In Edward and Bella's relationship, he's controlling, he threatens to commit suicide, he throws her through a glass table, he's jealous of her outside relationships and sometimes loses his temper and damages property when angry. Romantic! But what about stories like Romeo & Juliet? Or Beauty And The Beast? Suicide, violence and death are often at the core of great love stories.

While it makes for glorious, romantic subject matter, all-consuming, obsessive love is, in itself, "unhealthy." Telling someone that you can't live without her sounds romantic, but any therapist would probably diagnose that kind of talk as dysfunctional and codependent. Yet love stories are full of characters — Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights; Satine in Moulin Rouge; the couple in Pretty Woman — who are often liars, cads or ne'er do wells with psychological issues (fear of commitment, etc).

The thing about teenage love, especially, is that it feels like life or death even when vampires are not involved. The characters in flicks like Sixteen Candles, 10 Things I Hate About You and Say Anything take love so seriously that they could also be deemed "unhealthy," with the right diagnosis. In New Moon, Bella is thrown into truly dangerous situations — where her life is actually in peril — and it only functions to make the movie more romantic. He saves her, he represses the urge to bite her, he'd go to Italy and stand in the sun and kill himself if she ever died. Falling for someone — and being vulnerable — is already dangerous, in a way; love stories often just ramp up the drama with peril. While it's not cool that Edward is controlling of Bella, it seems like we, as a culture, love questionable romantic heroes and rebels without causes. Would we even know it was love if there was no danger? Edward and Bella may be in an emotionally abusive relationship, but she's not the first — and we, as an audience, seem to like it that way.

What Do You See In Him Again? [Captain's Log]
Official: Twilight's Bella & Edward Are In An Abusive Relationship [ONTD]
Official: Twilight's Bella & Edward Are In An Abusive Relationship [io9]

Earlier: I Have An Abusive Boyfriend, And He's Coming Home At 8

The essay, by Cathleen Calbert, starts out cute.

John Wayne was a man. The young Marlon Brando was a guy - didn't you see the hurt and indecision in his eyes in "On the Waterfront"? Rock Hudson was a man. James Dean was a guy...On the other hand, I want the E.M.T.'s who show up when I've collapsed to be men, not guys. I don't want someone responsible for saving my life to be torn up about the death of his dog or how some chick hurt his feelings.

You get the idea: "men" are competent and 1950s-repressed. "Guys" are arrested and boyish, but in touch with their feelings. She likes guys.

And then:

After I was molested in a deserted schoolyard, my father explained to me the difference between boys and men. "If it's a man," he told me, "you don't scream. With a boy, you scream." The logic being, I suppose, that a man would do whatever it took to make you stop screaming whereas boys still have fear in them; a boy would run away.

Her dad goes after the teenage molestors and scares them. "That's what a man does. He takes revenge...My father didn't speak to me again about that day. That's also what a man does." Then it becomes all about her dad, distant and mid-century-repressed and unable to give the author more than this harsh guardianship. He dies when she's young, and she thinks that's okay because "I suspect we would not be on speaking terms had he lived."

It's a good, personal essay. But what I found kind of ironic about it is that she's let her dad's harshness color her perception of the world as starkly as he did. "Men" and "guys." "Her dad" and "people she likes." Of course, everyone does this to a degree, but I think the binary she outlines isn't uncommon: we've got the repressed masculinity of a Don Draper and modern guys, and as a culture we've never reconciled the two at all. Even now, the dudes we see on ads or TV tend to be goobers or douches, with not much in-between. Men have to be harmless or they're...not, just as her dad viewed every boy the author dated as a potential molester. We cut "guys" slack. We hold them to a lower standard. Even growing up with a loving, sensitive dad, I fall into this: I've talked about dating "grownups," the men in suits who take you on real dates - as opposed to the vaguely-careered sensitive types who don't seem to have earned the "man" appellation. Time was, this limbo didn't exist.

And that can't be easy. It's easy to blame the Boomers here, but hell, we're adults in a post-existentialist world, with a degree of buck-stopping autonomy nowadays. We know well that stark gendered expectations are constricting, and surely "guy" and "man" is as damaging as "girl" and "woman?" And the truth is, we can like both, because people can be both - but only if we let them, right?

Forget The Men. Pick a Guy. [NYT]

The Plot: Now, pay close attention, because the plot is very complicated and very stupid. This is all background: Lallie has been Owen's stepsister since she was four. When their parents died, Owen raised her and her younger siblings. They had a contentious relationship. When Lallie was a young woman, she was framed as having an affair with an older married man, in fact a publicity stunt that the tabloids went wild with. Owen believed the lies, and banished her from the family home. He also forced her to live with some horrible couple in lock-down. She escaped, and hasn't spoken to him in six years. Got it?

