Demi Moore is a puma, not a cougar!

She’s been credited as having single-handedly made dating younger men more socially acceptable, but Demi Moore insists that she’s no ‘cougar’.

Since first stepping out with Ashton Kutcher back in 2003, she's been seen as the poster girl for older women dating younger men - but Demi Moore insists she's more of a 'puma' than a ‘cougar'.

46-year-old Demi tied the knot with Ashton in 2005, a man 15 years her junior, and has ever since been credited with having made having a toyboy more socially acceptable.

‘I'm certainly not the first person to have a relationship with a younger man, but somehow I was plucked out as a bit of a poster girl,' the actress says in an interview with W magazine. ‘I don't know why that is!'

Ms Moore was one of the original women to have been branded with the label ‘cougar' - a term to describe the more mature woman who ‘preys' on younger men.

‘I'd prefer to be called a puma,' she jokes. The prolific Twitter user then describes how she came up with the term and Tweeted it to all her many followers.

‘People wrote back with hilarious stuff, saying ‘I'm gonna get T-shirts that say Puma Power,'' she laughs.

Ashton and Demi's marriage is thought to have been something of a catalyst for the sudden surge in women looking for a younger man - as the proportion of ladies who'd take a young lover has quadrupled in the past four years.

Back in 2005, just 8 percent of single women in their 40s and 50s said they'd consider dating a toyboy, in comparison to more than a third in 2009 - according to a study conducted by online dating service Parship.

But Demi insists that age isn't a factor when it comes to finding your perfect partner, saying that she felt she had a ‘deep and old connection' with Ashton when she first met him.

‘The love he has for me makes me a better person by giving me the courage to take risks,' she says. ‘I can fail and have someone who loves me just the same.

‘I never knew it was quite possible.'

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