Old thread I stumbled on... but hits a chord because in the last couple months or so, a woman I know who identifies as a lesbian (not on this thread), hosted an event she called Cougars and Kittens for lesbian singles looking to date people much older or younger than themselves. She just turned sixty and finds young women very hot, and refers to that as her preference.
It made me uncomfortable, and not because I'm opposed to people dating people outside their age group; as is true for most, I've met and been friends with a number of butch-femme folks and others in very disparately-aged relationships, and it is just no big deal—but something about this cougar-kitten thing bothered me.
Maybe the fetishizing of age? Even if it's not fair to use "fetishizing," even if I just say, it's the preference for someone several generations up or down the scale that bothers me, that isn't consistent with who I am. Who cares if someone has a size preference or other "type" preference based on physical traits; don't many people have a "type"? Me, I like tall. Tall turns my head. Tall and handsome makes me go into flirt-mode and tall, handsome and kind totally melts me. But while I don't want to police the preferences of others, I also happen to usually be drawn to women in my general age group, late forties to late fifties-ish. I don't think about it, it just seems to naturally occur that way for me.
I don't know then, why the Lesbian Cougars and Kittens thing bugged me so much. Like, she wanted me to post it on my Facebook page and I just felt like I couldn't get behind it. If I can articulate it better, I'll come back and do so. For now I just wanted to mention the event, because it happened in the LGBT community and seemed like a phenomenon in response to the cultural popularity and satirization of "cougars" that this thread is about.
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