Is #CougarTok the Horniest Corner of the Internet?

By Emily J. Sullivan

If your introduction to TikTok was cute teens doing catchy dances, you might be surprised to stumble into the soft-core world of #cougartok. Like a romance-novel cover come to life, CougarTok is dominated by hot TikTok influencers and their openly thirsty, over-40 following.

The influencers of CougarTok may range in sexuality and gender, but what they share (and what, presumably, attracts their older-woman fanbase) is their ability to gaze intently into the camera and make the person on the other end squirm. 

TikTok creator Charla Maddox (@justcharla90), whose bio reads “♈️31. GA. 🏳️‍🌈PROFESSIONAL LE$BEAN,” started out with mental-health videos, but when she began posting sexually charged TikToks, followers reacted enthusiastically (to say the least). Sample comments: “I AM MARRIED!!! But thank you for your service,” from @ferallhousewife; on another video, where Maddox grips a powertool and smirks into the camera, @jessyjean78 commented, “but those hands.”

Maddox says that although she has an array of fans, most are cougars. “I’m not complaining,” she jokes via DM. “No teaching necessary. It’s the baby gays that cling fast.” When I asked about some of the more out-there responses she’s received, she said a follower asked to talk about mental health via Snapchat and then sent her dozens of nudes.

Fellow lesbian TikTok creators PaigeFromGeorgia, Doyle, and Ria Demiri have garnered a combined following of more than 2.7 million followers. They post dance videos, or just smile and wink into the camera, and women go wild:

“That’s it, I’m definitely leaving my husband.” 

“I’m straight, I’m straight . . . damn, I don’t know what I am anymore.” 

“You keep playing and you’re going to unleash a cougar.”

Paige from Georgia (whose bio reads: watch at your own risk😈 23 your lesbian heartthrob Macon Georgia) says that her followers range in age from 18 to 60, and that she was absolutely surprised by the huge following from older women. “I posted TikToks as a flirty joke and women loved it,” she says to me via DM. “They asked for more and more.”

Tanya Boudreau (@tanyaboudreau4), 48, is a mom and landscape designer who frequents the pages of Ria Demiri and Paige from Georgia. “Paige is like a ray of sunshine, so young and having a great time. She’s beautiful and brings me joy,” Boudreau says. “Paige seems to tick all of the boxes and I think that’s why everybody is so interested in her. She’s got it all.”

Boudreau acknowledged that Paige is young, just a kid, she says. I asked if she’s always had a thing for younger people. “No,” she says, “Well, wait I did date someone seven years younger than me, and my boyfriend is 11 years younger than me. Maybe I do like the young ones. I’m just realizing that. I guess I’m a cougar! I’m gonna own that. I’m getting a tee shirt.”  

 For 51-year-old mom and grandmother Julie Evans (@julieevans15), Paige’s provocative nature is what keeps her interested. Evans, who identifies as straight, visits Paige’s account around four times a day. When I asked over DM if Paige’s videos stir something in her, she replied, “Sometimes they do. Depends on which ones I’m watching, most of her thrusting and being sexy do.” 

Of course, it would be remiss to write a piece on CougarTok without mentioning its most-meteoric of viral stars, @Whiteyy18. The 21-year-old aspiring model’s schtick is lip-syncing to some of the biggest hits of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s; with just a few winks and eye rolls, he’s managed to captivate more than 1.6 million people and has his own devoted fanbase. As Red Painter writes, Whiteyy18 (real name: William White), “has managed to do something absolutely astonishing. He took his cover-model good looks and natural-born charisma and realized that what women want — what ALL women want — is to be SEEN. To feel valuable, special, noticed, desirable. They want to be serenaded by music from THEIR youth. They want to be transported back to a time when they were not known as a Mom or Wife or a Housekeeper or Cook. They want to be SEEN.”

Chelle Sloan, 40, is a contemporary romance author and TikTok “Thirst Trap Analyst.” She’s built an audience of almost half a million followers by “dueting” with some of TikTok’s hottest thirst-trap stars. In the split-screen clips, she captures her reactions to sexy TikTokers while slurping from a trademark tumbler (you can buy those, and other branded merchandise, on her website). 

“We have these thoughts, like, How married am I? How straight am I?” says Sloan. “It’s fun and liberating. Like the stuff that you would talk to your girlfriends about. When we were younger, we would read teenybopper magazines or have posters on our walls. This is the evolution of that.” Sloan loves TikTok thirst traps so much, she wrote an entire new romance novel about them (titled “Thirst Trap,” obviously).

Sloan has such a huge following that my daughters’ grandmother, age 60, texted me earlier today with, “If I was gay” and the link to one of Sloan’s thirst-trap duets, featuring a steamy video of Ria Demiri and her fiancé.

TikTok videos allow women who aren’t interested in going to darker corners of the web the opportunity to let loose, explore and satiate fantasies. Pallavi Yetur, a psychotherapist who works with relationships and identity issues, thinks the allure of thirst traps, particularly for partnered, middle-aged women, is their combination of sexiness and mischief. The impression is, “I know something about you, and I’m going to bring it out in you.” There’s power in that kind of energy. There’s fascination, there’s a thrill.

Still, she sees a potential downside. “I wonder if people who overly engage with stuff on TikTok feel they’re missing something in general,” she says. “It’s a weird chicken-or-egg thing with the internet because it can simultaneously make you feel occupied, and also empty. You have these spaces to explore and express, but also, the more you engage with it, I imagine it leaves you with a sense of solitude and emptiness.”

Married, 40-year-old mom of two Pinky (@hotmessexpresspinkystyle), another TikToker known for filming comedic commentary duets and responding to thirst traps, says, “If you look at all the videos that I have, all the thirst-trap videos that I have dueted or stitched, they are the complete opposite of what I’m married to. When you watch TV, you’re interested in what’s different from your life. And I think it’s the same with the people you’re drawn to online.”

It’s Pinky who sums up the appeal of TikTok thirst traps best. “Social media is a safe zone for everybody to say what they want and get it out of their system. It’s like, whoa, damn, you don’t have to go Pornhub to see this.”