Rrrowl! Beware Cougar's Young Niece, the Cheetah
It was 2:30 a.m. on a school night about a year ago when Seth, Joel and Dana left the party and headed into the rain. The party had been unremarkable, only this time Seth had allowed the open bar to get the better of him. He knew he was completely wasted. What he didn’t know was that a predator was watching his every move.
“I can barely stand,” Seth said, swaying innocently on the soggy sidewalk. (Seth’s a gentleman and asked that I change the names and obscure certain details in unfurling the horrors that so thoroughly furled him that night, in order to protect the honor of a woman.) He was 24 at the time, a magazine writer.
Joel said, “O.K., I think he needs to go home.”
Dana, who was 29, said, “Let’s go get another drink!”
“I wanna go home,” Seth warbled.
“O.K., I’ll take him home,” Dana said.
Joel gave Seth a “WTF?” look and said, “I’ll take him home.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dana said, hailing a cab and then bundling Seth inside.
“I woke up with a condom still on my dick,” he told me.
The fellow was babbling, stumbling drunk, and Dana chirped: ‘I’m heading the same way, let’s share a cab!’
A few months later, Seth found himself watching helplessly late one night as Dana picked off one of his pals much the same way she had him: The fellow was babbling, stumbling drunk, and Dana chirped: “I’m heading the same way, let’s share a cab!” Another poor shmo who hosted an after-party at his pad one night to enjoy a little group reefer session suddenly found himself alone, except for Dana. Game over.
“She knows what she’s doing,” Seth told me.
MUCH HAS BEEN made of the so-called cougar, the older dame, early 40s on up, who has developed a taste for the younger man-beast. Dana’s hunting methods and psychology bear no resemblance to the cougar. As Seth aptly points out, “A cougar would fuck and then leave and not feel bad.”
Instead, Seth awoke to Dana’s limpid eyes, followed by an awkward kiss in broad daylight as the two parted ways on the street. The cheetah stays the night.
The Dana “type” was familiar to me. There was a girl I knew in L.A. who fit the bill. She’d sunk her teeth into at least 20 percent of her lopsidedly male friend group. All you had to do was watch the faces when she approached to know which ones she’d had her way with.
Good God, I thought, how many of my fellow men are at risk at this very moment?!
I thought the same on a recent night here in New York, when my wife showed me a “funny” text one of her girlfriends sent her inquiring what she was up to—we were in a car, heading home—and sniggering that she herself was “out on the prowl.” I immediately thought of the widely held view that single women are keen to get their paws on a hunk of man to hunker down with for the winter months. I looked out the car window—it was raining. A cold, insinuating rain. The conditions were perfect for a cheetah to a strike.
Seriously?
Spencer -- and Editors -- Seriously, in a country where one in four women will be the victim of some form of rape in their lifetime, often acquaintance rape, you actually thought this article was -- what? Entertaining? Clever? An object lesson? This blatant exhibition of your deep seated fears of women is so offensive and pathetic, I just end up feeling deeply sorry for Spencer's wife (if she's not, in fact a blow-up doll as the reader is left suspecting that she may be).
Editors: We're living in a city of myriad wonders and mysteries and YOU ACTUALLY PAID Spencer for this? As far as I understand, you could have just told him to re-write on some topic of any kind of merit whatsoever, and spared your readers this indignity.
Not seriously, just cynically
ArtHistory123:
I agree that this article is basically Spencer deciding "I think some women are like *this*, and that's CREEPY, and they suuuuck, so I'll write an article about it," and NYO is like "sex = pageviews, LOL," but....
What does this article have to do with women getting raped?
Not cynical, just confused?
Is the phenomenon of the cheetah a negative thing for the men involved...?
Yike, somebody's Freudian slip is showing
So much fear. so little time.
Misogyny! Free with every issue!
Ah, the mating call of the Lesser-Spotted Asshat.
Someone is a little too nostalgic for after-school cartoons.
http://superherouniverse.com/other/thundercats/images/cheetara.jpg
insinuating rain?
You're a terrible writer.
This
was utterly fantastic.
Taking the bait..
Ah, baiting women via idiocy.
Yeah, I'm mad. Not for the silly content of this article but because sites like Gawker are jerking Spencer off as such a "great writer."
A great writer attracts page views by intelligent and thoughtful articles, not your cliche'd hipster writer ploys for attention.
Oh, and Observer, tell your advertising department to stop calling me. You won't get my money after this.
in response to "What does this article have to do with women..."
Simple,
If you were to switch the genders in the story, it'd be a story of a man date-raping his friends. It still is date rape, only society tells the victim to be happy about it.
Hmm, so what do you call the converse?
What do you call an old man who tries to get with young girls? Why are there no words for men who do the same? Oh, lemme guess, studs, stallions..... I personally prefer hyena, dingos, vulture, lungfish?
Oh, well, it must be the final stand of the douchebags, live shorter lives than women, on the way to extinction. They are just mad at mother Nature.
LOL
Classic. Guy named "ArtHistory" makes a specious appeal to anti-rape sensibilities. Afterwards, he went to play his guitar in the campus commons, and wrapped up the evening by sitting in the dorm hallway reading a book about buddhism with a look of intense concentration on his face.
agreed
you're right
Huh.
Considering the "Cheetah" goes after the drunkest guys she must have low expectations and is content with disappointment. Well, it's not uncommon in a hook-up for one partner to be more far gone than the other. Usually though it's the other way around.
Sexism pure and simple
What year is this? 2009? You've got to be kidding me!
Girl who has sex with men: Cheetah (euphemism for predatory slut),
Young woman who has sex with younger men: Puma (euphemism for predatory slut),
Adult woman who has sex with younger men: Cougar (euphemism for predatory slut).
Man of any age who has sex with younger woman of any age:
-----??
