"Twilight": Not Just For Teens, Also For Romance Starved Women

I haven't as of yet, read any of Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" books, but after seeing the movie I know I will now. I was intrigued by the characters, and while the acting was a bit wooden, the story held my interest and reminded me about how exciting NOT having sex can be.

As a parent, and a woman concerned about the values impressionable young girls are being exposed to by contemporary media, I was thrilled to sit through a movie where the young female protagonist didn't have sex thereby didn't get pregnant, get an STD or feel terrible about herself after doing something she perhaps wasn't ready for, but felt she should do because well, everyone else seems to be.

And as an adult, it was also good reminder of just how damn exciting romance can be. In the preceding decade, and this one too - the era of "Sex and the City," "Gossip Girl," and "Unfaithful," I think we're all conditioned to jump from stranger to intimate partner so quickly that we miss something important. Getting to know someone, growing to care for them and THEN becoming intimate. For a long time we've jumped from stranger to bed buddy, and well, I don't think it is necessarily a good thing.

In a classic episode of "Sex and the City," when Carrie first met Aidan, she was worried that he wasn't attracted to her or that maybe he was gay because every time they went out he kissed her at her door, and went home - without trying to bed her. When she finally confronted him he told her, it was called dating and that they'd only known each other for two weeks. Embarrassed, Carrie realized how nuts she had been and how she'd forgotten about something very important: romance.

In a world where our children have a barrage of sexually provocative movies, advertising, music videos and television thrown at them every day, it's not surprising that pregnancy rates have increased, and kids are having sex at younger and younger ages. I am thrilled that perhaps the tide might be turning a bit, and that the idea of waiting for a while might just catch on.

As for we adults, well, being a little discriminating isn't such a bad idea either. Think of it as mental foreplay.