Now, Lallie comes home from work one day to find Owen waiting for her. He informs her that the family housekeeper has suffered a heart attack and wants Lallie to come home and care for her. He's already informed her boss. Oh, and by the way, it's necessary to the housekeeper's recovery that the step-siblings pretend to be engaged. And also because Owen's assistant is trying to trick him into marrying her. They return to the family home, where they fight all the time, Owen constantly brings up the fact that she's a woman with a past, and whenever they need to "fool" someone, he manhandles her against her will. Obviously, she realizes that she's always been in love with him. So then, it turns out Owen's younger brother is living in sin with some woman. Because he was also always in love with Lallie and because they have to set a good example for the unmarried couple, Lallie and Owen have to go through with their marriage. They do, he realizes she's a virgin, and confesses he's always loved her and just ostracized her and sent her away so his brother wouldn't marry her instead. Yay!

The Evidence:
When she wakes up to find Owen lying on the couch with her: "Don't look so offended, I was too tired to make a pass at you, and if I had, what are you complaining about? This won't be the first time you've been in bed with a man."

When she sprains her ankle: "Shut up!" he warned her, "or I'll slap your backside, you aggravating little madam."

When she tells him she's not hungry: "You aren't getting anything to eat," came his brutal reply. "I don't want you throwing up in my car."

When he kisses her to fool someone: "You'll be used any way I choose. And don't look so outraged - you liked it!"

When she tries to shop within her means: "Trying to impress me with your sense of economy? Don't waste your time and mine, I know you too well."

When they're engaged: "I've the right now and I'll have you down on that couch and carry out my own inspection. Taste and try before you buy, that's my motto. Even if the goods are a bit shopsoiled."

During a detante: "She had marvelled at his good temper; he hardly ever called her a vicious little bitch now, just sometimes it was there in his eyes, that suppressed anger, but she ignored it."

On their wedding night, when he sees her nightgown: "Not glamorous, or very seductive. Is this the best you can do, or don't you think I'm worth any better?"

How We Know He's A Good Guy: We don't.

The End: "[I've loved you] ever since you were a kid, and I wanted you when you were sixteen, even before that, but you were too young. [The housekeeper] knew about it and she warned me off. You had to be given time, she said, so I backed off and cracked down hard on you. You needed it, you tempestuous little witch...other women were just something to keep my mind off a black-haired little terror who ripped up my peace and had me walking the floor at night wondering if she'd scream blue murder if I went into her room and made love to her."

Advantages: What, besides the lust for the underage stepsister, the misogynistic abuse, the casting her out of her home, and the sexual harassment? Let me think...

Handicaps: Does not appear to be a self-made mogul.

Earlier: Worst 80's Romance Hero Contestant #2: Dr. Ralph Culver, Stormy Springtime.

Worst 80's Romance Hero, Contestant #1: Jay Courtland, Rules Of The Game

The "Plot": Our heroine, Meg Culver, is a particular doormat: taken advantage of by her two older sisters, mousy, domestic Meg has been caring for their dying mother for the past few years. Now that their mother has died, Meg decides to stay on and be housekeeper for the new owners, since she doesn't want to leave. Mrs. Culver, the new tenant, has an obnoxious doctor son who treats Meg horribly. Then he offers her a job as a receptionist and an apartment to go with it, even though he continues to treat her with complete contempt. Sometimes he makes her act as housekeeper for his mother or grandmother. All the while he squires glamorous women around, who occasionally show up and insult Meg. Then he fires her. But! Surprise! It's because he has a new job for her - as his wife! Yay!

The Qualifications: "It would behoove you to mind your words, would it not?" he reminds her after they meet. He's always very concerned that she remember her "place."

"He didn't know why he thought of her sometimes; she was really nothing to look at."

She said shyly, 'The flat is lovely, Professor Culver.' And when he grunted in reply, she added, 'I think I shall like working for you; I hope...I'll do my best.'
'You won't stay long if you don't!'

When he comes to her flat to find she's adopted a stray kitten, and borrowed a book from the office to learn more about his work:

"I wasn't aware that I'd made you free of the books in my consulting room," he said softly...he had the look of an angry man...He said in the same soft voice, "And what is that bedraggled creature doing here, filthy dirty and no doubt flea-ridden?" His black eyes narrowed and his mouth had a nasty curl to it. "Haven't you got a little above yourself, my girl? Helping yourself to my books, bringing verminous animals into this house..." He was getting really cross; it was time to stop him before he was in a real rage.

When his glamorous girlfriend drops in on Meg uninvited: "We thought we'd do a bit of slumming, my dear...My god, can you cook, too? Ralph said you were a pre-war paragon with no ambition. We'll just sit down while you slave over a hot stove."

