Apparently three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer has been relegated to playing only “cougars.” The slang term has been used heavily to describe the actress’ latest character, a Parisian courtesan who has an affair with a pretty boy half her age (Rupert Friend). But just prior to appearing in Chéri, which reunites her with the Dangerous Liaisons writer-director team-up of Christopher Hampton and Stephen Frears, Pfeiffer starred in two direct-to-video releases in which she similarly ends up with a much younger guy. In Amy Heckerling’s I Could Never Be Your Woman she falls for Paul Rudd, while in Personal Effects she has an affair with Ashton Kutcher (ironic since Heckerling’s film takes shots at Kutcher’s marriage to real-life “cougar” Demi Moore).

The term “cougar” has some negative connotations, which is a shame given all the movies we see in which an older man romances a younger woman and think nothing of it. But it’s good to see Pfeiffer still getting work at her age (51), especially in roles celebrating the idea that older women can still be desirable. And in our opinion she’s every bit as desirable as she was at age 25, when she broke through with her sexy appearance in Scarface.

Below we spotlight ten other actresses/characters who’ve shown us that aging women can still be very attractive to young men.
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There apparently are other reasons to see Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona besides the infamous lesbian kiss between Scarlett Johansson and Penélope Cruz or the threesome between these actresses and Javier Bardem. But as the first things most of us heard about the movie, the sex scenes are certainly a big sell (the ménage à trois is even being used in a promotional contest to win a “threesome” with ScarJo). Even if they’re reportedly underwhelming.

Promise of tantalizing footage has been an appeal for moviegoers likely since the dawn of cinema, with film pioneer Eadweard Muybridge’s The Human Figure in Motion - Descending Stairs and Turning Around featuring nudity as far back as the 1880s. And if you’ve seen any of the titles included in today’s list, chances are their respective sex scenes were at least part of what made you buy a ticket (or rent the video).

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Andrew Sarris may be one of the most influential American film critics, but here’s a claim, located within his recent review of In Search of a Midnight Kiss, that may not hold up to some of his better-remembered theories: “Even when we confront 40-year-old virgins of either gender, movies refuse to show them compensating for the lack of a sexual partner. There is lasting shame involved in this spectacle.”

Not to ever, ever profess superiority over Sarris, but I’ve nonetheless compiled today’s list as a way of proving the man wrong. There are actually tons and tons of masturbation scenes found in non-porn movies, from the low brow to the high brow, from as indirect as the boy wizard playing with his wand under the covers in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to as direct as the non-simulated masturbation in Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs and John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus (which would probably feature my #1 pick, from the sound of it, if I ever bothered to see it).

The following 10 films are some of the most memorable masturbation scenes, excluding any movies that might be considered examples of, in Sarris’ words, “the fringe exploitation genres” (I’ve even gone so far as to leave out mainstream horror like The Exorcist, considering it’s crucifix masturbation is far from the self-pleasuring moments Sarris is clearly interested in). Oh, and I’ve attempted to chart these films artistically from lowbrow to high.

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