# Am I the only one who thinks vampires are skeevy, not sexy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 28, 2008, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622 "2008-09-28T21:31:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/21 "2008-09-29T02:31:46Z")
The ones in real folklore, before Bram Stoker, the ones my Babushka told me tales about- creepy, scary, horrible and anything but sexy. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/22 "2008-09-29T02:38:09Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > If the OP hasn’t seen it yet, I recommend _John Carpenter’s Vampires_, if only for the mini-rant James Woods has early on when explaining the real deal to the newbie priest. “Well first of all, they’re not romatic. Its not like they’re a bunch of fuckin’ fags hoppin’ around in rented formal wear and seducing everybody in sight with cheesy Euro-trash accents, all right? Forget whatever you’ve seen in the movies: they don’t turn into bats, crosses don’t work. Garlic? You wanna try garlic? You could stand there with garlic around your neck and one of these buggers will bend you fucking over and take a walk up your strada-chocolata WHILE he’s suckin’ the blood outta your neck, all right? And they don’t sleep in coffins lined in taffata. You wanna kill one, you drive a wooden stake right through his fuckin’ heart. Sunlight turns 'em into crispy critters.” John Carpenter’s Vampires is so underrated it’s not even funny. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/23 "2008-09-29T02:49:01Z")
I don’t get vampires. I don’t get zombies. I especially don’t get vampire zombies or zombie vampires. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/24 "2008-09-29T02:57:20Z")
Bram Stoker didn’t think of vampires as sexy, but as skeevy. Certainly that’s David Skal’s opinion, and he’s made his case persuasively in several books. But people keep seeing his Dracula as a sexy creature – certainly that was the intent in the 1975 revival of the Deane/Balderston play based on his novel, and of the subsequent film version. There are plenty of non-sexy vampires in literature. H.P. Lovecraft’s one vampire story is unsexy. One can make the same argument about Varney the Vampire, and of those folkloric vampires that preceded the 19th century. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/25 "2008-09-29T03:05:01Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > One can make the same argument about Varney the Vampire Did he have a friend named Vern or was he purple? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/26 "2008-09-29T03:33:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Did he have a friend named Vern or was he purple? Ha! Varney was one of the seminal vampire stories, written after Polidori’s “The Vampire” and the plays it inspired. It ran for about two years, 1845-7, and told a long-meandering story about the titular Lord Varney, who was a vampire (or not, depending upon where yopu were in the saga). It makes more sense to think of this penny-dreadful as a 19th century comic book, with weekly installments, because then the bizarre pacing and turns of plot and story inconsistencies make some kind of sense. You wouldn’t expect the first 100 issues of Superman to tell a logical, consistent story, would you? Somehow, Varney got into the hands of Bram Stoker and influenced Dracula, so, even though Varney hasn’t been wideky read today (Dover published the wh;le series about 20 years ago, and there have been a few other publications), he still influences our modern image of the vampire. Would that Jim Varney’s Ernest K. Worrall gets so lucky. > **[Varney the Vampire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varney_the_Vampire)** > > Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood is a Victorian-era serialized gothic horror story variously attributed to James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest. It first appeared in 1845–1847 as a series of weekly cheap pamphlets of the kind then known as "penny dreadfuls". The author was paid by the typeset line, so when the story was published in book form in 1847, it was of epic length: the original edition ran to 876 double-columned pages and 232 chapters. Altogether it totals near It is th... ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/27 "2008-09-29T04:14:20Z")
Vampires totally skeeve me out. I really have to avoid all vampire-related stuff to be able to sleep at night. I’ve seen 2-3 episodes of Buffy and they unnerved me. I made the mistake of going to see _Interview with a Vampire_ and was a complete wreck by the end. I’d really like this fad to end soon, please. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/28 "2008-09-29T05:08:41Z")
Many of the posts here articulate reasons why I prefer werewolves to vampires in the classic debate. They scream “power” and “supernatural” in a way that a bunch of pale goblet-sipping poseurs with unusually long canines and a skin condition can’t. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/29 "2008-09-29T05:34:03Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Bram Stoker didn’t think of vampires as sexy, but as skeevy. Certainly that’s David Skal’s opinion, and he’s made his case persuasively in several books. But people keep seeing his Dracula as a sexy creature – certainly that was the intent in the 1975 revival of the Deane/Balderston play based on his novel, and of the subsequent film version. > > . But there is just as much, if not more, arguments presented by scholars that very convincingly argue that Dracula is sexy. Or at least, his sex and sexuality is completely tied in with several other common readings of Dracula and Dracula’s body and power. I think that a flat statement like “Stoker didn’t think of vampires as sexy…” is unsupportable, if you’re just looking at the text of the novel. And even if you aren’t, I’ve seen convincing evidence that Stoker wasn’t some puritan (or stereotypical Victorian) who would never dream of conflating sex with the other themes of the novel. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/30 "2008-09-29T06:09:20Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Many of the posts here articulate reasons why I prefer werewolves to vampires in the classic debate. They scream “power” and “supernatural” in a way that a bunch of pale goblet-sipping poseurs with unusually long canines and a skin condition can’t. I prefer the Warhammer-style vampires, the ones that raise an army, wipe out a village, raise the casualties, rinse and repeat. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/31 "2008-09-29T06:32:10Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Bram Stoker didn’t think of vampires as sexy, but as skeevy. Certainly that’s David Skal’s opinion, and he’s made his case persuasively in several books. But people keep seeing his Dracula as a sexy creature – certainly that was the intent in the 1975 revival of the Deane/Balderston play based on his novel, and of the subsequent film version. > > There are plenty of non-sexy vampires in literature. H.P. Lovecraft’s one vampire story is unsexy. One can make the same argument about Varney the Vampire, and of those folkloric vampires that preceded the 19th century. Dracula himself was not portrayed as sexy, but the Three Brides and Lucy? Whew! What is Lovecraft’s story? Would Lord Ruthven in John Polidori’s _The Vampyre_ be kinda sexy? And Terrifel~ > [@](#): > > Modern vampires are rank poseurs. Yeah, you’re all real terrifying with your immortal youth and sex powers and Eurotrash languor and fashionable leather dusters. Sure hope that never happens to me, let me tell you. Even though that describes him to a tee, I can still hear Spike saying that. ---
