The Rise of the Cougar: A Quarter of Us Would Happily Date a Toy Boy. Would You?

When it comes to the opposite sex, do you like your men to have a bit of a silver fox vibe or are you, like many other women, something of a cougar?

With the likes of Caroline Flack, J.Lo and Madonna all jumping on the cougar bandwagon, having a bit of gra for men who are younger than ourselves has become something of a trend in recent years. And, according to some new research, a quarter of us would now happily date a man who is 10 years younger than us. Yes, really.

A study of 1,000 daters found that when it comes to the problem of age, it really is nothing more than a number and lots of us are happy to seek out partners who don’t necessarily fall within our chosen age-bracket.

While a quarter of women said they’d be open to finding themselves a toy boy, 22 per cent of men admitted that they’d happily hunt themselves down a cougar and go ten years older in their choice of woman if it meant a happy relationship.

The good news is that neither women or men would lie about their age on a first date, with 92 per cent of all the people questioned stating that they would be totally honest about themselves.

Do you have an inner-cougar when it comes to dating?

“Women used to be okay with dating an older man but not a younger one, but the situation has reversed,” said a spokeswoman for dating website For 2, which commissioned the research.

“Firstly high-earning women don’t need to look to older men for money anymore, and aspirational women like Madonna, Kylie and Caroline Flack have normalised the behaviour of dating men considerably younger than them. Add to this the fact that women are looking much younger for longer, with many in their 40s and 50s passing for 30-year-olds, and it looks like the cougar is here to stay,” the spokeswoman added.

Well ladies, when it comes to men do you like them older or younger? And who are some of your cougar-esque crushes? Here in the Her.ie offices we favour Harry Styles, Zac Efron, Justin Bieber and Niall Horan, to name but a few.