{"id":4063,"date":"2010-07-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=4063"},"modified":"2014-11-04T11:41:47","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T19:41:47","slug":"why-it-is-okay-to-swoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=4063","title":{"rendered":"Why it’s okay to swoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Twilight\"<\/a>At the last Twilight<\/a> movie<\/i>, my girlfriend and I decided there should be a drinking game where you did a shot every time Jacob (18-year-old actor Taylor Lautner) took off his shirt and you heard the gasping chorus of all the teenage girls in the theater.<\/p>\n

When you gasp you gulp. When you gasp you gulp. Big gasp. Big gulp.<\/p>\n

Had we been playing I would have been just as tipsy as the Clearasil crowd.<\/p>\n

I know that some people will be appalled to hear that even middle-aged moms can still swoon at the sight of a beautiful teenaged werewolf man-boy. I can understand their reaction. Every year I get a little closer to having a teenaged son of my own and then I understand their reaction even more. But here’s the thing: somewhere inside every grown up lives the child-and the teenager-they used to be.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, I may be more in touch with my inner 13-year-old than many of my peers-though certainly not the ones who attended Tuesday’s night’s Angels Foster Care <\/a>benefit screening of Eclipse<\/i> at the Arlington Theatre. This is sometimes great and sometimes downright annoying, but it definitely helps me appreciate pop culture.<\/p>\n

When I watch the Twilight<\/i> movies I’m not someone’s mom and I’m not someone’s wife, I’m a teenaged girl, just like the rest of Team Jacob.<\/p>\n

Clearly I’m not alone.<\/p>\n

Describing the indescribable pull of the Twilight<\/i> series (both books and movies), a 36-year-old mother of two told CNN reporter Breeanna Hare: “As grown women we know that we never forget our first love, the first time our heart was really broken. I just think that so many women can kind of identify with the experiences and emotions and underlying message of how difficult it is to make choices in life.”<\/p>\n

New York Magazine<\/i> columnists Em & Lo eloquently put it, “Twilight<\/i> taps into a time when passion is as much about fantasy as reality, before drunken college hookups, before booty calls, before scheduling sex into a marriage. Twilight<\/i> reinvents sex for women who might have placed it at the bottom of a to-do list.”<\/p>\n

Some of my friends feel the same way (though not passionately enough to let me use their real names).<\/p>\n

“Every time I look at R-Pat (tabloid-speak for Robert Pattinson, who stars as dreamy vampire Edward in the films), I feel like I am 12 years old again,” says Gena.<\/p>\n

“Of course we don’t read the books or watch the movies for their literary merit,” laughs Serena, another mom friend. “But Twilight<\/i> is the ultimate teenager girl’s fantasy. Two beautiful, sweet and undemanding boys fall madly in love with a plain, ordinary Jane. How can any woman, of any age, resist the spell of that daydream?”<\/p>\n

Author Stephenie Meyers sounds a little surprised by the attraction to these characters. She told Time<\/i> magazine, “I didn’t write these books specifically for the young-adult audience. I wrote them for me. I don’t know why they span the ages so well, but I find it comforting that a lot of thirtysomethings with kids, like myself, respond to them as well-so I know that it’s not just that I’m a 15-year-old on the inside.”<\/p>\n

I think she’s wrong-Meyers is a 15-year-old inside, and a 9-year-old and a 25-year-old and so on. We all are. But sometimes it takes a cultural phenomenon like Twilight<\/i> for us to realize it.<\/p>\n

Share your Twilight<\/i> theories with Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com<\/a>.\u00a0Originally appeared in the\u00a0Santa Barbara Daily Sound<\/a>\u00a0on July 2, 2010.<\/span><\/h6>\n

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