CARNAL NATION

All Hallows Eve is over, but the vampire blood lust intensifies as the days leading to New Moon’s premier draws closer.  It was a year ago that Twilight hit the big screen with reluctant teen idol Robert Pattinson as the brooding vampire Edward Cullen, launching the film and the Twi-Saga-franchise into a global phenomenon. Since then, RPattz—as he has been baptized by the media—was voted the “Most Handsome Man in the World” by Vanity Fair and the “Sexiest Man on the Planet 2009” by Heat magazine.  And, Twi-hards can’t get enough, with teen emos offering up their lily-white necks for him to devour and Twi-Moms shrieking like boy-crazy banshees behind bloody barricades, the world hasn’t seen this kind of raging hormonal hysteria since Elvis-the-Pelvis laid down his swiveling hips (RIP).

We want to be taken so passionately that every screaming O is a thousand little deaths… literally. Only to be bitten by their intoxicating curse and doomed to live happily ever after for all eternity.

To date, Twilight has made $200 million at the box office and $160 million in DVD sales, with the soundtrack selling over 2.2 million CDs. The books by Stephanie Meyer topped the New York Times bestseller list for 91 weeks, selling 20 million copies worldwide in 45 different languages. Combine that with over 300 fan sites (and counting) and you’re beginning to get a glimpse of how vast this epic cross-cultural craze really is. No matter what supermarket you visit around the globe—Europe, Japan, Brazil—both Pattinson and his onscreen lover Kristen Stewart grace the covers of magazines and tabloids, including the November’s special collector’s edition of People that is filled from cover-to-cover with Twilight/New Moon eye candy. Want to become your idols, or possess your very own miniature replicas? No problem, with the new exclusive collection of New Moon-inspired fashions, Twilogy make-up, and Twilight Barbies, both teens and their Twi-Moms may further embrace their adolescent crushes.

To make matters worse, the undying adoration of their bloodthirsty fans has only been further fueled by rumors of Robert and Kirsten’s real-life romance. Are they going steady? Are they living in sin? Is Kirsten preggo with his vampire child? Inquiring minds want to know. And, if you think this is starting to sound a bit like high school gossip, you’re right. No wonder the self-described loners refuse to answer questions of romance and want to hide away from tabloid covers in their sky-scraper hotel-room towers like solitary “Rapunzels." They can’t go anywhere without being swarmed by the paparazzi and Fan-pires alike. Talk about a pair of star-crossed lovers whose relationship is doomed to fail.

Of course, the couple themselves are only fanning the fires, appearing in an uber-passionate photo shoot and playing the “newlywed game” in a cover-story interview in the upcoming December issue of Harper’s Bazaar.  But both Pattinson and Stewart vehemently deny they are anything more than friends. And while Kirsten says she understands why fans want them to be dating their “characters that are coveted by so many,” she likens their relationship to “characters in this comic book”, saying she’d rather the media think she is a lesbian (which has now gotten the lesbian hopefuls at AutoStraddle swooning over her), whereas Pattison laughs it off as being absurd since he’s been across the country from her and can’t even escape his hotel room. (Oh, Pattinson, oh, Pattinson, let down your unruly hair!)

So, like their on-screen personas, Edward and Bella, who agonize over their unrelenting sexual tension and forbidden romance, the real-life “couple” may never consummate their relationship, at least in the public eye. Even in the 3rd book, Eclipse, when Edward and Bella finally do “get it on” during their island honeymoon, the sex is only hinted at and all “off-screen.” And, in a reversal of “art imitating life,” in which, as Twilight producer Greg Mooradian points out, the “Vampirism in this story is simply a metaphor for teenage lust” and abstinence, Twi-hards, Fan-pires and Twi-Moms alike may never have their obsessive hunger sated with proof of a real romance or anything more than a fictional, yet very passionate kiss.

Which is why we all remained glued to the Twilight Saga phenomena in the first place. Their longing has become our longing, and we just can’t get enough until our teen-angst-ridden idolizing curiosity is quenched. While the fictional saga appeals to our fantasies of dangerous vampire lust, bittersweet romance, everlasting love, and the struggle between passionate desire and the thrill of the chase, the truth is, vampires are sexy as hell. What girl (or boy) doesn’t want to be savagely (or even gentlemanly) devoured by a lover who is driven wild by our very scent... A lover who can’t resist us even if it means our death, whose slightest touch could crush our bones, and whose penetrating shaft could rip us a part.  I know… hot right?  We want to be taken so passionately that every screaming O is a thousand little deaths… literally. Only to be bitten by their intoxicating curse and doomed to live happily ever after for all eternity. Sounds like the ideal romance to me.

So, perhaps we are a society who clings to unrealistic adolescent fantasies, gothic romances, and childhood fairy tales instead of trying to resolve our real relationships and satisfy our own unfulfilled sex lives. For, even if Stewart dumped Pattinson, he’d never be ours—except in our dreams.

Luckily for us, there is another whole year of the Twilight Saga to launch us into a renewed feeding frenzy of fetishized infatuation, with New Moon out in theaters Nov 19th (and promises of more Edward than there was in the book due to flashbacks) and with Eclipse and Breaking Dawn due out in June and September 2010, respectively.  So get ready to sink your teeth into your favorite to-die-for vampire-crush (Team Edward!), but don’t expect any orgasmic climax, for in real-life, vampires just don’t exist, and teen-idols are as elusive as the stars. And, for those of you who need a quick fix instead of a cure for your addiction, there is always Twilighters Anonymous.