And now, a rant on fashionable Twilight bashing…

So last night, I got in a long, long debate with someone about how Edward Cullen is abusive to Bella. I asked what they defined as abuse, and they gave examples that he withheld sex as "a weapon" and that he'd stripped the cables from her car to prevent her from seeing Jacob. Before I go on, I want to point out that Edward stripped her cables because Jacob was still in werewolf adolescence, and as Sam's partner shows with her clawed face, Bella WAS in extreme danger by being around Jacob during his "growth spurt." So what people are calling jealousy on Edward's part is actually him being protective of someone he loves. Which, according to a LOT of folks, is really, really abusive and sick, and girls shouldn't want a guy like this. Um…okay. Looks like you folks need a perspective check.

My mother had her jaw broken by my stepfather. She had to have her jaw wired shut for three months, and she ate everything with a straw. It was one of the few times she couldn't lose her temper because she became impossible to understand if she started shouting through her sealed teeth. Mom still lived with my step-dad for another seven years after he broke her jaw.

This was one of many injuries that my mother took from my step-father, and myself being an abuse victim, at a certain point, I even convinced her to go back for more. When my step-dad finally left, he tried to choke Mom on the way out. Later, Mom said he came back to attempt a drive by on her house. This is what an abusive long-term relationship looks like.

In my own life, I've dealt with physical abuse, and I was sexually assaulted. I've been in long-term abusive relationships, both cases of neglect and of emotional abuse. As a result of all the abuse I suffered, I abused others, and I abused drugs. Because of my dark past, I can say that I'm a real world expert of abuse in all its forms. So when I say I'm having trouble seeing the abuse, I'm not a sheltered young'un who doesn't know what she's talking about. I'm just not seeing how being protective in a typically male way is somehow now abusive in the modern era. Moreover, I'm no longer clear on what you people would call healthy. But, looking at the news and the rise of a rape apology culture, I'm going to venture a guess that you don't have a clue what "healthy" means anymore.

Let me move on, because the sentiment I really want to address is the frequently recurring theme that girls are too stupid to enjoy fiction without being influenced in harmful ways by reading characters who aren't "wholesome." I will totally agree that both Bella and Edward have issues. That's the conflict of their story, what keeps them apart. It's their struggle to have a relationship in spite of their individual flaws.

But let's set that aside, because what I want to know is why girls should only read about healthy, wholesome relationships. Do you want to train them to find the right man? No, of course not. That kind of goal would be sexist. And so would suggesting that people shouldn't read Twilight because it's not "the right kind" of relationship for girls to read about.

"But Zoe" some of you say, "Some girls are really looking for guys like Edward." You mean overly protective, domineering, manipulative, and frequently pissy when he doesn't get his way? People, that's the fucking male race. So if this is what you're complaining, that Edward is acting too male, then perhaps the problem is, you don't like the values Edward is reflecting back at you dudes and your ideals.

I've got a husband, and I can tell you, even though I love him, he's a man. Edward is a man, and he's a fine example of the stereotypical man who's trying to protect his woman. But Bella is not the typical woman, because not once does she listen obediently to Edward like a "good girl," even as he says things like, "This is for your own good." And maybe it is, but Bella is independent enough to accept the risks and defy her man. Again, and again, and again. So that character who everyone says is meek, really isn't. She's just not mouthy enough to say no right away. She's not "tough," so she's not good enough to some of y'all. She's got to go about her plans in a passive-aggressive way…you know, like a teen girl would, to avoid direct confrontations with someone she loves. (But feel free to explain why you think a character acting like a realistic teen is really bad writing. I'll ignore you, but feel free to try.)

The message going out about this book is, "Well we judge the relationship as unhealthy, and since the book is so popular, it's training girls to want to be in bad relationships." So dysfunctional people have no right to be in fiction where the intended audience might pick up the character's bad habits? Because using that logic, no teen boys should be given comic books because they promote violence. (No, I'm not really saying that. I'm saying you're full of shit for suggesting the opposite is true for girls reading Twilight.)

Reading Meyer's comments, I understood this to be a romantic comedy with an absurd premise. I thought the sparkles gave away the absurdity of the premise, but a lot of you took it seriously, and you've spent the last decade psychoanalyzing Edward and blaming him for the problems of the modern teen girls looking for abusive men. You don't blame the Disney Princesses, even though they feed into the same ideal, that a woman is incomplete until she finds her man. You don't analyze all the other YA fiction that lectures girls using slut-shaming speeches and enforcement of "good girl" stereotypes. No YA recently exploring rape or sex abuse has been broken down the way this one fluffy absurdist piece about a sparkling old-world vampire courting a girl from a dysfunctional modern family has. And ten years on, you still keep making the same claims. You're not really opposed to it…it's just so harmful to girls. So's the bible, and you keep pushing that shit on little girls at a much younger age.

