Twilight has continued to pick up steam, especially with its move into the mainstream as a featured full length film. While Bella and Edward are both interesting characters, it is their relationship that drives the book.
While the two do abstain from sex it’s not without a very prominent tone of sensuality. Meyer is flares up the desires of young readers by placing the couple in heightened tension filled moments of romance. Their physical contact is relegeted to a few brief kisses, but the underlying tension and desire is more then obvious to readers.
Spending time in a meadow laying together in the sunlight, spending the night in her room watching her sleep, moments together far away from all society. While it is true they are not having sex, they are definitely pushing the boundaries and toeing the line, and is this the message we really want to be sending to our teens?
Meyer’s presents a pipe dream of love and romance between two teens that creates a standard that our teens can not meet. Edwards ability to resist his sexual temptations lies not in the fact that he is a great guy, but he is not a normal teenager in fact in the novel he is a 117 year old man trapped in a 17 years old body. The situations of intimacy that he finds himself in with Bella, are portrayed as contained and safe, but the same situation between two normal teenagers more than likely would have much different results .
It is not ok to have a girl/boyfriend stay over night in your room, it is not ok to spend afternoons napping in a meadow together, because it is a recipe for disaster. Meyer’s depiction of a teenage relationship is an unhealthy model for students to look to.
It is important to talk to our kids about their desires otherwise books like twilight will do if for us. We are creatures of desire and that is not always a bad thing, but without a healthy perspective of what those desires mean and the implications that they hold our teens will be fighting a loosing battle. Teenagers will have a desires for the opposite sex and that is not a bad thing…it is how we were built, but not preparing them for how to handle those desires and impulses sets them up for failure.
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