marriages are between older women and younger men’ surprised me. I’m sure these statistics include women from 1-5 years older, hardly anything amazing in that. What are they, ‘baby cougars’?

Are all women with younger men entitled to the ‘cougar’ label. Are they all like the Jen of Sixty Minutes, a nearly fifty, twice-divorced mother, good-looking and super fit? Or are there people out there who are in wonderful relationships where the woman is not attractive and the partner is not a super-buffed dick-head like Jen’s partner, Jeff. That guy sickened me. Typically Californian and peppering his interview with ‘like it’s cool’, sentiments about having fantasies to do with ‘hooking up with’ a friend’s mother, and being ‘Captain Fun’. Yuck!!

And while I’m having a gripe about labels, let’s also refrain from using ‘predator', 'seducer', 'toy boy', 'Mrs Robinson', 'May-December relationships' and 'the latest trend or phenomenon'.

A Sydney newspaper late last year (The Daily Telegraph) featured a front-page picture and article about Kylie Minogue––about whom the media can’t get enough––with her new friend/date, with the title 'Kylie's new toy boy'. Did it mean she'd just found a new plaything?

I find this term as insulting as ‘cougar’. I recently had a similar experience in a weekly magazine. The article was meant to be publicity to sell copies of my memoir. I should have expected my story to be sensationalised. Although I can take the flack, and there was plenty of it from close friends and relatives, I knew that my husband would have been upset to think people saw him as someone I was simply toying with. I suppose those of us who have found genuine love with a younger man have to expect such labels.

By the way who made the rules that romantic relationships should fit within a particular chronological framework?

In 1963, when I was 21, I married my first husband who was 24; the supposedly 'ideal' age difference. In 1994 at 52, I married my second husband, who was 24, definitely not the ideal situation some might think. Rubbish! Our relationship is still going strong after nearly 15 years. I did not go looking for a younger man or any man in fact. I was quite happy living on my own. But the universe had different plans for me in the form of a much younger man with whom I recognised a deep soul connection. I had to go with it, although I knew that some people would think I had gone mad and that I was leaving myself open to get hurt or humiliated. The story that led up to this relationship is told in my memoir Nefertiti Street .

I googled for info on these older woman/younger man relationships and was horrified to find that the websites that deal with them are predominantly dating sites with tips on how to get a younger man and to keep him happy and vice versa, women's health sites with advice from psychiatrists as if there is something 'not quite right' about such liaisons, and the 'look at me' websites. Also it pisses me off that ordinary women are encouraged to go for a younger man because many celebs are doing it. Who cares about Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher or Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. Is it supposed to be okay because they have done it? Is it okay because it's the trend in Hollywood, as if such younger men are the latest handbags. Give me a break!

And now, is it acceptable because Sixty Minutes has done a program on it?

Let’s give up the labels, and references to the latest trend. I’m happy for anyone who finds someone to truly love. I don’t go a damn about age. Stop making an issue of it.