When he takes her out for tea: "The waitress offered her a great tray of rich cream cakes which she eyed with a childish pleasure which her companion, did she but know it, found vaguely pathetic."

While she's working as a housekeeper:

"There you are. Where have you been?"
"Packing for your mother, Professor. I came to turn off the lights, but perhaps you would do that when you go to bed?'
"Prim," he said nastily, and "A poker down your back," and he kissed her hard.

How We Know He's Actually a Good Guy: He's "a wonderful son" and apparently a really competent doctor.

The End:

He kissed her quiet. "Later - I've other plans for the moment."
"Oh well," said Meg happily. "If you say so."

Advantages: Treats heroine like a servant the entire book, never lets her address him by his first name.

Handicaps: Lack of rapiness.

Earlier: Worst 80's Romance Hero, Contestant #1: Jay Courtland, Rules Of The Game

The "Plot": Shy virgin Vanessa is an aspiring photographer who just happens to bear a Patty Duke-style exact resemblance to her cousin, top model "Nadia." When Jay Courtland, a former star footballer turned manager, comes to her photography studio, she mistakes him for a male model, and he mistakes her for Nadia. "Sparks" fly. For reasons that are unclear, Vanessa's brother insists she continue to impersonate Nadia and pose for a calendar with Jay's team (in which Jay "jerks off" her swimsuit and insists she pose topless.) Jay and fake-Nadia begin a tempestuous romance. Before they do the deed, though, the real Nadia materializes and exposes Vanessa. Jay repudiates her cruelly and starts sleeping with Nadia. Vanessa, obviously, is forced to travel with the team as official photographer. Jay is abusive and cruel to her for about 50 pages, constantly taunts her by talking about his sex life, then sleeps with her, admits he loves her, and kicks Nadia out of his house. Happily ever after!

The Qualifications:
At their first meeting: "Beautiful and clever," he murmured softly, "the dove fleeing from the hawk, not knowing that her very flight promotes his pursuit, unlike you, who I am sure knows very well the effect she has on the male sex."

After the reveal: "Now that I see you together, I think I must have been blind. You're very much the dross, aren't you, Vanessa? Very much a pale imitation of the real thing."

When he sees her hanging out with another guy:

"Well, well," Jay taunted softly. "Still trying to get rid of your precious virginity? What's the matter, won't he take it either?...Did he take it? Because if he hasn't, tonight I will. That's what you want isn't it Vanessa? To lie in my arms, my body possessing yours?"

Then a five-page attempted rape ensues in which he pushes into her room and rips off her clothes. "No? I think you mean yes...In fact I'm going to prove to you that you do mean yes!" When she "gives in" and they start fooling around, he delivers this charmer: "Touch me, Vanessa. Can't you see how much I want that? Nadia wouldn't need to be asked." This particular time he ends up thrusting her aside in disgust and stalking out; no, when they do have sex, it's because he says, "Shut up, Vanessa. Tonight I'm going to make love to you."

How We Know He's Actually A Good Guy: He gives a lot of money to charity, he doesn't relocate the team, and he's only such an asshole because he was an orphan.

The End: "Stop talking woman and let me make love to you."
She laughed softly then agreed demurely, "Anything you say, my love, anything at all."

Advantages: Jay Courtland's maltreatment of two women in the course of the book (even if Nadia's terrible, so that's okay) gives him a slight leg up on the competition.

Handicaps: Does not attempt any blackmail, use financial leverage, or attempt to force her into marriage.

• W on toy maker Steiff's limited edition, $1,500 Lagerfeld bear. "Naturally it looks just like him, from the impenetrable black sunglasses and high shirt collar to the skinny lacquered jeans. But, plush alpaca head aside, is the resemblance more than skin-deep? 'Bears are very nice, as long as you are nice to them,' mused Lagerfeld, as self-aware as he is iconic." [W]
• If you or someone you know is interested in (cough) modeling for American Apparel, they're having an open call. Dov Charney takes this sort of thing seriously; chances are you'll get to meet him one-on-one! [American Apparel]
• Petite gymnast Shawn Johnson loves her high heels. "But true to her coach’s orders, she’s stayed off them in the lead-up to the Olympics. With the competition behind her, she wore a pair of 3-inch silver peep-toes to Thursday’s event, occasionally flicking them off when she got tired. 'It’s actually the first time I’ve worn heels in, like, five months, so it feels a little weird,' she laughed. 'But I love heels. They make me feel a little more confident.'” [WWD]

