How old am I?

It depends on which site you check me out on, because I like to mix it up. Some places I am 39. some 42, some the ripe old age of 43. I usually use the JackBenny 39 because as long as I am over 18 or 21, that’s all the site itself legally requires. Sorry for messing up your demographic-mining, guys, but there you have it.

I just hate the idea of being compartmentalized into an expectations box based on the number of sunrises I have seen. And this number matters GREATLY to some people. I was annoyed by this fascination a few months ago and posted on my Facebook status: “No, I won’t tell you my age. If you really feel that you HAVE to know, click here.”  The link went to a particularly heinous RickRoll’d- DM me if you want the link. The only regret that I had about doing this was that for several weeks after my blog flatlined because people were afraid to click on any bud.url that I had posted.

So, anyway, now you know why I am no longer married, but this segues nicely to last night’s discussion on twitter: Cougars with a capital “c.” I am not so certain what the beginning of the conversation looked like, but at the point that I butted in, it had slid down the slippery slope to age. The age of the male half of the equation was defined fairly easily- legal-to-notonebreathmorethan 30- but a simple standard (or should I say double-standard?) could not be given to the women.

And then this morning, when I called in to RE: RnD Radio, I was excited that the topic appeared to be about RE BarCamps. Having just come back from running a social media camp in NYC, I was pumped full of empathy. I had sweat buckets of blood trying to get sponsorship, cooperation from the hotel while our base camps were located in Massachusetts and Delaware, and publicity for an event that because of its generic membership floated below niche radar.

The first question floated directly at me was, “What is the age definition of a Cougar?”

Twitter conversation

And the funny thing is- this question IS important;  the question is really whether or not older women are considered attractive and vibrant enough to still be viable in any arena they choose to be in. In the population, 32.2% of all women in the United States are aged 50 and above. This shift in age demographics has forced open doors that had been nailed pretty tightly shut before, I think- go ahead and post on your Facebook status that older women aren’t sexy, I dare ya to.

Fiftylicious

The thing with Cougars is this: where (some)people would once have been truly disturbed by this type of May-December union, a more European attitude is trending. Even better, I think, is that people are looking at the trend with a wink and a smile

Cougarbait

and humor is definitely the milepost of transition.  Age should not be the defining factor when it comes to finding a soul-mate or even a lover; why can’t a person open all of the boxes looking for that missing jigsaw piece, instead of just the ones located on THAT shelf?

Older women in business, older women as stars in movies, and -yes- the emergence of Cougars as a socially accepted phenomenon as opposed to an oddity or even a stigma (think: the Graduate) are, I hope, indicative of a time where speaking of age and sex as distinguishing features will be in as much poor taste as describing someone by other superfluous- and just as irrelevant- characteristics.

HeyAmaretto is of the opinion that Cougars are older than she is, although this opinion may not be justified given the definitions found in urbandictionary.com. She is a fan of run-on sentences. She would like to remind everyone that exploitation is never pretty, regardless of the ages of those involved.

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