If you believe what you claim you do, then you're saying girls who read fiction are more stupid than boys reading comic books. This is the advancement of the idea that Twilight is harmful to girls, but the current Teen Titans is not harmful to boyz for its lousy sexual stereotypes. (To keep this rant short I'm intentionally ignoring all the girls who are reading the new Starfire and going "What did the men do to our character?")

I'm not defending the Twilight books as high art or classic literature. I'm saying that a lot of you critics are bashing on the sexism in the book just because it's hip to bash it. You don't really have any clue of what a real abusive relationship looks like. You don't even have a basic understanding of which genre the book was, and you're judging it on the standards of an adult horror novel and finding it lacking. You might as well pick up The Pokey Puppy and criticize it for its inability to talk about modern animal abuse. Or pick up a copy of the Pokemon manga and complain that no one ever arrested Ash for animal fighting, even though we supposedly hate animal cruelty. It's okay to abuse animals in Pokemon, but there is no huge group of Pokemon bashers like the army of Twilight haters. You are unique in your fandom wanking inability to let go of a grudge.

Some of you adults are expecting way, way too much from this book series, and from your girls. You only want them to read "the right books." You don't want them getting any funny ideas about independence or empowerment. So every "empowering" thing you shove at them is instead a reinforcement of how good girls should act. Bella doesn't act right for y'all, so she's fair game for criticism. But watch a single woman attack your precious fucking male nerd hobbies, and you swarm like hornets. "A woman dissed Magic? HOW DARE THE SLUT! Let's get her guys!"

And yet ten years after the publication of Twilight, it's still kosher to make a lame as fuck sparkles joke. It's the hip version of the chicken crossing the road, the joke about the vampire who sparkled. It's still the de facto attack that any new vampire writer makes when releasing their shit fest that will never sell 1,000 copies, much less 10,000,000 like Twilight has. It's your pathetic passive-aggressive swipe at real success, the idea that the shit you write is somehow superior to the "sparklepires." But the vast majority of you pushing that line of marketing didn't come up with something original like Twilight. You aped your favorite horror writer and reworded their work in an effort to make money off their talents. (Talents you only wish you had.) You hold it up as being a story the "real vampires," because then people know it's nothing like Twilight. Which helps me avoid a lot of you. Really, I almost have to thank you for wearing your literary prejudice on your promos, so I know not to bother with you book.

Your vampire book will never be as successful because it isn't as engaging or entertaining. It's just your mental masturbation about bloody violence, and it will never be popular the way sparkling vampires are. And that's because Twilight, at its heart, doesn't take itself seriously. You, and your vampire story, both act like Twilight is an abomination that taints your art. But you don't have art. You have shit that you copied from someone better than you. You know it's copycat shit, and you need to distance yourself from the clones. So you prove you can stand out…by attacking the sparklepires and joining the club of "hip" writers who are too cool to bother coming up with a real marketing campaign highlighting the plot points of their work instead of making up a pithy comments like "My vampires don't sparkle, unlike those homos."

And let me close the rant out here, because this drives me nuts about men. Alla y'all sexist pigs calling Edward gay, fuck you, twice. Fuck you once because you're still using the word gay as an insult to diminish the credibility of men you don't like. It wasn't fucking mature when Eminem was dropping fag bombs ten years ago to diminish other rappers, but he was a cussing rapper who drank a lot while writing lyrics. You're sober and presumably not a rapper, so what's you're excuse for continuing to bash the gay community when you fucking know better?

And two, fuck you for suggesting that a male pursuing a female is somehow "gay". To be gay, Edward would have to court Charlie, or some other dude, possibly Jacob…ooh, hold on, good thought…oh, yeah, Jacob is totally the right dude for Edward. Nice contrat of dark tan skin, slick with sweat, sliding hot and wet over pale white, sparkling skin. Mmmm…happy place. (FYI: I'm neither Team Edward or Team Jacob. I'm for Team Bella should do them both.)

Where was I? Oh right. I don't give a fuck what problems you had with the number of adverbs in the books. I'm sick of the curt comments like, "I just thought it was shit writing." I don't give a fuck if you think Hermione is more empowering than Bella. I don't give a fuck if you've mapped out the full secret Mormon code hidden in the texts. I don't give a fuck why you hated the book. But after almost four fucking years of reading the same people complaining over the same book, over and over, I have to ask what's your major fucking malfunction? Don't you have a life, or at least some other fake delimma more recent to obsess over? You don't see me going online every week to bash Heart-Shaped Box. (And I won't, cause it's not that important.) If I'm still bitching about The Hunger Games four years from now, I pray that someone does me a favor and smacks the back of my head. I think someone needs to smack a bunch of you and say "Fer fuck's sake, get on with your miserable lives and leave the fictional, non-existent characters alone."