So. I hear there’s a new Twilight movie coming out today. It’s called Breaking Dawn, Part 1, because it doesn’t matter that the book barely has enough plot for one movie, let alone two – the Twihards are going to buy those tickets and they probably wish there was a Breaking Dawn, Part 3 in the works.
I find the Twilight phenomenon fascinating. More than Harry Potter, it causes polarizing reactions in its readers/viewers, from the people who will camp out for tickets to the ones who will mock it so scathingly that I cringe.
The Twilight backlash has become so strong that hating on Twilight is the new Twilight. There are people who savor the negative movie reviews simply because they’re amused, but there are also the people who take hating Twilight to a new art form, far beyond ironic detachment and into an area of boiling rage that make the biggest Twihards seem comparatively reasonable.
I think I find the phenomenon so amusing because I fall somewhere in between the “Twihard” and “anti-Twihard” category. I read all four books and groaned through every one, telling myself, “This stuff is SO BAD. Just one more chapter before I go to bed.” I didn’t like the writing and I hated all of the characters (save Bella’s dad, and Jacob in the first two books), but there was something extremely compelling and irresistible about them. The characters are unsympathetic, the prose amateurish, and yet, something about the series manages to capture the essence of an intoxicating first love.
Anyway, a feminist blog that talks about Twilight is eventually going to turn to the subject of Edward Cullen, the teenage girl’s latest favorite stalker vampire. (I prefer Stefan Salvatore and Spike as my favorite stalker vampires, but I digress.)
A lot of feminists, with good reasons, have a problem with Edward Cullen. Why?
1) Edward can read everyone’s mind except Bella’s, and this is one thing that makes him attracted to her. So he climbs into her bedroom in the middle of the night and listens to her talk in her sleep. THIS IS STALKER BEHAVIOR.
2) Edward doesn’t trust Bella around Jacob, so he dismantles her car and has his sister Alice hold her hostage so she can’t go see him. THIS IS OVERPROTECTIVE BEHAVIOR.
3) In several of the books, Edward speaks incredibly condescendingly to Bella and doubts everything she says or does. Edward shows a consistent lack of faith in Bella to make decisions for herself about her body, her friendships, her relationship, and her future.
In short: Edward’s the worst.
Someone on YouTube even spliced together a few scenes of Edward Cullen talking to Buffy Summers as part of an effort to expose Edward’s creepiness:
It’s really good…if you ignore the context.
While Buffy Summers is a much better character than Bella Swan, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer is so much better than Twilight, this video would have you believe that Buffy would see right through Edward Cullen’s crap and both rebuff his advances and kill him. That’s very nice in theory, but I’ve watched all seven seasons of the show, and most of the lines Buffy directs to Edward are lines that she directs to people she either has slept with, or will be sleeping with very soon. No, Buffy (at least in high school) would have completely fallen for Edward.
The question is – why? Why do teenage girls and even adult women fall for this overprotective, creepy, condescending stalker douche?
I could talk about Edward in the context of the creepy cultural narratives about romance and love, but I’d rather look at him from a different angle, because despite his overprotective, creepy, condescending, stalkery, douchey behavior, he has one quality that I find very appealing.
Edward never pressures Bella for sex.
Sure, he does it in the most condescending way possible. Sure, he doesn’t trust Bella to be in control of her own emotions, and he’s an extreme puritan about sexual encounters. But Bella’s never going to have to worry that Edward will try to pressure her into sex, or take sex when she says no, or ever put her into a sexual situation that will make her uncomfortable.
We live in a country where 1 out of 6 women are sexually assaulted (and that’s only counting the rapes that are reported), where men and women alike are socialized to think that men do or should want sex all the time (leading to countless misunderstandings), where men are socialized to ignore women’s “nos.”
Edward is never going to ignore Bella’s “no.” Bella doesn’t say “no,” but if she did, he wouldn’t push the issue.
For all of Edward Cullen’s negative qualities – and boy, does he have them – he has a very appealing, irresistible quality to teenage girls who are just discovering their sexual desires and feeling a strange mix of intense curiosity and intense fear about sex. He desires Bella and wants her more than he’s wanted anything, but he’s never, ever going to push a physical connection that she’s not ready to experience.
