Ancient Greece: Phaedra
Lust for her husband’s son, Hippolytus, ends badly for him (sea monsters, death).

(Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

1380ish: Wife of Bath, The Canterbury Tales
Fat, horny and bold, Chaucer meant her to be horrifying, but she’s his best character.

1533-1603: Elizabeth I
The equal of any man, even in indulging pretty young things (Robert Devereux). Ditto Catherine the Great: Prince Zubov was 40 years her junior.

(Photo: Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

1920: Colette
Her novel Chéri captured the pathos and allure of an older woman in love with a man-child.

(Photo: 20th Century Fox/Everett Collection)

1893-1980: Mae West
“I’ve been in more laps than a napkin.” Samantha Jones, meet your sassy, shameless ancestor.

1947: Blanche Dubois, A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams defanged and deified the species in this pity-fest.

1950: Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard
As embodied by real-life cougar Gloria Swanson, Desmond was the saddest predator of them all.

(Photo: Everett Collection)

1967: Mrs. Robinson, The Graduate
Anne Bancroft, just 35 at the time, created the Ur-cougar of the modern age: hot, poignant, a little scary.

1971: Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May”
The undisputed cougar anthem.

(Photo: Everett Collection)

1971: Summer of ’42
Not really a cougar (she’s too vulnerable), but it made every teenage boy want to lose it with an older woman.

1978: Dean Wormer’s Wife, Animal House
Cougar as cut-to-the-chase horndog.

(Photo: Peter Still/Redferns/Getty Images)

The Eighties: Cher
Her terrific onscreen older woman in 1987’s Moonstruck didn’t spare her years of cradle-robbing mockery over Bagel Boy.

(Photo: Aaron Spelling Productions/Everett Collection)

1981-1989: Alexis Carrington, Dynasty
Shoulder pads, cat fights, greed: Everything was bigger in the eighties, even cougars.

1984: Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”
The male fantasy cougar: when teacher is a stripper.

(Photo: Everett Collection )

1985-1992: Blanche Devereaux, The Golden Girls
Blanche DuBois, empowered.

1992-2004: Patsy Stone, Absolutely Fabulous
Cougar as chicken hawk.

1996: Madonna
Mrs. Robinson on steroids.

(Photo: Everett Collection )

1998-2004: Samantha Jones, Sex and the City
The greatest cougar of them all.

1999: Stifler’s Mom, American Pie
The icky cross-breeding of mother and de-virginizer.

(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

2003: Demi Moore
She hooks up with Ashton Kutcher, and instantly detoxifies older women and younger men. Sexy, yes; sad or desperate, no.

2004-2009: Edie, Desperate Housewives
The blueprint for Real Housewives: crasser, Botox-fueled, and, yeah, desperate.

(Photo: James White/Courtesy of ABC)

Present: Jules Cobb, Cougar Town
The Wife of Bath was a better role model.

See Also: Emily Nussbaum on the Cougar Moment

Related:

• Articles by Mary Kaye Schilling
• Table of Contents: Nov 9, 2009 issue of New York | Subscribe!