Dear Sasha: I'm 23 years old, I'm good-looking and in good shape. There's always good-looking girls smiling at me and stuff, but I get so nervous if I try to go and introduce myself or say anything that my mind is spinning a million miles a second. Usually, to try and overcome that, I end up trying much too hard and the girls lose interest. I hate hitting on girls - just the thought of it puts butterflies in my stomach. I was wondering if you knew of some bars or clubs where there are usually a lot of cougars. I need someone to hit on me. I'm much more relaxed if a girl starts the conversation, and usually only cougars will go and hit on guys. » Shy Guy

Dear Shy,
Just over a month ago I was standing in the bathroom of a Niagara Falls strip club with my friend Robin when some local gal hepped up on J.Lo said to Robin, "Hey, my friend thinks you're a hot cougar." Robin very eloquently replied, "Tell him to fuck you very much." Just a tip for those of you who are in your late teens and early 20s: telling a 30-year-old woman that she's a hot cougar is a sure way to sabotage that moderately-older-woman sex experience that would inform your masturbation drill for the next 40 years of your life. Honestly, it seems like if it was up to you guys, Cougardom would start at 25. The idea just seems to titillate you beyond all reason.

Not that I want to provide a dictionary definition, because the term (well, more its common interpretation), is loathsome to me as it is, but let's get it straight, for the sake of not abusing it. Cougars are heterosexual women in their 40s and above who are interested in substantially younger sex partners. The fact that they have been imbued with such a desperate and raptorial sexual appetite is the construct of boys and men, just like vaginas with teeth or witches. If you think this is bullshit, watch some woman-made porn and see if mature female desire is presented in the same way. It's a little like those straight people who think that every queer is gagging to fuck them (for an excellent example of this phenomenon, see Julia Gonsalves' column in the January 22 Toronto edition of the gay weekly Xtra, www.xtra.ca).

Older women are everywhere, and not that I endorse it, but there is a Web site called Canadian Cougars (www.canadiancougars.com) where you might have some luck. And by the way, the real cougar's worst enemy is man. Let's hope the human ones don't have to continue sharing its fate.

Dear Sasha: I have been with my girlfriend for almost nine years now. We met when we were 16 and have been going out since, except for one little mishap about three years ago. We've been talking about marriage for the past year now and she really is the only person I'd like to spend the rest of my life with. However, I feel like I have some unfinished business. You see, she was my first sexual partner. She, on the other hand, had slept around before we started dating. This may sound selfish and unjustified but I've been feeling the need to sleep with at least one other woman before actually tying the knot with my girlfriend as a way to even the score. What would you suggest to a man with a "problem" like mine? » Chasing Liberty

Dear Chasing,
That you switch your name to Chasing Calamity, actually. If you think fucking a few people before you settle down is going to solve your curiosity issue and even the score, you're wrong. Someone's history before they met you does not exist for you to match it.

I do believe, however, that your fiancée deserves to know you're considering this before she marries you.

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