It’s not just links, it’s an internetical experience. Ready:
First: from SpiritHorse, a link to MookyChick’s list of Victorian slang sexual terms. Warning: NSFW due to very hot vintage nude photographs and daguerrotypes in the margin – gosh, remember when you saw pictures of women naked and your first thought wasn’t “Get her a sandwich, stat?!” No? Neither do I.
I’m not entirely sure of the source of the MookyChick list, as I don’t see a citation – unless I missed it in my re-read. I am planning to work “green gown” and “whirligigs” into conversation as soon as possible.
Here’s a new theory from the “Hur, wut?” Department: According to Stephen Marche of Esquire, vampire romances are popular because young straight women want to have sex with gay men. Ooh, so THAT’s it.
Marche’s point is that what used to be considered freaky is now normal, mostly because “Everyone is a freak, even the people who claim to rail against freakiness.”
Twilight’s fantasy is that the gorgeous gay guy can be your boyfriend, and for the slightly awkward teenage girls who consume the books and movies, that’s the clincher. Vampire fiction for young women is the equivalent of lesbian porn for men: Both create an atmosphere of sexual abandon that is nonthreatening. That’s what everybody wants, isn’t it? Sex that’s dangerous and safe at the same time, risky but comfortable, gooey and violent but also traditional and loving. In the bedroom, we want to have one foot in the twenty-first century and another in the nineteenth.
I see the point but I don’t agree. I think, and have said before, that Edward’s appeal, and the appeal of many vampires, is a throwback to the old-skool romance Alpha hero, punishing kisses and all.
But the question of vampires as representative of gay men is curious – because in most portrayals, vampires are almost always the most depraved or the strongest and most superior to humans.
And speaking of Edward, Tina sent me a JPG of a DVD that’s being rereleased with new cover art?
Why? Because thar be Pattinson ahoy.
Check out the new cover for the 2006 film The Haunted Airman.
You think in 25 years, his contract will call for copious undereye shadows and a sullen, pale face that continues the trend of totally milking his Twilightism? Hey, maybe that’s what it’s called. Twilightism. Deep shadows under your eyes, oddly bulging eyeballs, pale skin, and utterly befuddled expression.
