God help us Twilighters.

If you think about it, Twilight is actually a screwed-up mess that, if you’re sensitive, can be interpreted to condone adultery, murder and illegal immigration. Besides the possibly political issues these books represent, some of the more off-topic ideas (for example, falling in love with a dead person) are surely things that we can all agree are really, really big no-nos.

Luckily, modern humanity is just sick enough to make the Twilight franchise a huge success. A hundred years ago, Twilight author Stephanie Meyer would’ve been burned at the stake (though maybe not in Utah). A hundred years from now, our great-great-grandchildren will wonder what kind of sick people lived in our day and age to make Twilight one of the biggest pop culture phenomenons of all time.

And because I happen to think in a linear fashion, I’ve decided to give you five reasons on why Twilight reflects the fact that we are all sick bastards.

Reason No. 1: Necrophilia, zoophilia, pedophilia.

If you’re into reading between the lines, Twilight can be interpreted as an account of a young, human, very-much-alive human girl (Bella) who falls in love with a vampire guy (Edward). There are arguments out there to explain that Edward, since he’s no longer human, is dead. Also, Bella is in love for part of the series with her werewolf best friend, Jacob. Jacob spends quite a bit of time in his wolf form, which, if Bella had decided to go there, could’ve been problematic.

One more thing: Edward is technically more than a century old when he meets 17-year-old Bella. How much of an age difference does there have to be before it just doesn’t matter anymore?

Reason No. 2: Tax fraud.

The fourth book explains how the vampire Cullen family manages to travel, spend money and snatch up hot pieces of real estate (Isle Esme, anyone?) without ever being audited by the IRS. Alice, Edward’s adopted sister, has the power to see the future, making the family’s ability to play the stock market it’s only real means of survival. Other than that, they have a guy who fakes their papers so they can fly internationally, maintain lines of credit and otherwise wiggle their way out of paying taxes. Gives a whole new meaning to being undocumented.

Reason No. 3: Abortion.

When Bella gets pregnant with a half-vampire baby who’s very quickly sucking the life out of her from the inside out, Edward and the family try to convince her to abort it in order to save her own life. Take out of that what you will.

Reason No. 4: Polygamy and open marriages.

In this double-whammy concept of screwed-upness, Edward attempts to convince Bella to abort the baby, telling her he’ll let her go off with Jacob on the weekends to have a little wolfy som’n-som’n on the side, if she wants to have a baby that much. Apparently, werewolf babies are okay, vampire babies are not.

Reason No. 5: Incest

Although all the “kids” in the family are technically adopted, it’s still a little weird that sister Alice is dating brother Jasper and sister Rosalie is dating brother Emmett. As Darren Franich of EW.com says in his column “13 Life Lessons We Learned From Twilight,” “After all, people who aren’t exactly like you are so weird.”

Whether Twilight causes our generation to be called the Grossest Generation or not, in one year the last film installment of the series will come out, bringing the franchise to an end. At that point, humanity can start rebuilding our concept of morality again (if God doesn’t smite us with lightning first). As much as we love Twilight, God help us all.

Maddie Shannon is a former columnist and Arts & Entertainment editor for The Collegian.