**Author:** ![VanillaGorilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f9ae1b/32.png) [@VanillaGorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VanillaGorilla)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/32 "2008-09-29T07:18:42Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > There’s stranger. > > On a non-porn art site, I ran across (& then **fled from** ) an artist drawing…_pin-up zombie girls._:smack: > > Scantily clad & in an advanced state of decomposition. > > Ick. I presume you have not seen the movie Zombie Strippers? Here’s a tip for ya: don’t. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/33 "2008-09-29T08:45:43Z")
Depending on the depiction, vampires can be anywhere in the range from ubersexy to terribly icky. And obviously they play on various fetishes such as domination and control. I see some depictions as kind of sexy but in general they aren’t my thing. But if even the idea of blood squicks you out then it would be hard to overcome that to appreciate the other aspects of it. But in most cases it’s just fantasy and not any weirder than rape fantasies, which most women would not want to enact in real life, but often get a thrill from in romance novels. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/34 "2008-09-29T11:37:38Z")
> [@](#): > > But there is just as much, if not more, arguments presented by scholars that very convincingly argue that Dracula is sexy. Or at least, his sex and sexuality is completely tied in with several other common readings of Dracula and Dracula’s body and power. I think that a flat statement like “Stoker didn’t think of vampires as sexy…” is unsupportable, if you’re just looking at the text of the novel. And even if you aren’t, I’ve seen convincing evidence that Stoker wasn’t some puritan (or stereotypical Victorian) who would never dream of conflating sex with the other themes of the novel. Read Skal’s **Hollywood Gothic** , or **The Monster Show** or **V is for Vam,pire**. I’m not saying you can’t make a case for Dracula being sexy, but you can argue that this wasn’t Stoker’s intention (and it has nothing to do with whether he was a prude or not). ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/35 "2008-09-29T11:44:52Z")
Varney was one of those vampire stories I thought of for this. You can read the tales for free. Opening the html format will include the pictures which are very ghoul like. It’s the moon shinning on the corpse that brings it back when killed. Varney the Vampire or the Feast of Blood > **[Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood by Prest and Rymer](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14833)** > > Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by volunteers. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/36 "2008-09-29T12:16:32Z")
The kind of vampires my ancestors used to worry about were horrid, digusting, bloated things that crawled out of their coffins to feed on the living. There wasn’t anything sexy about them. You didn’t fall in love with one any more than you’d fall in love with a rabid dog as it tried to tear out your throat. Turning vampires from scary folkloric monsters into fetishistic wank-fodder is one of the more idiotic things pop culture has done in my lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/37 "2008-09-29T12:30:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Turning vampires from scary folkloric monsters into fetishistic wank-fodder is one of the more idiotic things pop culture has done in my lifetime. Well, to tell the truth, it’s been a slow progression starting with Polidori’s **The Vampyre** about 200 years ago. He gave us the firast titled, Byronic vampire – one that could seduce another titled person to marry him. Vampires have been getting sexier ever since, with several ones you wouldn’t mind taking to bed appearing before I was born, and I’ll bet before you were, too. What’s more idiotic, to me, was turning Frankenstein from a truly horrific monster, who, although innocently causing harm at first, goes on to intentionally cause misery on a large scale to a figure of fun. It all took place in just about my lifetime, arguably starting with **Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein** shortly before I came around, then progressing through Herman Munster, Milton the Monster, Frankenberry cereal, Mad Monster Party, and Young Frankenstein. The Creature is now downright benign, something you’d never even begin to guess from the original story and its first stage and screen adaptations. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/38 "2008-09-29T14:36:00Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > What’s more idiotic, to me, was turning Frankenstein from a truly horrific monster, who, although innocently causing harm at first, goes on to intentionally cause misery on a large scale to a figure of fun. It all took place in just about my lifetime, arguably starting with **Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein** … How about in Mary Shelley’s lifetime? In 1824 was the theatrical debut of _Frank-N-Steam or the Modern Promise-to-Pay_. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/39 "2008-09-29T14:44:29Z")
> [@](#): > > How about in Mary Shelley’s lifetime? In 1824 was the theatrical debut of Frank-N-Steam or the Modern Promise-to-Pay. Droll, but not much traction. I think the examples I gave built on each other. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/40 "2008-09-29T15:00:55Z")
It all depends on the author’s take on the vampire myth. I’ve just been watching a couple of anime series with vampires as central characters: [Rosario + Vampire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosario_%2B_Vampire) and [Karin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chibi_Vampire) (the original manga of which was “Chibi Vampire”). Both are parodies of the vampire idea, with the central vampire character being a high-school girl who gets herself a normal human boyfriend, and both use the blood-sucking as an obvious metaphor for the more normal kiss between girlfriend and boyfriend. But both vampire girls are pretty sexy, along with most of Karin’s vampire family (a family which reminded me more than a little of the Addams Family or the Munsters). However, part of how each anime series subverts the vampire myth is by assuming that vampires are the normal ones – not humans – and that on the whole vampires do good rather than evil. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622.md?page=3)