I can easily imagine why that one quality would go a long way in making Edward Cullen irresistible to a young female gaze.
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I read “Twilight” for the first time in 2008, and I’ve read a lot of anti-twilight arguments about why Edward Cullen is terrible since then, including the ones you mention. I agree with them all, and I confess, even while reading the first book, I knew that I was supposed to like Edward, but just couldn’t bring myself to…but I never considered what you point out here. He’s still a douche, of course, but the no-sex thing raises a great point. I think many women, especially young women who are just figuring out how to deal with their own sexuality, have a lot of fear around the idea of being pressured for sex, whether that means some kind of attempted assault (in which case the cause for alarm would be obvious) or simply a case of emotional manipulation and “Bargaining” from someone that they care
about (which would put them in a difficult spot between being true to themselves and making someone else happy). This vague sense of threat around the idea of sex (for women) is such an old song that I’m surprised I never picked up on this aspect of the Cullen character before. He’s the perfect tween boyfriend not just because he’s handsome and protective and strong; he’s the perfect ideal boyfriend for a young girl because he’s safe. (well, sexually safe. The whole I’d-really-like-to-kill-you-but-don’t-worry-I -have-great-self-control thing is still a little suspect). I hate to be forced to give this character credit for anything good, but I at least have to admit that he’s unlikely to attempt sexual assault. The other side of that coin would be Jacob, who actually does attempt to force himself on Bella more than once. (I don’t know whether you would define forcing someone to kiss you as “assault”, exactly, but it’s not acceptable either way).
Sorry, I don’t mean to ramble–but thank you for bringing this up. Always happy to get a new point of view on literature…even on a character I kind of hate.
I think many women, especially young women who are just figuring out how to deal with their own sexuality, have a lot of fear around the idea of being pressured for sex, whether that means some kind of attempted assault (in which case the cause for alarm would be obvious) or simply a case of emotional manipulation and “Bargaining” from someone that they care
about (which would put them in a difficult spot between being true to themselves and making someone else happy).
Yes, I think Edward speaks to that appeal exactly, because he’s dangerous enough to be interesting, but he’s never going to force sex on Bella. In fact, he goes too far in the other direction, mansplaining to her why she’s not ready (even though she very clearly is). But I’m saying that as an adult woman who’s had some experience. An adolescent reader who’s never had sex and is confused about what it means to her will probably find Edward understandably irresistible.
The other side of that coin would be Jacob, who actually does attempt to force himself on Bella more than once. (I don’t know whether you would define forcing someone to kiss you as “assault”, exactly, but it’s not acceptable either way).
I would, and it’s what stopped me from liking Jacob. I quite liked him in the first two books because he seemed like a real character and less of a block of wood, but once he started to force Bella to do what she didn’t want, he lost me.
Hm, this is obviously something strictly cultural.
In my country sex-pressure either is different and a lot more calmer or people don’t even recognise it. I am not sure which one is it but I have never had the talk with any friends I know about them being pressured for sex. Actually almost all men and women I know, have had OK first times with people they like.
It is not a presentable percentage, I know but just something I have seen.
Edward Cullen biggest appeal, I think, is his almost unconditional love for Bella. She does not have to be anything further than having unreadable mind. Whatever she does, he loves her. In short… she is special, because she is special and that’s it.
I think this is what the appeal is mostly. He treats her more like an object, than a subject. He is so taken into her, that he actually ignores her personality for it (however dim said personality is).
He is rich, pretty and in love with her always, whatever the circumstances.
In a world in which we are told women have to invest a lot of work in finding and keeping a boyfriend, it’s a refreshing change of pace, even imaginary.
In all the books she changes nothing, she struggles with nothing. He loves her, he doesn’t care for any other girls, there are not even remote love threats for her.
He speaks again and again how awesome she is and soo further on.
Actually, I truly find his unconditional fascination with her scary and also sad.
It is almost suffocating.
Actually, I truly find his unconditional fascination with her scary and also sad.
It is almost suffocating.
I agree, and I think her obsession with him is equally disturbing. But again, we’re speaking as adult women. Everything you said about him liking her for who she is – even though, as we can see, she’s an utter drip of a character – is spot-on. Bella doesn’t have to change in order for Edward to love her. He just does. That’s also appealing on some level.
