"We call it brain porn," jokes Jenny West, 32, a New Jersey finance executive who co-runs an adults-only blog, Twitarded.blogspot.com. She set her boyfriend's eyes rolling with the life-size cardboard cutout of heartthrob vamp Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) in her dining room.

Her blog has picked up hundreds of female followers since launching in January, ranging in age from 20s up to 60s, all of them nuts about the four-book series about Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and her vampire swain that has spawned two movies.

"There's no shame in loving a book about struggling vampires," West says.

No shame, indeed, not when there's so much money to be made. New Moon took in $140.7 million this weekend, according to studio estimates from Nielsen EDI.

But though "Twi-hard" teens have captured most of the attention since the first Twilight book was published in 2005 (85 million sold), adult women are just as smitten with New Moon.

It's moms and grandmas standing in line at theaters, reading and rereading the books, spending big bucks on the merchandise (such as Nordstrom's Twilight-themed apparel and jewelry) and writing reams of fan fiction (17,000 stories on just one fan-fiction site alone). They follow scores of blogs and websites, such as TwilightMoms.com, aimed at bringing together other adult fans all over the world.

"The appeal to a lot of us who are not teenagers is the community (of fellow fans) we've founded," West says. "It has really bloomed and become huge because we feed off each other."

Teens identify with Bella in fantasizing about their first love, saysLori Joffs, 35, a stay-at-home mom in Nashville and creator of TwilightLexicon.com. "But as an adult who has faced reality, it's escapism of a different kind, remembering those first twitches of falling in love and reliving it through Bella."

The books and movies employ the classic romance-novel formula in scores of books from Jane Eyre to Harlequin romances, says Elisabeth Gruner, an English professor at the University of Richmond who has studied the Twilight phenomenon. "Vampire stories appeal to teens because vampires are eternal teens – they stay up late, exchange bodily fluids, engage in illicit practices and live forever, and most teens think they're immortal, too."

Also, author Stephenie Meyer added the unconventional twist that these characters are virginal – and the Cullen vampires are so-called vegans, meaning they drink animal rather than human blood. There's no sex and no sucking of human blood (long a stand-in for sex).

"Women really appreciate that because they can read them with their daughters or younger sisters and not be embarrassed," says Amanda Belcher, 27, a public-relations executive outside Scranton, Pa., who helps run TwilightMoms.com, which has 34,000 members 21 or older.

Some academics have been hooked by Twilight. Jennifer Stevens Aubrey and two colleagues at the University of Missouri's communications department are working on a book, Bitten by Twilight: Youth Culture, Media and the Vampire Franchise, about why so many girls and women, including themselves, are so taken with the books.

"Teens perceive Edward as an ideal romantic mate, despite being a vampire and rather controlling and what someone said is the likeliest candidate for a restraining order. He's so into her," Aubrey says. "The adults compare him to their own partners, who obviously can't match up."

Some feminists worry Twilight presents models of unhealthy relationships for girls. Debra Merskin, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon who is writing a journal article on Twilight, says Edward Cullen fits the profile of what the psychological literature calls a compensated psychopath – socially dangerous but still keeping up the appearance of normality – while Bella is always in need of rescue.

"He watches her sleep, and if that's not creepy, I don't know what is," she says. "Girls say they're turning away from Harry Potter to Edward Cullen because they think it's a more 'realistic' relationship – and he's a vampire! It's baffling."

Relationship expert Valerie Gibson, who hosts a call-in TV show in Ontario, says multi-generational mania for Twilight may be a testament to the emptiness of contemporary relationships.

"There's a loss of romance, of mystery, of the holding back of desire and cherishing of a woman," she says. "Young girls can't find swains who will adore them and worship them. It only happens in books. They long to live in an erotically charged fantasy. Older women know it doesn't happen."

But they sure like to read about it.

Enlarge By Fred Prouser, Reuters Fans who have camped out on sidewalks for several days stand along the red carpet waiting for the start of the premiere of The Twilight Saga: New Moon in Los Angeles on Nov. 16.