Make no mistake, ‘Twilight’ is porn. Furthermore, it’s the worst kind of porn. It’s bummer porn. It’s porn where no one gets busy for years, and when they finally do, it has horrible, life-changing consequences. It’s the kind of porn where a woman gets pregnant on her wedding night and the fetus is trying to kill her before she gets back from the honeymoon.

I didn’t read any of the books, so everything I know about this universe comes from the first movie and this one. From what I can gather, life is very boring in Forks, despite the fact that the town is overrun with vampires and werewolves. It’s so boring that eligible young men from both undead factions fall hopelessly in love with completely unremarkable high school girls. Not regular love, either, but some kind of medieval courtly love that mostly consists of grim romantic declarations and lots of quivering in the anticipation of touches that never come.

I don’t want to know too much about the kind of repression that gives birth to stories like this. These are fables of desperation, campfire stories for people who have no idea what they look like below the navel.

Of course, if this is your flavor of softcore, go to it. I can report that Taylor Lautner has his shirt off before the opening credits. When Edward and Bella finally do it, he destroys the bed and leaves bruises all over her. She digs this, but he doesn’t want to do it anymore. One night in the sack and Eddie gives up on sex entirely, because he’s just that sensitive a vampire. There is a wedding in the woods, with a crapload of flowers and groomsmen looking all jaundiced and be-gelled.

There’s probably some class struggle critique there that I’m too bored to plumb, with all the werewolves living in some sort of rundown reservation and all the vampires living in billionaire splendor. There’s even something kinky about how Bella keeps saying that she only feels like things are ‘complete’ when she’s with both the wolf and the vampire in an unconsummated threesome. I’d love to analyze those quirks, but I can’t. I’m obsessed with the fact that a dead guy gets Bella pregnant. That is maybe the most ridiculous misuse of the vampire mythos I’ve ever seen, and I watch horror movies to get to sleep. Bad ones. I cannot for the life of me figure how a guy who’s been dead more than a century has a sac full of healthy swimmers. Vampires do not need this – they do not reproduce sexually. Also, they are dead.

I don’t like vampires that are wracked with guilt and trying to subsist on woodchuck blood, for the same reason I don’t really like rock stars in rehab. I dislike the trend in vampire stories where immortal killers are laid low by their love of dewy-eyed townies as well. Despite my dislike for this line of lore, I watch True Blood and other hybrids of horror and bodice-ripping. I can abide much, but motility and successful impregnation are a bridge too far.