[Culver City, January 27. Image via INF]

Although according to Time's "brief history of the cougar," they're as old as human history itself. That's right, not "older woman and younger men," but "cougars." Including, wait for it, "Cougar the Great" (pictured.) [Time]

Know your dumbass cat-status, ladies: "If you're in your thirties, you're a puma. If you're in your forties and fifties, you're a cougar. And if you're in your sixties, you're a panther." And if you're sane, you're a *headdesk.* [TimesOnline]

The world's first "cougar cruise" sets sail from San Diego today. The three-day event, which advertised that a cougar "knows exactly what she wants ... (and) what she doesn't want is children, cohabitation or commitment," was a sellout. [USAToday]

Explorers on the dark continent of dating have long known the dangers of the fearsome cougar. But a new menace lurks in the shadows: the cheetah. Luckily, one man has the balls to take this beast on.

It's the love that dare not speak its name: middle-aged women who are obsessed with Twilight.

In this week's compilation of pop culture crap we've got women with acrylic toenails, Kirstie Alley remembering her coke days, and Mary Hart, who still hates Jon Gosselin.

A study published in the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy focused on couples in which the wife is at least 10 years older. Guess what? People in these relationships don't think of them as weird!

• Frances Bean Cobain has written an open letter to Ali Lohan. Would you like to know what it says? Here goes — and consider it to be [sic]-filled:

"It's girls-gone-wild feminism for 40-somethings. It's ridiculous and belittling and it stinks of another round of backlash… All the most cartoonish aspects of boorish middle-aged masculinity… [Courteney Cox's character is] so very pitiful." — Judith Warner. We suspected. [NY Times]

Monica Hesse, Ellen McCarthy: "The way to embrace the concept of an older woman dating a younger man is not to give it a name that sounds… conjured up during a marketing meeting for cheap 1970s cologne." Agreed. [WaPo]

From Variety's review: "OK, so maybe Cox's character, Jules, hasn't gotten laid in awhile, but the notion that she'd be off-putting to men hardly matches her trainer-toned body and proves more laughable, unfortunately, than anything in [the script]." [Variety]

"If it feels as if the remarriage odds are bad for a woman in her 50s, they are." So claims the Times piece "In Her 50s, Looking for Love." Clearly, these women haven't seen Cougar Town!

It's tough being critical of the Bay Area Cougar Convention, when, from the looks of the photographic evidence, everyone had a fantastic time. But there's still a problem:

"How come every time women manage to break out of traditional roles, someone... tries to ruin it with a derogatory label?... My husband is 10 years younger, but we've been married for seven years... he's 40, ferchrist's sake." [N.Y. Post]

Oh, dear. I'm not sure why the world feels that women need to place themselves into stupidly named sociological gangs in order to justify their existence. We have the Cougars, the MILFS, the Pumas, and now, the tragically dubbed TWITs.