When I saw "Eclipse", I caught the mockery of the Catholic Church in the effeminate, velvet robed, vampire bosses who dwelt in a domed sanctuary in the Italian hill country. I was put off by the hyper-sexualized chemistry between Bella and Edward and her utter helplessness in the face of the all powerful vampires. A children's author I know has used the term "kiddie porn" to describe the "Twilight" series, and reading "New Moon", I understood what she meant. These books have a sexual, addictive quality which and may be responsible for the popularity of the series among women who are attracted by the so-called moral values of chastity of the books.
In order to understand the addictive power sexual undercurrents, you have to understand how women are wired emotionally. Stephenie Meyers apparently does, and has captured milions of women's imaginations, and dollars.
Thus this false idea of chastity contributes significantly to the series' "girl porn" effect, despite the lack of actual sex - something that might not be apparent to men, but is all too clear to women. Touted for promoting chastity, the books in fact offer a combo of emotional titillation and steamy sexual near-misses, all bound together with a steady undercurrent of rape fantasy, that is deadly for women. These elements, as in sex-laden romantic novels, are geared toward over-stimulating female emotions and sending women hurtling towards an unhealthy escapism. Instead of the selfish male ideal of regular pornography, i.e., the perfect-bodied female delivering the ultimate sexual climax, women reading Twilight can find themselves craving a different and equally selfish fantasy: the perfectly "intense" male delivering the ultimate emotional climax.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment