When you think of the word cougar, what does it conjure up?

Rita de Brún says it is cruel to call older women who date younger men ‘cougars’. They just want loving, fulfilling relationships.

When you think of the word cougar, what does it conjure up? Women prowling, their eyes wide-open for trophy-boys to snare?

While many women might be interested in dating younger men, most of those women don’t look like Sex and the City’s Samantha or The Graduate’s Mrs Robinson. Nor do they behave like them.