I Like Younger Men — But Don’t Call Me a Cougar

Why are women labeled predators when they date someone younger, while men are congratulated for the same behavior?

I was 25 years old the first time I fell for a younger man. His name was Jeremiah. He was 21 and so adorable — a clean-cut young man from Kansas with auburn hair and freckles. He was in the theater program at my college, and he loved our Shakespeare class as much as I, as a student in the writing program, did.

I didn’t really think of him as a viable partner because of his age. He was only four years younger, but believe it or not, I had never known a woman who had dated a younger man. It literally hadn’t occurred to me that a woman could date a younger man.

More to the point, I happened to be completely spellbound by a handsome musician, at that time. I went out with my guitar-strumming crooner several times, but quickly found that he wasn’t interested in giving me the sexual attention I was giving him — not to mention the fact that he literally had an entourage of groupies who followed him everywhere he went (and no doubt were giving him as many blow jobs as I was).

I was so bruised by his treatment of me that a few weeks later, I started seeing Jeremiah with a new appreciation. I loved his boyish enthusiasm for life and his seeming innocence.

One day, I asked him if he wanted to go out sometime, and he blurted out, “Fuck yeah.”

We went out to a bar for our first date. I was overwhelmed by his charm. He was so funny and sweet. I remember at one point, he told me he was extremely hairy, and, feeling sassy, I said, “Prove it.” Right there in the bar, he pulled his shirt off and sure enough, he had a very hairy chest. It was incredibly hot.

I started seeing Jeremiah with a new appreciation. I loved his boyish enthusiasm for life and his seeming innocence.

We had a great time together, though it didn’t last long. He invited me to his dorm room once, and already I could feel the tension of our age difference. I lived in an apartment and even though he didn’t have a roommate, I felt a mixture of uncomfortable emotions — annoyance because I felt too old to be hanging out in a crappy dorm room, and guilt because I felt, somehow, that it was wrong for me to be dating a younger man.

I soon forgot my discomfort after we settled down on his bed and started kissing. I remember touching his lips at some point, as we looked into each other’s eyes, and he ducked his head slightly and took my thumb into his mouth and sucked on it. No one had ever done that to me before and it was surprisingly hot.

But things went downhill after that. He took me to a party a few nights later where everyone was drunk and high. The police came to break it up and I felt mortified. I was way too old to be kicked out of a party by the cops.

A week later, we were in the basement of the library, taking our clothes off, kissing, stumbling onto the floor in a tangle of limbs. It was one of the most exciting things I ever did with a lover.

Sadly, the next day, he called me and told me he had a girlfriend back in Kansas and that he’d been cheating on her the whole time and could not see me anymore. I was devastated.

I vowed I would never date a younger man again.

Several years later, I found myself besotted with another young man — my youngest brother’s best friend. I’d met him several times before and never felt any attraction, but one day, he approached me, put his hand on my shoulder, whispered a dumb joke into my ear, then squeezed my shoulder and walked away. I was dumbfounded by how aroused I felt from the contact. Later, everyone teased me that he seemed to have developed a crush on me.

As the months went on, I found myself falling crazy in love with him. But there was one problem: We weren’t just a few years apart — we were nine years apart. To me, a relationship with him wasn’t even an option. He was too young and I was certain most people would find it wildly inappropriate for me to date him.

When our attraction became apparent to everyone around us, my mother started encouraging me to go for it.

“I can’t have a relationship with him,” I told her. “He’s just too young.”

“I didn’t say you had to have a relationship,” she said. “You could have a fling. Have a little sex and then move on.”

I wasn’t surprised by her suggestion, and I appreciated her encouragement to just have some fun. However, I knew not everyone would have the same opinion.

A relationship with him wasn’t even an option. He was too young and I was certain most people would find it wildly inappropriate for me to date him.

Nevertheless, I took her advice to jump in and immediately encountered my worst fear about the relationship. I had gone in for an STI screening with a new doctor before my partner and I had sex. My doctor was a woman about my age and she asked me all the typical questions: Did I feel safe in the relationship?, she asked. Had he ever hit me? Did he respect my decisions about our sex life?

I always felt touchy by this sequence of questions. I appreciate the attention to abusive situations, though I’ve yet to encounter anyone who has actually been helped by this line of questioning. Personally, I find it invasive.

When she asked me how old my new partner was, I was stunned. How was that relevant? I hedged, blushing, and simply said, “He’s a bit younger.”

She immediately picked up on my hesitancy and pressed me on the issue. “How much younger?”

“Why does that matter?” I asked, starting to feel annoyed.

“Well, if he’s younger than 25, I’d be seriously worried. That would concern me.”

As my body blazed with the heat of humiliation (he was, indeed, younger than 25), I felt like the table was going to melt beneath me. And I hoped it would — anything to get me out of there.

I looked away and mumbled a lie. “He’s 25.”

I could tell she knew I was lying, but after a long pause, we concluded our business and I rushed out of there as fast as I could.

I was fuming as I drove away. She never would have asked a man how old his new partner was. She never would have shamed a man for dating someone significantly younger — even if the partner in question was, say, only 18. And if the doctor had been a man, I have no doubt a male patient dating a much younger woman would’ve gotten an approving nod or at least indifference.

As it turned out, my “fling” lasted for seven years. At one time, even as commitment-phobic as he was, we both expected to get married someday.