Fascinating read!!!! I think you are right, but you missed the biggest quality to Edward, which is related to his respect for her body.
Edward loves Bella. Of all the women he could have had, he chose her. And more to the point, he loves her with or WITHOUT sex.
In our over sexualized society young girls are bombarded in every magazine, commercial, TV show, movie and social media advertising campaign that men want sex and will only value them if they have sex; I think the young female mind is attracted to this quality in Edward that chooses to love without the sexual relationship.
How many women feel that pressure to “give in” or feels she will lose a boyfriend if she doesn’t have sex with him. Tragically, in many cases, she is right. I know I had friends who actually felt that they OWED a guy at least oral sex after a date because, after all, he paid for the meal, the movie, the flowers degrading what should be a beautiful experience between a committed, loving couple into something just above an encounter with a prostitute.
Young girls are able to see a character who loves Bella and will never stop loving her whether or not they sleep together. I think THIS is the draw women have to Edward. They have experienced so many creeps in their own lives who demand sexual favors and pretend to love them it must be refreshing to read about a love that has nothing to do with sex.
Well, that is my perspective anyway. But what do I know…I’m just a guy. *smile*
It’s true – Edward is not going to stop loving Bella or stop caring about her if she never wants to have sex. I wouldn’t say the love has NOTHING to do with sex, though. He’s written as being attracted to her on a physical level. It’s just that, to him, the physical attraction isn’t MORE important than her comfort level, or who she is as a person.
But what do I know…I’m just a guy. *smile*
I don’t know why you feel the need to end comments that way. You’re not the first man who’s ever commented here and I doubt you’ll be the last.
I understand your point that he is not going to force himself on her while they are not married and how that would appeal to tween girls. However, given the time period that established his values about not having sex before marriage, I think it’s a stretch to say that he won’t force himself on her after they are married. The era that spawned his values also held that women owed their husbands sex even if they weren’t terribly interested and refused to recognize the concept of marital rape.
The era that spawned his values also held that women owed their husbands sex even if they weren’t terribly interested and refused to recognize the concept of marital rape.
That’s a good point and one I hadn’t considered. I don’t think, though, that Edward as written would take advantage of Bella that way, or that a teenage reader who found comfort in Edward’s respect for boundaries would think about that while she read Twilight.
Wow… I honestly never thought about that part.
Ugh, this guy just became extra creepy with a cherry on top.
That doesn’t mean that he *would* pressure Bella for sex or rape her after they are married, just that those actions wouldn’t be inconsistent with the values of the time period of his formative years.
Exactly. Actually this argument is super awesome, because currently I was writing about “gentleman” behavior add “chivalry” and how much these are idealised and people complain how feminism killed it or men changed and was sooo much better back then.
I think there’s at least some evidence that Edward (and Twilight Vampires in general) are a sublimation of sex into violence (and control) that reflects the strange Puritanical view that persists in modern society. Any depiction of sex in media is going to be PG-13 or higher but people can die in a G rated film and murder is perfectly acceptable in most PG films as long as it isn’t too graphic. The vampires seem to have a fairly weak sex drive (especially compared to virtually every vampire depiction of the last 100 years) but are incredibly violent. While Edward is not sexually threatening, he and the other vampires are constantly threatening Bella with violence. I can’t help but see that the idea of saying ‘no’ never enters Bella’s mind because she knows full well that she could never present even the slightest physical resistance to Edward. Edward is still maintaining control of her through all his myriad methods.
. I can’t help but see that the idea of saying ‘no’ never enters Bella’s mind because she knows full well that she could never present even the slightest physical resistance to Edward
While that does make logical sense, I never get the impression that Bella ever WANTS to resist Edward in any way since she thinks he’s the most perfect person who has ever existed. Which is unhealthy in its own way, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue of control so much as she WANTS HIM SO MUCH that she doesn’t care about the possible danger.
hee! My friends and I call Jacob “Samson” because he seemed to lose his power of awesome around the same time he cut his hair. Before that he was a good guy, a good friend, good for her condition (in New Moon) and after he cut the hair (spoilers) he turned into the kind of guy that would always pressure her to care more about his feelings than her own, who played mind games constantly, who laughed at her when she broke the bones in her hand punching him to get him to stop kissing him against her will!
