There Are No Cougars: Study

The cougar trend is a myth—at least, that’s what one researcher wants you to believe. Cougars and cougar advocates everywhere, however, beg to differ. Michael Dunn recently released a study of 22,400 singles ads from dating websites, in which he found no “sizable cohort” of women looking for younger men, Time reports. (He also found that most men preferred younger, not older, women…but we already knew that.)

“I do believe the cougar phenomenon is a myth,” Dunn says. But two self-identified cougars hit back: One blames the whole thing on anti-cougar bias; the other says that while it may be true women aren’t advertising their preference for younger men, they are nonetheless hooking up with them. And it’s worth noting that Dunn—who also presented research that expensive cars make men more attractive to women—once said, “Let’s face it, there’s evidence to support” the fact that women are shallow.
(More cougar stories.)