"Twilight, the love that dare not speak its shame" Washington Post

Washington Post: "All across the country, there were women who managed to avoid Stephenie Meyer’s series about a star-crossed human/vampire teen couple. (Vampire Edward lusts for mortal Bella, but also for her blood; the books are less plot than endless yearning). They resisted the first three books — refused to read them, didn’t know they existed — and the lunacy that was “Breaking Dawn.”“Twilight” came for the tweens, then for the moms of tweens, then for the co-workers who started wearing those ridiculous Team Jacob shirts, and the resisters said nothing, because they thought “Twilight” could not come for them. They were too literary. They didn’t do vampires. They were feminists.One minute you’re a functioning member of society, the next you’re succumbing to the dark side, wondering how deep you’re willing to go — and what that longing says about you.In “Twilight,” Edward Cullen waffled between wooing and eating new girl Bella Swan. He chose love. In “New Moon,” the darkest installment of the series, Edward becomes convinced that his girlfriend would be safer without him, so he dumps her in order to protect her and then vanishes. Bella, catatonic from the pain, finds solace in Jacob Black, the devoted friend who has just learned he is a werewolf, and their relationship grows deeper, and this description is utterly, utterly useless because none of it gets at what the “Twilight” series is actually about, which is being 17.

It's embarrassing, to love something you wish you hated.

It’s a time capsule to the breathless period when the world could literally end depending on whether your lab partner touched your hand, when every conversation was so agonizing and so thrilling (and the border between the two emotions was so thin), and your heart was bigger and more delicate than it is now, and everything was just so much more.

Edward might be imperfect, might be too possessive, but then why does he still seem so insanely dreamy?

"I remember when the movie first came out," says Mindy Goodin, 36, a special needs teacher in Stafford. "I remember thinking," whoever that boy is, "he really needs to brush his hair."

How things have changed. Recently, when Goodin's 10-year-old daughter wanted to lash out, she did so by yelling the words she knew would cut her mother to the core: "I don't even think Robert Pattinson's cute, anyway!"

For mothers of tweenage girls, there are added complications. Is it sweet or twisted to share the same crush as your 14-year-old? (Taylor Lautner as Jacob. Ahhhhhhh. Only 17. Ewwwww.) How do you reconcile cooing over an on-screen relationship that, if your daughter had it in real life, might be worth a restraining order?

What women want

It's just a movie. It's just a movie. It's just a movie.

It's just a movie -- well, movie and books -- but it's a movie that's come to represent such big things, from the future of girls to what women really want (they want men who will shut up and come to watch "New Moon," and not ask how many points they're getting for the evening).

Men feel perfectly comfortable slathering their chests in greasepaint and screaming like half-naked ninnies at football games, but women too often over-explain their passions, apologizing for being too girly or liking something too trashy.

The grown women of "Twilight" will no longer apologize. They will go to those midnight "New Moon" screenings.

But as for telling them how silly they're being, how Edward is not real and neither is Jacob, how their brains are rotting and their sense of reality is being distorted and this obsession is crazy, just crazy? There's really no need.

They already know. "

Here's my opinion on this subject.  I've noticed more woman ages (20 and up) who are more passionate than the younger crowd.  Now dont get me wrong I'm not saying one age loves the book or movies more than the others but I think woman see it in an entirely different point of view.  Like for instance the break up scene in New Moon (book or movie) hits close to home - why, because I was broken up with and I felt like a Zombie, I've hidden myself away and let time slip by.  I would put on fake smiles but still be dead inside.  For the fans who had a break up like that, it speaks to that crowd in an entirely different way.  And Edward of course, I'm sure he brings those ideal traits to mind.  Either the traits our husbands once did, or the traits or first love had.  Or those values that we are hoping to instill in our own sons.  There is alot of wrong in the Twilight Saga, (which reports write about often) but there is so much more that is right.  The passion, the love, the friendship, the sense of family and so much more come from these books and I believe that the older crowd sees so much more than a love story involving vampires. I think it is absolutely and entirely fantastic that so many women are able to bond over something as beautiful as Twilight and I am so happy to be a part of it and be able to speak to those women and meet them.  Many with children of there own who are also reading a topic.  It would be interesting to ask a mother and daughter who both read the saga the same questions.  Any mother daughter volunteers, email us at Twilight-star@live.com or send us a message via Facebook!  I dont think this is something to be ashamed of, but to me it kind of is a get-a-way from the real life, that of my own, and come on this site or our facebook page and speak to all you women (and men) about something we all love, without judgment from people who dont necessarily understand, or care to listen.  In saying that I suppose I should thank our loyal readers or all ages.  No matter who you are, where you come from, or why you read the saga, its in the name of Twilight that brings us all together! 

Peace - l♥ve - Twilight

Washington Post via NewMoonMovie