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The Cougar Syndrome:COUGAR SYNDROME A cougar is essentially a predatory mammal of the feline family. In recent times, it has become a derogatory title, used to describe older women, who choose to get attached to men young enough to be their sons. It is used to liken their attachments, to the way a cougar preys upon its victim, usually a helpless and weak herbivore.

Experts say that the syndrome arises from an older woman’s desire to feel wanted and loved in her waning years. It tends to make her feel younger and desirable. It fulfills her maternal instincts, which could be unsatisfied owing to absence or loss of a son. Yet another reason put forward is the need for an energetic lover, owing to a dearth of the same in her own age group.

All in all, a cougar is generally seen as a ruthless manipulative woman, who ensnares her prey, a young man, a toy-boy, who she then controls and uses to satiate her own illicit desires.

The male who gets drawn into this liaison, is considered to have a mother-fixation, of sorts, which he then gets to gratify, by allowing himself to be dominated, smothered and controlled. These men are thought to be sons of dominating mothers, who get accustomed to being controlled, and hence choose mother figures to submit to masochistically.

However, in recent years, at least in the west, older women and younger men seem to maintain a façade of happy relationships, with quite a few female Hollywood celebrities in affairs with younger men. Younger men are attracted to these women who are self-assured, confident and above forty years, as opposed to insecure and dependent women in their twenties. Most of these relationships flounder in due course, but that is a different story.