Buffy & Angel’s One Night Of Love appeared to be quite tender & not hurtful. Until the next day, when he turned into a soulless monster.
I’ve never studied up on Trek Sex…
That’s okay. I think I’m immune to the disgustingness of human on corpse or otherwise horrific creature after a large dose of Showtime’s Masters of Horror series. And that time one of my best friends decided to watch zombie porn.
Well, I guess teens like twisted things but Twilight is “mainstream” so it’s okay? Back when I was a teen, I did eschew the mainstream type so I think I would have hated Twilight. I did enjoy stuff like Rosemary’s Baby and used to fantasize about getting to have Satan’s baby (see also that subplot of the Stand). I don’t know. Maybe teen girls are just inherently insane?
In fact, Buffy and Angel were sort of the opposite of Bella and Edward. Angel and Buffy had one perfect night, and then he turned into every girl’s worst nightmare (lose your virginity to a guy, he turns into Mr. Psycho…) Edward really hurt Bella physically, so much so that he was afraid to have sex with her again. Yet, her reaction is that it’s OK that she’s covered in bruises and has trouble walking right, and actually, that it was kind of hot. I’m really surprised that the TwiMoms think that’s what they want their daughters’ wedding nights to be like.
ETA: Yes, Freudian Slit, teen girls ARE inherently insane. What is their moms’ excuse?
Thanks. I’ve just ordered it from the library. The reveiw of the film was very good, but I didn’t know there was a book behind it.
Teh menopause!
But yeah, the only fantasy Twilight provokes in me is wanting to grab that Edward by the collar and give him swirly after swirly. NOW who’s sparkling?
ETA:
I tried to. There’s about fifty holds on this book and apparently only 12 copies in the whole library system. D’oh. Looks like I might have to go another route.
I think you should give your friend a copy of, “Let me in.”, after she finishes Twilight. 
A. N. Anderson’s YA Thirsty isn’t bad and is a better psychological portrait of a vampire trying to hold back than is Edward.
Seconding susan’s recommendation of Thirsty, though, IIRC, the author’s name is M. T. Anderson.
Also, for young girls who might be inclined towards Twilight, I always recommend L.J. Smith’s works. She had the bad boy vampire/supernatural creature thing down (though I personally find the writing to be better than that in Twilight; it’s certainly less purple prose). The bad boy, however, doesn’t always get the girl. There’s a lot of different stories, and some of them have role-reversal–the female characters are always stronger than Bella ever was–and they at least touch on different mythologies.
That being said? Don’t read anything that was originally written in the past couple of years, 'cause the writing turned to Twilight-emulating crap. But there are a lot of books written before then–a series of nine short YA novels, and four trilogies–and those are all very fun reads. And the books are YA that’s actually cleaner than Twilight–sex is never mentioned, really, one way or the other.
Also, for slightly older readers, I recommend Kelley Anderson’s Women of the Otherworld series. Again–fluff reading, this time for adults, strong women with bad boys, not too smutty, no overt messages about sex (though there is some, it was IMHO fairly vanilla and well-done).
But the keys of both of those?
1.) They’re pretty obviously fluff. They’re not taking themselves oh-so-seriously.
2.) Some decent backstory.
3.) The relationship stuff is a lot less creepy than Twilight.
4.) The writing is a lot tighter.
I like a lot of literature, a lot of National Book Award books, a lot of short stories, a lot of poetry. But I also like my crap, and the above is fun, fun crap, especially for young females with a thing for the supernatural.
Thirsty is a compeltely different animal. Not at all sensual with a rich inner mythology, it’s probably my favorite YA vampy book.
This topic put me in the mind of a video a friend of mine posted a link to on her LiveJournal yesterday. I thought it was amusing and well done:
Buffy vs. Edward
I was just thinking about this one. I love it and I never even watched Buffy. Or Twilight for that matter. But it just works so perfectly.
I found your problem.
Wait, what? Haven’t read the books, but aren’t they, you know, PG-13 Vampire Porn?
The thing about Buffy and Angel is that they were equals. Sure, he was vastly older and more experienced, but she had friends and social skills, and when push came to shove, she could beat him in a straightforward fight to the death. That equality colored their relationship more than anything else, and was radically different from what Edward and Bella had.
I think you guys are missing out on the true beauty of this problem. It gives lots of opportunities to leave Twilight fans rocking back and forth in the corner mumbling to themselves after being traumatized by, “Let the Right One In.” Rather than lamenting that they aren’t as cool as sophisticated as you, you can use their naive vulgarity to your own sinister purposes! After all, isn’t that what being a vampire is REALLY all about?
Just out of curiosity, as someone who hasn’t read the book or seen the movie, and has no intention of doing so, how’s it misogynistic?
All this talk about it has made me curious now.
No, it’s a book about an angel (albeit a creepy, angsty angel) who seduces a human girl. If there were vampires, then they’d obviously hunt and kill humans, be harmed by sunlight and symbols of purity and religion, or have some other connection to vampire folklore.
Ha! I’m only about fourteenth in line! 
The assumption is that the Twilight Sparklepires aren’t really vampires.
ETA: I like Chronos’ take on the TS.
That was awesome. Although, I liked the actor who played Edward better when he was playing opposite Ernie on Sesame Street.
The angel idea is interesting. I wish we had more stuff that dealt with angels, but it’s sorta taboo to do that.
So, Nick from Forever Night was NOT a vampire? He didn’t hunt or kill humans.
Dracula would laugh if you tried to kill him with sunlight. Might say something like “You believe everything Hollywood tells you.” Original folklore vampires could walk in the sun. Hollywood made up the sunlight kills vampires.