Edward is disturbing, as we all know. If you’ve read “Midnight Sun” (Twilight from Edward’s perspective) you learn just how much of an alarming stalker he really is. He even is slightly skeeved out by it. But it is great that he never pressures her for sex. I’ll take it one step further and say I also like that he never shames her for her sexual urges. This is a very Medeval narrative of sexuality where the female is the temptress always trying to seduce the pure chaste guy, which is refreshingly different from all the Victorian narratives we’re inundated with we’re men are beasts and women are supposed to be the moral, civilizing force. What I like about the Twilight series is that as Bella figures herself out sexually, and how far to experience her desires and agency, he never takes advantage and he never makes her feel embarrassed, dirty or inadequate for feeling desire. For all the pro-abstinence messaging, I think the book is actually rather sex-positive in a lot of ways.
Ha! I dig the Samson nickname.
And I agree with your point about Bella dealing with her sexual urges. I like that the books never try to make her feel “dirty” or “wrong” for being attracted to Edward. Sure, it’s very narrow-minded in the “ONLY IF YOU’RE MARRIED!!!” messaging, but there’s never a “stop these urges, vile temptress!” message. More of a “yeah, I think you’re hot too, but let’s wait” message.
Well, Edward may not force her into sex, but he DOES withhold sex in order to control her and manipulate her into doing what he wants. He forces her to marry him so that she can have sex with him, after all. There’s also a part in one of the books where he deliberately distracts her from her (justified!) anger at him by kissing her, because he knows that she wants him so badly she can’t think when he does that. But he still condescendingly insists that he knows better, deserves all the control in the relationship, and refuses to respond to her desires OR discuss them like an adult.
You know what breaks up a lot of relationships? Different sex drives. If you’re not with someone whose sexual impulses match yours, there are definitely going to be problems in the future. Isn’t it great that he’s forcing her into an eternal commitment by withholding love and affection?
Also, the reason Jacob’s character took a nose dive is because people liked him too much, so Meyer had to do a character assassination so everyone would see Bella should be with Edward. You see, he was giving off all the danger signals in the second book – if you’re Mormon. (For example, giving her caffeinated soda)
Plus there’s the fact that these people who supposedly love each other SO MUCH consistently lie to each other, utterly fail to communication, intentionally mislead and deceive, and fail to just like, have a regular conversation about things. They have nothing in common, and derive no joy from each other’s company. Bella doesn’t want to live with Edward, it is always phrased that she *can’t live without him.* The entire thing is practically a textbook abusive relationship, especially with the end of the first book, where Bella is almost killed by that other vampire and the excuse for her injuries is that she FELL DOWN THE STAIRS.
Plus let’s not forget the extreme misogynist undertones throughout the entire book, the hateful way that this supposedly perfect “family” interacts, and also that Bella is a terrible person who blows off all her friends and family so that she can be with this emotionally manipulative, abusive, stalker douchebag whose good qualities are basically HE IS SO HOT.
No, I don’t get it. At all.
Okay, I’m assuming you read the whole post and took notice of the first half where I talked about how much Edward sucks, right? And therefore, your tone that oozes sarcasm is, perhaps, not necessary.
He forces her to marry him so that she can have sex with him, after all.
Granted, it’s been a long time since I read the books, but I didn’t read it this way. I read it as Edward being very old-fashioned about marriage and sex and truly believing that sex didn’t come until after marriage. I always thought Edward would be just as happy marrying Bella as not marrying Bella, but if sex was going to come into the picture, they had to be married to do it. If anything, Bella’s always the one pressuring HIM for sex.
In every other aspect of their relationship, Edward is the controlling asshole. In the case of sex and marriage, I’d say they put equal pressure on each other. (What an awesome relationship.)
The point of this post is not “OMG I LOVE EDWARD!!!” I hate Edward. I hate him only slightly less than I hate Bella. This post was about exploring Edward’s appeal in a larger cultural context. And even though I can’t stand him, I can completely understand why a young teenage girl who’s internalized the conflicting messages this culture sends us – “Be sexy and desirable! But don’t HAVE sex because a guy will just dump you right afterwards!” – would be attracted to a character who loves his girlfriend whether or not she has sex with him.