Throughout it all, I almost never told anyone about our age difference. I let people assume we were the same age. It was too humiliating — I always felt ashamed about it, especially when people found out and called me a cougar. I hated that word. I know so many men who deliberately date women fifteen or twenty years younger than they are and no one gives a damn. But a woman dating someone younger is a predator? What the actual fuck?

As our relationship became strained with his inability to commit, I found it harder and harder to confide in others. I was certain people would say, “Well, he’s so young. What do you expect?”

I began to wonder if I was being unreasonable to expect anything at all from him. I even questioned whether or not I was stealing his youth. Didn’t he have wild oats to sow?

Time and again, I argued myself out of these doubts. I had dozens of friends who had gotten married before the age of 25 — women who married men who were 20, 21, 22 years old. And don’t get me started on sowing wild oats — what a totally sexist notion. I knew my partner had already had a lot of fun before I’d come along, including a couple of one-night stands. And again, if I had been the younger one in our pair, no one would have cared whether or not I had sown my wild oats…

I know so many men who deliberately date women fifteen or twenty years younger than they are and no one gives a damn. But a woman dating someone younger is a predator? What the actual fuck?

When it came to other issues that stemmed from our age difference — for instance, his proclivity to play video games for hours every single night, or his lack of emotional maturity — I felt it was my responsibility, as the older partner, to be patient and let things unfold as he (and I) evolved and grew.

But beyond that…we had a lot of fun, just like I had with Jeremiah. Young men can be delightful. He was impulsive, silly, and on our good days, he loved me with the pure abandonment of a puppy — clumsy, eager, excited.

I loved it when he’d get up from the dinner table to give me a lap dance, just to make me laugh, or when he’d throw himself on top of me when I was settling into our bed and wrestle me into a wrist lock, then blow raspberries against my neck until I couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard.

And speaking of bed…sex with younger guys can be so damn hot. They just charge ahead without worrying about looking stupid. Like Jeremiah sucking my thumb into his mouth — that move never would’ve made me so hot if it hadn’t been for his unwavering confidence.

Likewise, my former partner was an impulsive, confident lover. He wasn’t shy about expressing his desire, even in public places. He loved to try new moves on me. And heaven help me, he was unflagging. On many occasions, he could’ve kept going long after I was spent.

Despite how painful our relationship became over time and how it ended, I loved being with him and often even loved the dynamic of our age difference. And I admit, it made me feel really good when an acquaintance would discover how much older I was than my partner, wink at me, and say, “Good for you.”

Yes, he left for a younger woman, which maybe doesn’t sound so awful since he was younger than I am. But she was almost ten years his junior — so I really mean it when I say she was younger. Younger than he is and far, far younger than I am.

For a long time, I never spoke of that detail. I just said he fell in love with someone he met at work. I was certain people would say, “Of course he left you for a younger woman! You were too old for him!”

I felt like I deserved what had happened because of our age difference. I was back to feeling ashamed that I had dated someone so much younger. I was revisiting the belief that I had stolen his youth — that he hadn’t finished having his fun yet.

The whole incident felt like my fault. I was older. Shouldn’t I have known better?

I never cried in front of anyone except my mother for a whole year after the breakup. I almost never talked about it, not even with close friends. I kept thinking of that horrible doctor who had shamed me for dating a younger man and I expected to hear more of the same — people blaming me for the breakup because I had chosen to be in an “inappropriate” partnership.

But as the years went by, I watched many of my friends get divorced. Their husbands more often than not rebounded with women who were under the age of 25. I know it hurt their exes, but beyond that, no one ever said a word. No one questioned the appropriateness of their behavior, even when the man was in his late thirties or early forties. No one condemned or shamed his choice. No one predicted a bad ending to the relationship.

I felt like I deserved what had happened because of our age difference.

I began to feel angry that I had felt so ashamed of my own relationship. Or that I had blamed myself for any of my ex’s behavior.

I started talking about it more openly and was happily surprised to find that most people were compassionate and loving in response. They held him responsible for the unkind way he chose to end the relationship — for heaven’s sake, he was almost 30 at the time. Was I really going to let him off the hook, they asked, just because he had been so young when we’d started dating? He chose to cheat, he chose to lie, he chose to leave. Was I going to give him a free pass on all that because of our age difference?

Yes, I had made so many of my own mistakes and had contributed to the breakup in my own way, to be sure. But the realization that I could hold him responsible, too, was a whole new perspective. Despite the fact that I’d occasionally been referred to as a cougar, I wasn’t a predator. I hadn’t trapped him or victimized him. He had his own part to play in this, regardless of his age.

Admittedly, I feel some trepidation about the idea of dating a younger man in the future. I have a lot of fears of things playing out in the same way. But I also recognize that those fears are ridiculous. I’ve dated older men, too, and those relationships didn’t work out, either. When you get right down to it, age doesn’t have much to do with two people building a good relationship together.

I tell myself not to close my mind to a younger man. You never know how things will work out with anyone, regardless of age.

But one thing I do know is that if I find myself with a younger man, I will never again shrink back in shame about our age difference. I will never again allow a doctor to judge me like that. I will never again blame myself for everything that goes wrong just because I’m older and supposedly wiser. And dammit, I will never again allow anyone to call me a cougar.

I’m a wolf, actually, and I’m just looking for another of my kind to run with. He might be older, he might be younger…and it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to allow people to judge my relationships just because I’m a woman.

© Yael Wolfe 2019

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