Walnut Creek, Calif. — For as long as she can remember, Rhonna Marsden has preferred to date younger men. "I know they're not going to be fuddy-duddys," she says. "They're spontaneous. Fun. We just have more in common."

And, for just as long, Marsden, 53, has been aware of the May-December double standard. When she was a junior in high school and introduced her mother to her freshman boyfriend, she was accused of "robbing the cradle."

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As man-hungry publicist Samantha Jones on the TV series 'Sex and the City,' Cattrall, 51, helped women feel comfortable being single, sexy and 'of a certain age.' Perhaps being a cougar isn't such a bad thing after all?

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Today, she is happily married to a man eight years her junior. But if she were single and dating, Marsden would have to deal with a new label. By modern estimations, she would be a "cougar."

"I find the term a bit offensive," says Marsden, of Fremont, Calif. "It's OK for men to date younger women. But when the roles are reversed it implies that there's something wrong with the woman."

Indeed. After all, cougars, by definition, are stalk-and-ambush predators. The term, which germinated in the bars of Vancouver in 2001, originally referred to a woman in her early 40s pursuing a man in his late 20s, but has come to define any woman in a romance with a younger man.

Conflicted over the term

No matter the exact definition, it is a concept, maybe even a movement. But women and even some men are conflicted over what many feel is a derogatory term. Some find it empowering. Is it not a good thing that women of any age can embrace their sexuality? Others find it offensive. Why name such a woman after a violent animal, and why is there no male counterpart?

Ultimately, experts agree that its predatory tone illustrates our culture's discomfort with older women exploring their sexuality. Like so many of the roles assigned to women, the term takes with one hand and gives with another, says Andi Zeisler, editor of the Oakland, Calif.-based feminist pop culture magazine, Bitch.

"It's celebrating the sexual agency of women and granting the idea that older women can have a sexual identity after 40," she says. "But then assigning this goofy name to it and making it into a punch line is wrong."

Despite healthy, high-profile relationships between Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher or Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, those punch lines are popping up all over pop culture. Recently, television comedies such as "30 Rock" and "How I Met Your Mother" featured episodes on cougar hunting. Others examples are flat-out insulting: The women on "Saturday Night Live's" ''Cougar Den" are tacky, desperate and chase their calcium supplements with "tartinis."

While some mock, however, others embrace. Naseema McElroy isn't too concerned with the term. She's just pleased to see images of strong older women knowing what they want, and going after it. "I think it's great," says McElroy, 27, of Oakland, Calif. "It's about time."

Legions of female "American Idol" fans agreed, as they held "Cougars for Cook" signs for recent contestant David Cook. And, in a reality show due early next year from the producers of "The Bachelor," it is the young men who must compete for the heart of the cougar.

She 'showed the way'

Jeremy Mape of urbancougars.com is serious about older women. When he was 27, Mape had an "amazing" experience with a 37-year-old woman in San Francisco. "She was confident. She approached me and asked me questions," Mape says. "It was like being showed the way rather than leading. It kind of turned me on."

His friends had similar experiences, and the following year they launched urbancougars.com, which made Rolling Stone magazine's Hot List in 2005. Next month, they are relaunching the site with more user-generated content.

Instead of getting offended, former Toronto Sun sex columnist Valerie Gibson took ownership of the cougar moniker, writing "Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men" (Key Porter Books, 2002) the same year she first heard it in Canada. "I thought, 'That's a wonderful image of older women,'" Gibson says. "Throughout history, we have never been in charge of our sexual lives past 40, but now we are. We are vital. We are sensual. We do the choosing, dumping and picking. It's a wonderful control."

In her book, and in the revised edition, due out next year, she talks about the new breed of single, older woman as "confident, sophisticated, desirable and sexy," a woman who knows exactly what she wants ("younger men and lots of great sex") and what she doesn't ("children, cohabitation or commitment"). The new edition will also have a section for pumas, or cougars in training.

Gibson, whose last marriage was to a man 14 years her junior, is frank about why the age disparity works. "Women in their 40s and up are in their sexual prime and young men hit their sexual peak in their late 20s," she says.

These days, Gibson says it is the men who pursue the older women. "They find the women are simply more interesting," she says. "They've lived."

Gibson once threw Cougar Cruises around Lake Ontario and she noted that her most recent tour was oversold. Young men were lined up at the dock, eager to hop on board. It was at least three cubs per cougar. "They're the predatory ones now," she says. "They do the pouncing."