These days, it seems, everyone wants to bed a vampire. Forget Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, a hideous foreigner intent on taking the life and the virtue of nineteenth-century English ladies. Today's vampires, like True Blood's Bill Compton and Twilight's Edward Cullen, are portrayed as crush-worthy hunks. Their combination of unearthly beauty, perfect chivalry and dangerous nature make them irresistible to women.

Bill, Edward and co. are the stuff of fiction, but there is, in fact, a community of people who identify as vampires and existed long before the current pop culture craze. So what's it like to date a … Read More

Some of you told me I wouldn’t like Twilight, but I bought the book anyway just to see what all the hoopla was about. Well, I finally finished it, and…I appreciated the romance-factor, but I couldn’t help thinking it was giving girls the wrong idea about love and relationships. I did a feminist reading of Twilight and here’s what bugged me:

1. Bella has no outside hobbies.

After she moves to Washington, Bella makes a few friends, but she’s not interested in them. Mostly her life is about Edward, Edward, Edward. But what relationship can survive that? Take it from Simone … Read More

Love and relationship coverage has all but come to a hault today, since Madge is taking center stage. Today's the day for Madonna and Guy Ritchie's official divorce, according to the Associated Press. Read more about their relationship in YourTango's Celebrity Love Blog.

Madge's divorce isn't the only order of the courts today. GoErie.com reports that police charged a 19-year old man in Florida with domestic battery after he threw a sandwich at his girlfriend while she was driving, nearly causing her to loose control of the car. A conviction may clarify that food-fighting … Read More

Counting down the days until the Twilight premiere?

I am, too, and I'm enjoying all the media attention the books and movie are getting.

But a recent Gawker post about the Stephenie Meyer series ticked me off.  In "Vampire Chastity Belts: Anticipation for Sex That Never Comes is the Highlight of Twilight," blogger Alex Carnavale complains that the lack of sex in the book series is unrealistic, especially since the two main characters pine over each other for hundreds and hundreds and hundres of pages. Given the fact that Meyer is a Mormon, Carnavale seems concerned her … Read More

If you asked if me if I'd ever read a romance before, I'd say "no, of course not."

Then I'd pause and realize, that's not right –– I'm a voracious consumer of young adult vampire novels!

Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, and Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, by Beth Fantaskey, are two of my favorite vampire romances (both young adult novels).  Though they're not packaged as "romances," exactly, I surprised myself enamoured with –– swooning, even! –– over the hunky male protagonists. 

Even though they're, um, undead.

At first, neither Edward in Twilight or Lucius … Read More