I recently watched Twilight for the first time and I couldn’t understand why Bella (Kristen Stewart, who I will always identify as the little boy in Panic Room) was attracted to Edward (Robert Pattinson) at all. But then, I’m a guy. I guess there was that saving-her-life thing. That’s sexy. But otherwise? He was kind of a mess of creepy affectations. And let’s not forget he’s really an old man.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer always did a good job of punching a hole in this kind of epic brooding, so maybe that ruined it for me. In fact, my reaction to the movie is perfectly captured in this well edited video mashup of Buffy Summers meeting Edward Cullen:

Cree-pee. I would stake him too. (And, boy, does he do a LOT of walking away.) And yet this is what passes for female-fantasy? Edward doesn’t seem any less creepy when Vicki Iovine at the Huffington Post tries to explain his appeal (in the books) in a vacuous and only barely self-aware piece on what she’s calling “mommy porn”:

I’m in the mood to see more people punched in the nose by a handsome hero. Perhaps the evolution of 21st century men into laptop toting, UFL-lit frequent fliers to further self-importance leaves many women hungering for a man who can cut down a tree, rebuild an engine and catch and gut a fish. And I want one of those kinds of guys handing out a few shiners to the girly men on my list: Bernie Madoff, Bill Clinton, Rush Limbaugh to name a few. Admit it, it felt good to see someone punch Perez Hilton, didn’t it?

To all those guys — myself included — asking “why do women date assholes?” I think her piece inadvertently holds the answer.