For years, a question has permeated Ivana Peloza’s brain. Every so often, it sucks up her attention, unrelenting and undying.
It happened most recently in mid-July. As Peloza sunbathed outside her Toronto family home, where she’s riding out the pandemic, an urge to learn the truth of the Twilight movies consumed her. She flipped over, sat up and opened TikTok to record a video about the most biting issue in recent cinematic history.
Does vampire Edward Cullen (played in the film series by shitty pasta connoisseur Robert Pattinson) have an ice-cold dick? And if he does, as Peloza says in her TikTok, does this mean his human girlfriend and eventual baby mama Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) routinely takes “a frozen dildo dick,” otherwise known as “a popsicle in her puss”?
You can say this is vulgar. Irrelevant even, if you don’t believe in vampires. Still, the fantasy series is famous for its steamy melodrama. After all, straight-people softcore porn Fifty Shades of Grey started as Twilight erotic fanfic. “The fourth book, Breaking Dawn, is literally entirely about Bella having sex with Edward, so, it’s like, we can’t ignore that fact,” Peloza reminds me.
Plus, Twilight author Stephenie Meyer released her sixth book in the franchise today. Midnight Sun retells the events of this famed Seattle vampire saga from Edward’s perspective instead of Bella’s, the series’ usual narrator. Now that we’re looking at things from Edward’s point of view, Peloza and I have just one question for him.
Edward, is your dick an icicle?
Since Edward is not a real person (and Meyer hasn’t returned my requests for comment), I reached out to a vampire expert for the truth on the popsicle penis. Stanley Stepanic is a professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of Virginia. He says Twilight’s characterization of pale, cold vampires is accurate to original vampire folklore.
Much of the mystery of the vampire originates in Slavic nations as far back as the 11th century. Back then, vampires weren’t as attractive as how they’re depicted in TV shows like True Blood or The Vampire Diaries. “It was a reanimated corpse, rotting, filthy and disgusting,” Stepanic says.
Men in the Middle Ages feared vampires were rapists and pillagers. The belief of vampires impregnating young women is largely seen as one of convenience. “One of the theories is these were children out of wedlock, and it was a way to make them socially acceptable,” Stepanic says. “It wasn’t some dude they messed around with. They got ‘raped’ by a vampire.”
When it came to identifying who was a vampire, Stepanic says they would dig up dead bodies. Decomposing bodies inflate with gas and can often lead to a death erection. The scene of a dead body with a boner was a tell-tale sign of vampiric horniness.
All right, enough beating around the bush. Does or doesn’t Edward have an ice dick?
“I mean, yeah,” Stepanic tells me. “They’re [exhumed] dead bodies.”
Stepanic noted vampire vitality was previously referenced in Leonard Wolf’s 1997 explanatory essay collection, Dracula: The Connoisseur’s Guide, which noted that a vampire’s leaking semen would be cold.
Even Meyer addresses the issue of vampiric reproduction on her website. “Fluids closely related to seminal fluids still exist in male vampires, which carry genetic information and are capable of bonding with a human ovum,” she writes. So, no, vampire sex is not an excuse to ditch a condom.
Peloza, there you have it. Your hunch was right. Edward is an undead vampire with a frozen, decaying cock. “This is important. This is the discourse I was inspiring,” she says. “I feel even more confident now in speaking this truth about Edward Cullen’s dick.”
Knowing Edward is packing cold is one thing. Would you go for it is a separate question altogether. “In the grand scheme of things, a cold dick is probably the less fearful part of having sex with him,” she says.
After all, who wants to sleep with a dude who is just going to stare at you the whole time — because he can’t blink?
Joseph Longo
Joseph Longo is a culture and entertainment journalist whose work has appeared in The Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly and more. He's still trying to understand what it means to be a Gemini Rising.
