My 17 y.o. loves the books. I read the first one and like your wife was appalled. What girl needs a boyfriend who has an instinct and driving desire to kill her and is holding back only because he is so noble and virtuous?
And what is so chaste about a boy and girl lying down in bed together, not having sex? That is what is called a “near occasion of sin” and I know where it goes from there.
It’s true that women are attracted to danger, hoping it turns to power and protection in their service, with the danger always there as a background thrill. But the Twilight series is so adolescent in its sensibility that I am surprised any women over thirty can find it exciting.
I agree, and I think this attraction is something we should teach young women to control, instead of glamorizing it and idealizing it in books and movies.
Just as young men should be taught to control their attraction to loose women or self-destructive machismo.