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That depends a bit on where you put the marker for "widespread disapproval". Twilight was popular, but it was also heavily disliked and mocked in mainstream, fandom, and even feminist spaces. Morning Glory Milking Farm's better-known for the manly men mocking it than among the actual goonettes.
There's not an industry built to disapprove of it, in the way that there is an industry around performative disgust about male sexuality. But that's more a comment on business practices than on culture.
I think there's an important difference of kind here: "goonerbait cultural material directed at women" is mocked as being immature and shallow, at worst it is seen as an understandable form of escapism for women too unattractive (not necessarily physically) to find a decent guy. On the other hand, "goonerbait cultural material directed at men" is treated as dangerous material that teaches men to harm women. It is regularly banned or censored by large corporations and governments. The UN has multiple outstanding demands to Japan to legally constrain the media in order to fight "violence against women".
Yeah, that's a more readily distinguished comparison.
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Twilight is probably not, like, good literature. I've never heard it seriously defended as anything more than the appeal to a woman's inner sixteen year old fantasies... but I've also never heard it seriously criticized as anything worse than that, either. It definitely isn't porn- it's about a teenager being special and chosen by a much older man who keeps his hands to himself before marriage and having babies quickly. Not the most likely sequence of events, but fantasia, not pornography.
No, there were definitely people criticizing Twilight on a moral panic level and not just a cringe level. Fifty Shades Of Grey, too. These strains of commentary were still notably muted, though, and likely fading out.
I’ve never heard twilight criticized as porn. There was criticism of twilight as dangerous for adolescent girls on the basis that much older men are bad news, but I don’t remember a moral panic about OMG all the sex and violence. 50 shades, yes, it definitely had that.
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Fair. Better example?
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Everyone from the late 2000s owes Stephanie Meyer and Twilight an apology for how they treated them. It is a wholesome romance, too pure for this world, and IMO applying the gooner label to such a chaste story stretches that word to the breaking point.
I agree with you that the cow story is held up as an example to decry women's romance far more than it is actually read.
That said, romantasy is probably the hottest genre in publishing right now, and Sarah J. Maas, author of the Court of Thorns and Roses series, is the one of the biggest and best-selling modern authors. Walk into any Barnes & Nobles and the stuff is all over the place. Femgooning is extremely normalized and celebrated, backed by big publishing houses and deemed fit to be stocked on the shelves of mainstream retailers.
I'm fine with this, I don't begrudge women their preferences, but it is undeniable to me that a lot of them like enjoy this state of affairs and take it for granted, while sharply policing anything that appeals to men in the same way wherever it appears.
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