What is a Cougar?

I had no idea such places existed. There is a dating site called 'Cougared.com' which touts itself as "...the quality cougar dating site that specializes in bringing together older women and younger men online."

An intriguing idea this, especially if you are a 24 to 27 year-old man (aka: primo cougarbait) or a Cougar, neither of which I am.

[Sidebar: Is Cougar a proper noun, requiring Capitalization, or not, therefore requiring none? End sidebar.]

The reason I'm writing about this is because of an email I received from Rachel, a flack at Cougared.com. K&B attracts one or two PR-types a week looking to have their products or people promoted. They offer no compensation, of course, but this one is different because: one, I'm interested in the cougar phenomenon; and two, Rachel had at least read the blog.

Cougars are interesting at the very least because it's one case where women behave in exactly the same way as men. Older guys chasing (much) younger women is passé. We don't call such men 'lions' or 'striped siberian tigers'. They're just icky old dudes. When women do the same thing, they get a title, websites and college sporting teams named after them.

But let's not focus entirely on Cougars. Let's make this week's topic about age differences between men and women in relationships.

Does half the man's age plus seven years work for women too?

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Cougars Part Two, Cougars Part Three, Cougars Part Four.

Previously on Kiss & Blog: Dirty Thirties.