Why women love 'Twilight'

All right, you Twilight fans and Twilight haters, it’s that time again. Time for normally sane housewives to morph into crazed fans sporting T-shirts pledging their eternal love and devotion to a teenage vampire or werewolf.

Yes, the third movie in the “Twilight” series — “Eclipse” — hits theaters Wednesday, so women (and 14-year-old girls) around the nation will be swooning in full force. And so we are once again faced with the question of what kind of power these books and movies have over normally rational women.

And yes, I’ve read all the books. And yes, I loathe myself for loving them. I have even faked being sick so that I could finish just one more chapter before getting up and going back to my dull, vampire-less life.

But I am not one of the women camping out to shriek for actor Robert Pattinson, nor will I ever understand the stories of women who have tattooed bite-marks on their neck to show eternal love for Edward. I even had one friend who took her annual vacation to Forks, Wash. Yes, that’s right — she paid to take a tour of the town that was host to the fictional storyline of the “Twilight” series (the key word here being fictional).

But not all women are crazed fans. In fact, I think it’s pretty safe to say that most women feel like I do — we hate that we love “Twilight.”

We hate that the writing is horrible and would be ashamed if our high school English teacher saw the books on our shelf (although she is probably a closet Twilighter herself). We hate that we occasionally identify with clueless Bella. And most of all, we hate that Edward got us. We like to think that we are too mature to get sucked in by the cliche of a hot vampire.

But it gets me. And while the sexual tension is thick, that’s not what really gets most women.

Here’s my theory: women can’t help falling in love with the bad guy who is willing to give it all up for the woman he loves. Women are suckers for that streak of danger in a man who will put aside his naturally devilish desires to be with the women he just can’t get enough of. Throw in a little protective nature and a hot body and you’ve got a recipe to make every housewife in America swoon — right alongside her teenage daughter.

What do you think — what makes women so crazy about “Twilight”? Are you a closet “Twilight” fan or are you loud and proud about your obsession? Or do you think all the “Twilight” hype is ridiculous?