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How can I resist? Stephenie Meyer's story reads like romance's greatest hits: ugly duckling girl (Bella Swan, get it?) finds undying, forbidden love from the most-beautiful and most-unattainable guy who's also a little bit dangerous (he's a vampire) while being her protector (...he's one of the good ones). He can't live without her and in turn makes her feel like she's the single, most-important woman on the planet. Dreamy, no?
But as much as I love me some Edward, I'm disturbed by some of the talk of some of my fellow fans. Some women are going so far as to hold this ideal over the heads of real men. Jezebel just blogged about a Details story on husbands and boyfriends who find themselves suddenly competing with a fictional teenage vampire who can do no wrong. These ladies are actually asking their men, "Why can't you be more like Edward!?"
At the top of my worry list is this video by "life coach" Aileen Santos, titled "7 Lessons Guys Can Learn From Edward Cullen." Go watch her two-part video on YouTube (embedding video has been disabled).
Here are the 7 lessons:
- Be the kind of man who can see beyond physical looks and stereotypes.
- Be man enough to own your own feelings. Don't be a vague wuss.
- Be man enough to put her best interests before your own.
- Be man enough to take charge in your relationship.
- Be the kind of man who knows how to make a woman his partner.
- Be the kind of man whose "love" is so consistent, the woman you love can always trust how important she is to you.
- Be man enough to know when to let go.
The sad truth is that, when you look at why many women want their men to be like Edward, it really has nothing to do with the things on this list. This list is a wonderful list of attributes for a man, but isn't it really just camouflage for the fact that these women just want a fantasy?
They want their men to spend their every moment taking care of them, protecting them, saying all the right things, and sweeping them off their feet. They're longing for that feeling of first love or new love. They want that thrill and excitement that always gets tarnished away by daily life. And even if a guy followed these lessons, he's never going to look like Robert Pattinson or have super-human speed and strength. He hasn't polished his game for hundreds of years while still maintaining the body of his 17-year-old self.
Worse yet, much of the real Edward behavior these lessons are based on is not what we should want from men at all. Yeah, Edward "puts [Bella's] best interests before [his] own," but only if that means he can control her whereabouts and who she befriends. Yes, his "love is very consistent," but does he have to show that love by breaking into her room while she sleeps to watch over her?
Plus, Bella and Edward's whole relationship seems built around Bella's "subjection, abjection, and erasure of self," as one Psychology Today piece put it. If we want our men to give up their manly slovenliness, should we be willing to give up our selves completely in exchange?
The semi-good news in all this madness is that all this focus on Edward Cullen have inspired some women and even men to get more romantic and sensual again. "The charge from Twilight made me more lustful," says "Dana" in this New York magazine story. "I think we had more sex in those couple of weeks when I was reading 'Twilight' then in the entire few months before."
And Jim Roden, a 37-year-old Navy reservist quoted in the Details story, said that he's at least learned not to take his wife's love for granted. "Being married doesn't give you a free pass to let yourself go. If it takes some silly little girls' book to remind you, that's kind of sad, but you've got to keep plugging away at it. And an occasional bite on the neck can't hurt."
Do you think men can learn from Edward Cullen? Should they? Or are you happy to have your Edward fantasy, like me, and love real-life men, warts and all?
