A self-described "cougar" has revealed her sex-life is better than ever since she began seeking out younger men on Tinder for hook-ups.
American Melanie Hamlett , 41, wrote for Glamour that men her own age wouldn't date her, so she downloaded the dating app, thought "screw it," then set her minimum age limit to 25.
To her surprise, her inbox "blew up" with messages from twenty and thirty-something-year-old suitors "dying" to take her on a date.
She happily rose to the occasion, and catalogues her encounters with "sex friends" including a 27-year-old Frenchman who serves her fancy cheese platters and praises her independent lifestyle of travel and mountaineering.
Melanie tells how while she resisted the "cougar" label at first - she felt empowered to find she can bust sexual double standards and date men decades her junior - whom she describes as "lonely cubs."
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"I have never had this much sex—let alone good sex—in my life," writes Melanie.
"These younger guys are more progressive, have less emotional baggage, and love dating a confident woman who knows what she wants and tells them what to do. I’ve never felt so sexy and attractive."
She opened up about her experience to shatter the sexist societal double-standard of a single woman in her 40s being made to feel like a "dried up old hag."
Instead, she writes she feels "empowered" to do as men her age do almost without critique - and go looking for younger models.
She describes "running laps" around older men, saying even her last boyfriend who was nine years her junior struggled to keep up with her.
Melanie writes in her Glamour essay she has found younger men to be more "sex positive" and "feminist" than their counterparts in her generation - perfect for a 41-year-old with "the sex drive of a teenage boy".
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On top of that, she writes how women are bombarded with messages from Hollywood flicks that women are "invisible" over the age of 35 - all the while men are cast romantically opposite much younger leading ladies.
Melanie writes the whole idea of a "cougar" is an outdated stereotype which she believes is insulting to both women and men and says men were not all "shallow" daters looking for youth and beauty in a partner as they want brains and humour too.
"I’ve come to realize, in my infinite old-woman wisdom, that this all bulls**t. And if men in their forties no longer want to date me, well, that’s a good thing."
