Scary Women

Inspite, what the children might believe, I am rather benign middle-aged woman, and until I read this Newsweek Blog, I hadn’t realized how truly scary other middle-aged women can be.

My seemingly well-adjusted posse, myself included, morphed into archetypal Adam Lambert fangirls. We became Glamberts, besotted with the leather and rhinestones, the perfectly smudgy guyliner, the emo coal-colored coif and, oh, yeah, the preternatural vocal range. When we got together, we no longer talked about good books, North Korea or the recession. We talked about all things Lambert. We became the thing that we normally despise: a cougar court that fell into a gentle loin lust with a man young enough to be our son. And a gay one, to boot.

In terms of biology, Adam Lambert's attractiveness is kind of bizarre. Some research shows that women like square jaws and deep brows—iconic masculine traits—when they're looking for a fling. But we like more feminine traits when we're looking for The One, the long-term mate. Lambert has a little bit of both going on for him, as anyone who saw his version of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" can attest.
When we aren't laughing at our patheticness (because, let's get real, even if Lambert were straight or gave in to some bi-curiosity, he would never be interested in us), we are actually ruminative enough to wonder what it is about this fellow that turned us into such loons. One thing we know for sure is that we are not alone. There are thousands of women of a certain age out there who are just one Adam Lambert Google search away from crashing their computers.

The good news is that people who know about these things think that our little Lambert love-fest is downright mentally healthy. "I think more women would be happier if they channeled their inner 14-year-old girls once in a while," says sex therapist Laura Berman, director of the Berman Center in Chicago. She's always been fascinated with the Clay Aiken phenomenon, that of girls going crazy for a seemingly sweet, innocent-looking boy-man (Aiken is now, like Lambert, out and proud).

I just don’t get this cougar thing…words completely fail me, but then again, I never got the whole 'sex in the city' cult thingy either.