Hey, Mrs. Robinson…

Once upon a time, girls like me – twenty-somethings – were the envy of those females old enough to be called women, and the desire of males ranging in age from boys to men. We were the cat’s meow, so to speak … until the cat grew up into a “cougar,” in heat and poised to pounce.

I’m serious about the feline metaphors. “Sex kittens” are out, people, and cougars are in.

To be sure, the process from kitten to cougar has been protracted.

Anne Bancroft molded the cougar prototype in The Graduate. But Mrs. Robinson was notable because she didn’t actually exist – an icon of sexuality only as an iconoclast of it. She was remarkable only because she was emblematic of sexual deviancy. You’d never actually get a woman like that, you knew, and it turned out that you didn’t … at least not for several decades.

Along came the American Pie series, and with it Stifler’s Mom. Jennifer Coolidge became the zaftig iteration of “the older woman,” casting such cultural permanence that the imprint necessitated a new four-letter word.

And from whence sprang many a MILF. Sex and the City catapulted Kim Cattrall to cougar status, followed by Desperate Housewives’ Teri Hatcher.

All that cougar-liciousness continued beyond the silver screen: Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Pamela Anderson, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Madonna, and Halle Berry, among many others, transitioned from kitten to cougar, paving May-December trysts as a two-way street.

As if there weren’t enough cougars on the prowl, along came Sarah Palin. Her cougar status is reaffirmed by her every facet: She hunts, she claws, and she’s got a big brood to boot – one of whom, incidentally, is a budding sex kitten herself.

And so we’ve ushered in the latest cougar persona, and interestingly it’s more Mrs. Robinson than Mrs. Stifler.

But even though real-life cougars are abundant, do their prey relish the hunt? Methinks they do not.

In fact, it seems cougars are just the latest beneficiary of politically correct pandering. Sure guys still want the nubile babes, but more than that they don’t want to risk coming off as anything other than an equal opportunity enjoyer of female diversity.

That, together with Chris Hansens’ hysterical pedophilia fearmongering, has seeped into the male psyche the notion that old is where it’s at.

See, men think they’re supposed to like older women, despite like thousands of years to the contrary. So, obedient people-pleasers that they are, guys dutifully succumb to the cougar prowess.

And that’s not a minor point. That’s actually the cougar’s primary appeal: They don’t play by the rules, and, in a radical departure from the twentysomething M.O., they don’t act coy about it.

Now admittedly, most “modern” twentysomethings don’t play by the rules either – but they pretend to, so that when they give it up on the third date they can demurely feign the I’ve-never-really-done-this-kind-of-thing-before sentiment.

That’s why cougars offer such a breath of fresh air. Because as tiring as it is for a guy to work for it, it’s that much more exhausting to have to pretend to work for it – and not nearly as rewarding.

So, guys, you tell me: Do you wanna be a cougar cub? And are there any cougars out there? I’d love to hear from y’all too…

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