Cougar Hunt: Are Mature Women the Prey?

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Don't call 'em cougars, OK?

Yeah, they date younger guys. But ...

"I don't hunt," says Donna Martinson, 43, giving her blond mane a shake.

"They hunt me."

Martinson, who works in real estate, is sipping a glass of white wine at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.'s Blue Martini. Its rep as a cougar lair is so entrenched that Ladies Night at the upscale hot spot is known as Cougar Night.

Alas, this cougar thing just won't die. And Cougar Night is just a ripple among waves. There's "Cougar" the book. On TV, Vivica A. Fox's "The Cougar" and, coming this fall, "Cougar Town" with Courteney Cox.

Now we have Sugar Ray's latest CD, "Music for Cougars." The album title is a joke at the expense of his aging band, Sugar Ray singer Mark McGrath says in an interview. As he tells it, a friend watching them play a recent outdoor mall gig observed, "Dude, all your fans are cougars." The idea stuck.

"The irony of that is, I'm 41," says McGrath. "I'm certainly not any cougar's prize."

Yet he's now considered an authority on cougar culture. "People want me to talk about it and define it," he says.

But really, what's all the fuss?

Older guys have coveted younger flesh for centuries. We're so accustomed to the obvious mismatch -- he's a wealthy troll; she's a fabulous fox -- it doesn't raise eyebrows, let alone produce a CD.

So if older women want to date a guy who still fits into size-34 pants, why not?

And if older dudes don't get why older women pass them by, let a few women spell it out.

The 40-plus don't automatically pass men by because of age. They're turned off by their attitude and actions. And fat and flaccid doesn't do much for them, either.

"Sure, I'd like to find that sophisticated Cary Grant," says Lisa Harvath, 46, of Sunrise, Fla., who dates men within a 10-year range, older and younger. "The problem is that he comes with baggage. There's the ex-wife and the child support he's always complaining about. He's already jaded."