I pop a boner for vampires—we hold this truth to be self-evident. As you already know, I spend an inordinate amount of time in this column fetishizing all sorts of monsters, but vampires are, for my money, the most boner-ific. The reasons for their immense boner-osity are as follows: (1) They are often swarthy Europeans. (2) They turn into bats. (3) They have bizarre hypno-powers used to convince chicks to sleep with them. (4) They stay up late. (5) They can only be killed by a stake through the heart, whereas I can be killed any number of ways, including stepping on a rusty nail or eating Totino's pizzas and ice cream for lunch every day.

On the other hand, vampires also have their downsides—or "boner-killers" if you prefer—and they are as follows: (1) They have weird teeth. (2) They drink blood, instead of more delicious bodily fluids. (3) Some—like the vampires of Twilight—have sparkly skin, which is gay in a bad way. As in the super unsexy "rainbow flag/teddy bear dressed in leather" kind of gay. (4) They sleep in coffins. Again, gay. (5) They are often annoyingly pale. Is it going to kill them to visit a tanning bed now and then? Hmmm... maybe it would.

OOOH! But I almost forgot the most boner-tastic thing about vampires! Because they never age, they can smooch teenagers and never, ever be put on any sexual predator list. If they were, can you imagine the kind of awkward conversations we'd find ourselves in? "Hi, my name is Angel, and state law requires me to inform you that I'm moving into your neighborhood, and I'm a sexual predator. Oh. And a vampire. Soooooo... can I borrow your lawn mower?"

Anyway! I'm super excited because there's a new show debuting this week called The Vampire Diaries (The CW, Thurs Sept 10, 8 pm), and it's already giving me such a boner, I may have to get jaw surgery. (Because... you know... my boner keeps bumping into my jaw, and... aw, forget it.)

Based on the squealingly good young adult book series of the same name, The Vampire Diaries tells the story of high school gal Elena Gilbert who falls for swarthy European classmate Stefan Salvatore, who occasionally grows fangs and flaps around like a bat. Their romance is complicated by the following facts: (1) She has blood. (2) He likes to suck blood. (3) Stefan's brother Damon—also swarthy, also European, also a vampire—is a real dick who gets a boner for Elena as well.

And while The Vampire Diaries may be wildly similar in tone to a kajillion other vampire projects, there are critical differences, which are as follows: (1) No bad gay sparkly skin. (2) It's written and produced by Kevin Williamson (Scream, Dawson's Crack) which means the dialogue is funny and goes snappity, snap, snap! (3) It's on TV—which means I don't have to wait two years to get my Twilight tweetarded tingles. (4) I'll have to get eye surgery every week. (Because... you know...my boner will keep sticking in my eye, and... AWW FORGET IT!!!)