Okay, yes, I do see your point… sort of. See, I don’t think that waiting until marriage to have sex is all that virtuous in itself. I don’t think that it’s bad if people want to do it, but they should WANT to do it! Bella is being forced to wait when she doesn’t want to. I don’t want to cross the line into whining about how Edward won’t “put out” but, the thing is, he is constantly telling her that HE knows better about HER sexuality. EVEN AFTER THEY HAVE SEX (in Breaking Dawn).
Now I can see an appeal in having someone tell you what to do when it comes to sex, sure. After all the BDSM community exists for a reason. But I don’t think that is the same as not pressuring someone into sex.
Also he forces her to marry him so that he’ll turn her into a vampire, which is also a metaphor for sex in most literature. So there’s that too.
I didn’t mean to accuse you of thinking Edward was awesome overall or anything, but frankly after reading the MarkReadsTwilight blog I can’t see the series as anything but deeply disturbing, unhealthy shit that is really not what teenagers should be reading, in the interest of their own mental health and safety. It’s worrisome to me that these books have such a large following, considering how damaging and regressive they are in terms of, like, everything. That’s really the source of my sarcasm, not anything you wrote. My tone was rather unwarranted in that respect, so I apologize for kind of busting in and crapping on your comments section.
And also for the late reply, haha
I appreciate the apology, and I do understand where you’re coming from. There’s a lot of problematic stuff in these books.
At the same time, I have to hesitate before I agree that teenagers shouldn’t be reading it, or that it’s so potentially damaging, because, well, I used to be a teacher, and most of my students read the books and loved them…and they’re fine. The girls aren’t falling all over themselves to pursue guys that act patronizing and manipulative. They were strong, thoughtful young women with a lot going on in their lives, who just enjoyed the books as a bit of escapist fantasy.
There’s a really fine line between acknowledging a text as problematic and potentially damaging, and assuming that people who read problematic texts are going to be so brainwashed that they can’t think for themselves, and I think a lot of the criticism of these books straddle that line or often cross it. Does that make sense?
I’m reading Twilight for a college course in Adolescent Literature, and after having just read it closely about an hour ago, I agree with your opinion that Edward would never ignore Bella’s “nos” with the condition that we are both referring to a sexual “no”. There are plenty of instances in the first novel in which he distinctly ignores Bella’s stated wishes: he drives incredibly fast even after she tells him to slow down because it frightens her, she tries to offer her suggestion for a plan to escape the tracker vampire and he blatantly ignores her repeated demands, and he even physically drags her towards his car in order to drive her back from school because he thinks that she is unfit to drive after feeling dizzy in Biology class.
Oh yeah, he ignores all of that, and he sucks for doing it. He’s also so incredibly patronizing that I often want to punch him.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I as far as I know it’s pretty well established in the series that human-vampire sex carries a lot of risk of the human being injured or killed, and a good part of the reason that Edward won’t have sex with Bella before marriage is that he also won’t make her a vampire before marriage. But then, all of a sudden, they go on the honeymoon and Edward decides he’s finally ready to have sex with Bella, and that they’re going to do it while she’s still human.
She wakes up the next morning and Edward is immediately concerned about her physical well-being, because the night before he lost control during the act, leading to the destruction of a good portion of the honeymoon bed and bruising that Bella herself describes as follows – “There was a faint shadow across one of my cheekbones, and my lips were a little swollen…The rest of me was decorated with patches of blue and purple.”
Following this, Edward withholds affection “for her own good,” and as they argue about this, Bella ends up crying and begging him to have sex with her. This goes on for a while in a way that read to me as being very squicky, with Edward continuing to (as argued above) withhold sex as a form of manipulation and insisting that “hubby knows best.” Eventually he gives in, and again has sex with her without turning her into a vampire, despite now having evidence of how badly he can harm her fragile human body.
There’s all kinds of messed up going on here that I can’t quite figure out where to begin picking it apart, but I get the strong impression that his refusal to have sex with Bella has very little to do with any kind of respect he has for her or her readiness. The lack of pressure on his part means nothing in the face of the fact that Bella is the one expresses her desire – he knows, without question, that he doesn’t have to pressure her for sex, she will willingly give it the moment he says the word. I’d agree with your central point more if I could recall Bella expressing any real misgivings about having sex with Edward.
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