On Liking Twilight

Okay, briefly, because I'm trying to do NaNoWriMo:

The Washington Post* has published a story that basically argues that enjoying Twilight, like getting your period, is just an unfortunate fact of womanhood. (The piece also argues, albeit subtly, that women are weak-will creatures who will cannot help but give in to their lesser, shameful urges.)

And I just want to say: I am a man. I am a reasonably intelligent, well-educated adult man, and I think Twilight is insanely fun to read. Of course, I am glad we do not actually live in a world where it is socially acceptable for 107-year-old pedophiles** to have romantic relationships with high-school students, and I think Edward and Bella's relationship too often confuses obsession with love. But the books are fun and sexy and incredibly engrossing, and you don't have to be a woman (or ashamed!) to know that.

And I have not arrived at that conclusion because I have become light-headed in my oh-so-tight corset. I am a dude. I like sports.***

Nor am I embarrassed to admit that Edward is a well-drawn idealized other. (You don't have to be attracted to individuals who share his genitalia to recognize that; in fact, if you change Edward's name and gave him slightly larger pecs, he'd have a lot in common with some of my more celebrated ex-girlfriends.)

There are books that teach us something about the world in which we find ourselves, and then there are books that help us to escape for a few hours the crushing pain of humanness. To deny that these books have value is to deny the reality of suffering (or, to argue, as the WaPo story seems to, that suffering is limited to young and/or uneducated people).




* The Washington Post was a newspaper. Newspapers were these paper-based ways of distributing information.

** Which Edward is, make no mistake about it. The reason it's wrong for old people to have sexual relationships with children is not because we old people LOOK old. It's because we ARE old.

*** I particularly like soccer, and off topic, but I am so disappointed to see a great match between France and Ireland end with a flagrant handball, and while I'm disappointed in Thierry Henry for failing to tell the ref he cheated, it seems to me that the bigger problem is that no one in soccer ever owns up to violating the rules unless s/he is caught. It's as if a rules violation isn't a rules violation unless an official notices it.