It has now been several (or more) years since Twilight was a massively super-popular book (and movie) phenomenon beloved by millions of teen (and older) girls. It has also been a while since I heard anyone vociferously extolling the evils of Twilight and how the books are going to lead teen (and older) girls astray, resulting in abusive, fucked-up relationships.

Of course, in the meanwhile, 50 Shades of Grey came out. It sold well, though doesn’t seem to have been quite so actually popular as Twilight. Perhaps because it’s not as good; perhaps because people don’t want to talk publicly about having read it.

Disclaimer: I have read neither Twilight nor 50 SoG, but I did read the first page of 50 SoG. I thought it was remarkably bad. So bad, in fact, that it makes me despair deep down in my soul.

Anyway. My opinions on the books are irrelevant.

At their heights, people predicted that these books would result in a lot of Bad Stuff, especially bad relationship stuff.

Now that the relevant cohort of women has had several years to date other people, have we actually observed any upswing of Bad Relationship Stuff?

Seems like a great opportunity for someone to really test their theories.