the Cougar

 

 A while back when a girlfriend and I were walking by a billboard for the Vivica Fox-hosted reality show, "The Cougar." I made some snarky comment about this not exactly being the equality feminists dream of, and the friend gave me a cheeky grin and said, "You know, that older woman is only 39." That's less than five years away, folks. Apparently I don't have long before I go from flirty thirty-something sexual adventurer to predatory over-the-hill sexual adventurer, at least in the eyes of TV producers. I should probably call ahead to see if they can line up some callow youths for me. But the problem is, I'm not particularly attracted to young men. In fact, I already know I would just plain suck at being a cougar. I have three little brothers who range in age from 23-18. The little brothers have friends. More than once, the friends have hit on me, and some of these guys were--objectively speaking--pretty hot. But while a college athlete's body is a thing of beauty, I wasn't all that tempted. First of all, I knew that even just a fun roll in the hay would condemn my brothers to years of "Yo, Sharper, I fucked your sister!" I couldn't do that to them. Second of all, as I recall from my own experience, college guys are fairly lousy in the sack. Energetic and enthusiastic maybe, but their technique usually needs a lot of refining. Granted, there are some women who like that. Madonna, when asked about her predilection for very young men, once said: "They don’t know what they’re doing, but they can do it all night long." Yikes.

I know I should probably be writing about the latest older-lady-younger-man dating reality show the Cougar, but if you want to see an impressive 40-something woman on reality TV, I'd recommend you change the channel from Stacy the needy feline and watch Penny Jo Johnson instead.

Penny Jo, along with eight other people, is starring on the Discovery Channel's Out Of The Wild, where they drop nine people with no backwoods experience into the Alaskan wilderness and see if they can hike their way back to civilization. A sensible, tough 47-year-old "body piercer and landlord" from Kentucky, Penny Jo is also the only one on the adventure with any real hunting experience.

For those of you clicking through to the "read" button for the rest of the post, spoiler alert.