Thursday, July 30, 2009
The rift between American men and women widens
At least Angel, Anita Blake's vampires, Sookie Stackhouse, and most of the rest of them have a lot of sex. But Edward Cullen, immortal star of the Twilight books, does not have sex. Edward tells Bella, his human paramour, that they need to wait until they're married before doing the deed. In the meantime, he's fascinated by her, beguiled by her, he can't stay away from her—but he can't touch her. Instead, he lies next to her in bed and moons over her as she sleeps. Leaving aside the fact that he's a 90-year-old man, this is what stalkers do, not boyfriends.
Just as America's young men are being given deeply erroneous ideas about sex by what they watch on the Web, so, too, are America's young women receiving troubling misinformation about the male of the species from Twilight. These women are going to be shocked when the sensitive, emotionally available, poetry-writing boys of their dreams expect a bit more from a sleepover than dew-eyed gazes and chaste hugs. The young man, having been schooled in love online, will be expecting extreme bondage and a lesbian three-way.
Understanding comes from honesty. Men need to be encouraged to be honest about their expectations and women should learn not to be over romanticize relationships.
Diego: Such men, as described above in movies/TV, and their qualities that women find attractive are as real as the women with fake boobs and other surgical alterations. If women would like to know why men can't be like the guys in the movies made for women it is for the same reason they can't grow boobs like the women in the movies made for men. It is not natural.