And this misogynist crap in this magazine is okay, why?
.
Sexism pure and simple
What year is this? 2009? You've got to be kidding me!
Girl who has sex with men: Cheetah (euphemism for predatory slut),
Young woman who has sex with younger men: Puma (euphemism for predatory slut),
Adult woman who has sex with younger men: Cougar (euphemism for predatory slut).
Man of any age who has sex with younger woman of any age:
-----??
And this misogynist crap in this magazine is okay, why?
.
Sexism pure and simple
What year is this? 2009? You've got to be kidding me!
Girl who has sex with men: Cheetah (euphemism for predatory slut),
Young woman who has sex with younger men: Puma (euphemism for predatory slut),
Adult woman who has sex with younger men: Cougar (euphemism for predatory slut).
Man of any age who has sex with younger woman of any age:
-----??
And this misogynist crap in this magazine is okay, why?
.
Cat got your tongue, ladies?
Older men who pursue younger women are called "Trout". This term has been around for years. Older still are "Lecher" and "Cradle-Robber".
Spencer Morgan = Pathetic Loser
Seriously? Women take home and screw these "poor, drunk, innocent" (snicker) men are the desperate ones? What century are you living in? God Forbid a women try and fuck "above her station"! What a tragedy! It's OK if men try every chance they can, because, after all, they're men!
As Lauren Bans said over on XXX, let's recap:
You sleep with a drunk man, you’re a cheetah.
You watch two football games in a row at a bar, you’re a cheetah.
You hook up with someone casually, you’re a cheetah.
You hook up with someone with the aim of starting a relationship, you’re a cheetah.
You’re single and looking to meet guys, you’re a cheetah.
So, uh, according to the standards of this "trend," exactly who ISN’T a cheetah among us? Oh yeah, hot girls.
You know what? F*** you.
Sorry for the multiple postings - kept getting an 'error' messag
Maybe it needed to be said more than once... ;-)
LOL REDUX
Yeah, being concerned for the thousands of women who experience traumatic sexual assault is so lame! Real men rock out to bitchin' tunes in their Ford Fiestas and never give a damn whether or not any women they know get raped. High five!
You seem awesome. I bet you have no "anti-rape sensibilities" whatsoever!
You rock. And you're not the
You rock.
And you're not the only one who will be cheerfully hanging up on Observer telemarketing after this.
Let me see if my math is right.
So.... men who are 21 years old are "like babies." And women who are over 25 are "older" cheetahs "preying" on younger men. So essentially it's okay to fuck between the ages of 22 and 24, and every interaction outside of that has a funny-sounding name and a set of icky feelings to accompany it.
Dear Spencer, get over your fears of turning twenty-seven or whatever and embrace a long, happy life with lots of delightful, awkward middle-aged sex in it. Your only alternative to growing old is, well, not growing old at all. That seems a lot less fun.
Spencer Morgan = Clearly not getting any, and he's mad about it
It's okay, Spencer sweetie. Just come to the other team. it's clear you want to, honey, since you've made it clear that everyone woman on earth is disgusting to you.
Come to the other team! The only women we've got won't want you either! You'll be safe from the scary terrifying females!
Sex should be fun. Stop making it icky.
When will men realize that if they stopped making women feel like shit for having sex, they'd get laid more? Shouldn't this be a good thing for everyone?
Why do you feel the need to degrade women amongst your male friends? How about not making women regret ever having slept with you? You might even get a chance to sleep with her again if you actually respected her.
Perhaps you're of the species (look, I can make animal references too) that is nice to women in person, then makes a mockery of her to your male friends? Icky. Really icky feeling.
What Jinxedluck said!
"When will men realize that if they stopped making women feel like shit for having sex, they'd get laid more? Shouldn't this be a good thing for everyone?"
Yeah, that.
Seriously.
figleaf
Spencer's also not getting any..
...comments on his other articles, which may be why he decided to lower his tone (if that's possible) on this -- maybe this is just an article to get us all het up and do just what we are doing: commenting on his work.
I mean, his latest oh-so thrilling descriptions of: a model-slash-polo player (!), Josh Lucas--and his dog, and "the last crack hipster" have somehow, god knows how, failed to provoke any response whatsoever.
If this is just a ploy to get attention, I would just say to the Observer that New York has many fine writers, many of whose writing actually has polish and a compelling style, unlike Mr. Morgan.
Anyway, I also just want to say to whoever commented on my first post -- OBVIOUSLY I'm a woman, otherwise why would I be getting all worked up about some moron who writes little tongue-in-cheek pieces about "poor drunken men who got taken advantage of" for jollies -- the Observer staff should ask themselves whether they would have printed this piece if the sexes of the people described were reversed.
But many of you in the posts above have made my points more eloquently than I ever could have. Just glad to see that others were willing to speak up as well.
worthy of a boycott
for anyone who's confused as to why this article is ridiculous, pig-headed, demeaning, and making light of sexual violence toward men and women, please read this:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/12/02/when-joke-articles-atta...
Women's organizations are mobilizing right now to boycott this magazine. I hope many readers do the same.
how to make rape laughable...
I LIKE HOW THE SERIAL-RAPIST IS MADE COMPLETELY NON-THREATENING WITH AN ASININE FELINE NICKNAME. DANA IS RAPING PEOPLE. RAPE. SPENCER MORGAN IS AN ASSHOLE AND A MORON. THIS ARTICLE IS HORRIFYING ON A NUMBER OF LEVELS.
Wow...
This woman is a "predator" alright, and she should be in JAIL. I actually thought that's what this article would be about. But NO, let's turn a sexual assault on non-consenting victims into some sexist tirade about women allowing themselves to be sexually active and independent rather than wallflowers waiting to be picked off by "players".
...
You disgust me. Seriously.