The Gigi Movement

Last night Pup and I were exploring a part of our TiVo services we hadn't explored before and stumbled on a section with movie genres. One was adult.

"Aaaah! Let's read the titles," I exclaimed!

Pup meandered in there like he'd never read the title of an adult movie before. Innocence all over his face. And mine for that matter.

Yes, we've watched our fair share of porn. Don't judge. It relaxes me sometimes. That's as far as I'll tell. Ahem.

But we really did want to read the titles because they are hilarious.

Like . . .
China-Doll Syndrome

and . . .
Give Mama a Bone

and . . .
Do My Wife! Please!

and finally . . .
Cougars Pounce on Boy-Cubs.

Several of the titles had Cougar in the name.

Cougar.

As a woman of a certain age and a woman who was dating while a grown-ass woman, I've been aware of this description of older women. Most of the guys I dated before meeting Pup, and Pup for that matter, were younger than me. Some quite a bit younger than me.

It wasn't done intentionally. I did date a few men my age or even a bit older, but most of those guys, other than the oft-mentioned Harry, gave guys my age a really bad name. They wanted to spend a lot of time crabbing about their exes, crabbing about their kids, crabbing about all of their ailments. Save me, I thought at the time.

So I dated younger guys. Especially when I first became single and wasn't so much interested in dating as I was interested in spending some 'quality' time. Again, that's as far as I'll share.

And the term Cougar would come up now and then.

When I first heard that phrase it made me giggle and go 'rarw'. Yeah, I may have done that.

But then I realized it wasn't such a flattering definition of the older woman/younger man dynamic. The Cougar-woman became known as an animal-print wearing, overly blonde (I love blondes, I don't mean blondes - I'm meaning the home-processed blondes - you all know the kind of blonde I mean), perhaps breasts that were not factory-direct, too short of skirts, hanging with their daughter and all of her daughter's friends, going to the bars with young uns, doing shots, and all kinds of unflattering shenanigans.

I wasn't engaging in that kind of behavior.

But I did date younger men. A few of my friends at work called me Cougar a couple of times. It always stuck in my mind as an 'ick'.

I don't know why we even have to characterize the older woman/younger guy thing at all. Older men with younger women don't seem to suffer in that same way.

But there is some kind of mystique with older women and younger men.

Mrs. Robinson-type mystique if you will. I mean, seriously, I had a crush on Mrs. Robinson! Look at her!

Of course I had a crush on Elaine as well.

And yes, for that matter, I had a huge crush on Benjamin.

I might need to go watch this movie. I watch it at least once a year.

But, as point-sliding as I might be getting with this post, the thing I've been thinking about since reading all those adult film titles, is this:

We need switch it up a bit. Cougar - out.

Gigi - in.

Yes, I'm picking Gigi. I love that name. It has panache, with no overt, over-sexual, or over-used history of any boy-cub abuse.

I think that will be my grandma-name.