Jenice Armstrong | 'Cougars' on the prowl

WHEN 46-year-old Lynn started dating a 32-year-old fitness trainer from her gym, she unwittingly stumbled into "cougar category."

In case you haven't heard, that's how a lot of people these days refer to women 35 and older who date younger guys. Lynn, who lives in King of Prussia, asked that her real name not be used because she's not altogether comfortable with being considered a cougar.

Can't say that I blame her. On one level, the word cougar conjures up sexy, cat-like connotations. It makes me think of sophisticated women who go after what they want with their claws - I mean acrylic tips - bared.

What's insulting, though, is the underlying implication that once a woman is past society's traditional sell-by date, she morphs into a predatory creature, one that has to stalk her prey and be ready to pounce in order to entice a younger man. It makes me think of sex-starved, middle-aged women in revealing clothing who prowl 20something hangouts looking for fresh meat.

Although the concept is nothing new, the word cougar has become a hot buzzword lately. "Cougar Club" is the name of a straight-to-DVD movie released earlier this month. There's a one-act play in New York City called "The Cougar Cabaret." And then there was that dreadful reality-TV dating show last year that had a bachelor selecting a girlfriend from a room of youngish females, aka kittens, and cougars.

Cougared.com, one of the Internet dating Web sites enabling older-women/younger-man relationships, describes female cougars this way: "It's a Cougar's instinct to hunt rather than be hunted. Cougars are wise and more practiced in the art of hunting, so rarely will they broadcast their intentions to sleep with you until they are ready to mate. Cougars are also non-committal, choosing to move from mate to mate with no urge to settle down."

"I really prefer them younger," said "Anna," a 59-year-old who dislikes the term cougar almost as much as she dislikes older men.

"When they get older, their gray starts sticking out. I don't want some broken-down old something," said the New Jersey resident who works in customer service for a large financial institution. "I want somebody who's active and interesting. And you've got to remember that a lot of them want younger women. While they do that, what are you supposed to do?

"Besides, I don't know any men my age," she said, ticking off all the younger men she has dated over the last decade. "Thank God, I was born in this era."

These days, it's practically expected for a Hollywood starlet of a certain age to hook up with a younger male the way that Demi Moore did with Ashton Kutcher and Halle Berry with model Gabriel Aubrey. As the saying goes, they got it like that - as do a lot of other women. Lynn, whom I mentioned earlier, enjoys hip-hop music and prides herself on staying fit. When "Mike" approached her the first time four years ago, she was running on a treadmill.

"It's very helpful that society is like, 'yeah!' " she said of their 14-year-age difference.

Still, attitudes have a way of changing slowly, hence the double-edged cougar designation.

"We're still sort of entrenched in this temp-tress kind of thing on a very gutteral archetype level. Some of us are in the cave on this," pointed out Donna Moore (www.donnamoorediva.com) who wrote and stars in "The Cougar Cabaret."

"It's really about perception," she added. "To me, [being a cougar] actually is synonymous with empowerment. I say, 'it's stepping out of the kitty box to unleash my potential to love whomever I choose.' I ultimately think it's about love and freedom.

"This whole thing about being a cougar, it's really about breaking out of the constraints that society puts on you." *

Have you peeped a hot trend that hasn't been reported? E-mail heyjen@phillynews.com and let me know what you know.