• WILL ZUMA NESTA ROCK ROSSDALE PREVENT GWEN STEFANI FROM ATTENDING FASHION WEEK?! For both their sakes, we're kind of hoping "yes." [ElleUK]
• Rachel Zoe talks vaguely about the films that inspire her; it's unclear whether she's actually watched them. Of Love Story, "when she thinks of the film, Ms. Zoe has "visions of wide leg pants and vests and blouses," she says." [WSJ]
• Agyness Deyn hops agency; now at Women. [Fashionista]
• Tim Gunn, what hath thou wrought? British woman crafts dress from phone book. [The Sun]
• Stylist Philip Bloch beats Rachel Zoe to the reality TV punch: '“Glam God With Vivica A. Fox,” in which Bloch judges aspiring stylists who compete for a $100,000 prize and a contract with Jed Root Inc., premiered Thursday night on VH1, well ahead of Zoe’s show, which begins airing on Bravo Sept. 8.' He's also getting into Recessionista fashion - yes, he said it! [WWD]
• Ann Taylor: profits down, but still better than expected. [NYT]
• "Yummie Tummy" shakes up fashion week with "pole-dancing extravaganza." [Page Six]
• Despite heading to jail for money laundering, "King of Bling" "Jacob the Jeweler" launches new ad campaign. "The ads with Natalia Vodianova were shot by Fabien Baron. Denise Scala, director of marketing, said the media buy has increased by 200 percent from the jeweler's last campaign with Helena Christensen, and this time will include Vogue, GQ, Architectural Digest, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, The Economist and Forbes." [WWD]
• One group of incredibly extravagant luxury-cosmetics junkies is single-handedly buoying the Japanese market: "Although their numbers are small, the women, dubbed the "winners group" by media, have boosted the sales of expensive creams, despite tough times in the world's second-biggest economy that have slowed down sales of more modest potions." [Reuters]
• Designer Adama Kai brings high fashion to her native Sierra Leone. '"Maybe I have more opportunities as a designer over there, but I'm making a bigger statement over here," said Kai. "In the same way that Ralph Lauren stands for America, Chanel for France, and Versace for Italy, I want Aschobi to stand for African fashion," she said.' [Reuters]
• Hype or no hype, sales are still down at The Gap - although cost-cutting helps profits. [Reuters]
• Unswayed by...well, anything, apparently, fashion promotes the fur vest for fall. [Style.com]
• Aeropostale optimistic for Q2. [Crains]
• CVS to get into high-end "prestige beauty" with new boutiques. "The first concept store is slated to open by year’s end in a major East Coast city" is all they will say... [WWD]
• Movado collabs with Alvin Ailey Dance Company for the second year in a row. Only this one's an anniversary watch. "The back features Alvin Ailey's 50th Anniversary logo. While the watch retails for $795, 10 percent of proceeds will go to Alvin Ailey Dance Theater for the month of December." [Fashion Week Daily]
• Issey Miyake is really behind a Japanese 2016 Olympics. "Not only has Miyake lent three knitted dresses from his A-POC collection - in the Olympic hues of green, yellow and red - to be displayed in the bid committee showroom, he has also created exclusive Pleats Please scarves and neckties for members of the committee to wear." [VogueUK]

It was just jaw-droppingly scary but I worked through it. It was an ensemble piece of wonderful actors and I learned so much. I loved it in a way that I don't love the movies because I never felt that it was about 'Well, what do you look like? Let's get her a turtleneck because her neck is too crepe-y.'

On why she, like Gwyneth and Madonna, she wishes she lived abroad:

So often I wish I could work in Europe because in Europe there's more reverence for people over 35. And we get to look like women over 35 really look. Which I think is important because there's a whole generation coming up who better understand that they don't have to completely surgically alter themselves by 32 to even show up to work. [In Europe] they have people like Vanessa Redgrave and all these great older brilliant beautiful actors working. It's very rare in America that a major studio really goes that way.

I've had to pay my rent in many different ways and my overnight 'celebrity' based on a couple of movies was unexpected, unprepared for, and I'm so grateful that before I was in my late 20s I had to work for 15 years doing so many things in the arts and in fashion. I'm a great waitress, and I'm a very good maid. I just love knowing I'm not above anything it will take to keep the roof from leaking.

I live a very healthy lifestyle that would probably bore the daylights out of people. I do yoga every day. I meditate. I walk my dog for 40 minutes even if it means getting up at 5:30 in the morning because I want the stillness. I do all the things we were told as kids: I don't smoke or do drugs, I don't drink. It's not to be prissy; it's just that it's healthier for me.

We're watching now all these kids who get shot out of a gun at 16 looking cuter than anybody and then two years later they have great bodies and they're sex objects. They're babies and they've never had grounding. Nowadays I think the paparazzi are so frightening and the assumption is that this job includes access to your private life, too. It's a tough time.

Ali MacGraw, Defining Beauty [CBS News]