I beg your pardon, young man.

So, we were talking last night at the Girls dinner. What do you call a younger man who pursues older women? Interesting question, really. The term “cougar” can be seen as either empowered and gyno-positive, in that we’re evening up the May-December stats with a little December-May, or it can be seen as derogatory and predatory. Especially seeing as most older woman/younger man relationships are closer to September or October than December. It takes much less of an age difference to be remarked upon when the woman is older.

But there are younger men out there who actually do chase older women. No seduction necessary, Mrs. Robinson. And there just doesn’t seem to be a term for them. The “cub” term implies some little helpless fella. And there’s nothing equivalent to “gold-digger” if he’s looking for a sugar mama. Not that the term would need to necessarily have negative connotations. But this world seems to love slapping labels on people, and this is one category that just seems to be un-labeled. And from what I've seen, it may be under the radar, but it definitely does happen.

The “cub” term seems to be borrowed from the boys. The bears have had cubs for quite awhile. And of course, there’s always the “twinks”, bless they’re hearts. But what seems so easy for gay men to define, just gets blows all expectations in a hetero relationship. Why would a younger man look for an older woman? And even though the answer is much the same as when a younger woman looks at older men (money, experience, self-knowledge, fun), it still seems that it’s a phenomenon like UFOs. Nobody believes it until they see it for themselves.

But where do you go? Call them Harolds? (as in “and Maude”) Pepe Le Pew? (Always chasing that poor kitty.) Jim Fowler? (Okay, that’s a really obscure reference, but for my peeps who watched Wild Kingdom as kids, Jim was the poor guy who had to go chase after animals like bobcats and cougars while Marlin Perkins was safe back in the studio doing voice-overs. “Watch out, Jim!” Good times.) Or maybe, if we’re going to reach back in the vault, how about Spanky or Alfalfa? Seems like they always had a crush on Miss Crabtree back in the day on the Little Rascals.

So what do you guys have? Anybody heard of any better ones?