# 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:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/41 "2008-09-29T15:08:10Z")
> [@shijinn](#): > > especially the ones portrayed in the movie _Underworld_, whose vampires were basically humans with guns. But Whinier. ---
**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, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/42 "2008-09-29T15:10:50Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Well, to tell the truth, it’s been a slow progression starting with Polidori’s **The Vampyre** about 200 years ago. Have I mentioned that people often describe me as “horrid and bloated?” ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/43 "2008-09-29T15:12:55Z")
[Depends on the vampire.](http://www.cult-cinema.ru/pictures/screenshots/transylvania_6-5000/transylvania_6-5000_6.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/44 "2008-09-29T15:14:10Z")
There’s a segment in Anne Rice’s _Interview With the Vampire_ where Louis, having broken with Lestat, is traveling Europe in search of fellow vampires. In Rumania, Dracula-land, he finds only “revenants” – creatures much closer to the vampires of Eastern European folklore, with no more mind or personality or sex appeal than a Romero zombie. But why these revenants exist, and why they are so different from the intelligent, ever-so-sexy-yet-utterly-sexless vampires such as Louis and Lestat, is never explained in any of Rice’s novels, AFAIK. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/45 "2008-09-29T16:16:07Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > 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. I had a college class on Eastern European Mythology and this is pretty much how the original myth(s) described them. They were often viewed as nonsentient, like zombies in our modern movies. One recommended way to deal with them was to beat them into immobility with a shovel. Of course that didn’t prevent later storytellers from sexing them up. Remaining available for fetishization are the zombies; any takers? Sailboat ---
**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, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/46 "2008-09-29T16:58:01Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > I had a college class on Eastern European Mythology and this is pretty much how the original myth(s) described them. They were often viewed as nonsentient, like zombies in our modern movies. One recommended way to deal with them was to beat them into immobility with a shovel. > > Of course that didn’t prevent later storytellers from sexing them up. Remaining available for fetishization are the zombies; any takers? > > Sailboat Yeah, my family came here from Ukraine. I can’t say any of the old country people I knew actually really believed in vampires, thought they did know stories about them. Their superstitions ran more towards believing in things like the evil eye or that a priest could kill you by saying a funeral mass for you. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/47 "2008-09-29T17:38:56Z")
Reading about vampire sex comes across as gross and skeevy because you’re basically reading about someone else’s fetishized sex fantasies. And, unless you share their fetish, that _always_ comes across as rather gross and skeevy. I’d maybe wonder where this suddenly large market for vampire fetish sex came from… but then I’d look over at the overwhelmingly huge “romance” fetish sex market (which can be just as skeevy in its attitudes toward sex, IMO). ---
**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, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/48 "2008-09-29T17:55:40Z")
**Friar Ted** asks: > [@](#): > > What is Lovecraft’s story? > > Would Lord Ruthven in John Polidori’s The Vampyre be kinda sexy? Lovecraft’s story is **The Shunned House** from 1924. When he wrote this, Hamilton Deane’s version of the play “Dracula” was still touuring the provinces, and hadn’t come to London. “Nosferatu” had been released in nGernany in 1922, but I don’t think it had hit the US yet, so Lovecraft had only the novel Dracula and the other vampiric forbears, without the interpretations given by the stage version of Dracula. You can read Lovecraft’s story here, and see that it harkens back to an older tradition: [http://www.eponymous.org/lovecraft/theshunnedhouse.htm](http://www.eponymous.org/lovecraft/theshunnedhouse.htm) Lord Ruthven , it’s implied, is much more human than previous vampires – as I say above, he’s the first titled vampire I know of, and appealing enough to have won a bride. But he’s not portrayed winningly, certainly. ---
**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, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/49 "2008-09-29T19:02:51Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Yeah, my family came here from Ukraine. I can’t say any of the old country people I knew actually really believed in vampires, thought they did know stories about them. . Cousin!😃 Here’s a link to my story about my Grandmothers tale of Vampires from the Old Country. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10170059&highlight=vampire#post10170059](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10170059&highlight=vampire#post10170059) ---
**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, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/50 "2008-09-29T19:34:54Z")
Yep, those are the same old country vampires my folks told stories about. Mindless, or nearly so. Prey mostly on family. Disgusting to see and smell. Nothing remotely sexy about them. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/51 "2008-09-29T19:41:22Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Yep, those are the same old country vampires my folks told stories about. Mindless, or nearly so. Prey mostly on family. Disgusting to see and smell. Nothing remotely sexy about them. Hey! I don’t care if you found their stories boring; that’s no way to talk about your folks! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/52 "2008-09-29T21:40:29Z")
> [@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. Small aside: you live in Wisconsin? Near the Dells? On Bray Road? ---
**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, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/53 "2008-09-29T22:34:09Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Small aside: you live in Wisconsin? > Near the Dells? > > On Bray Road? The Dells and Bray road are a far distance apart. Center it close to Delavan or Elkhorn and give some random reports a distance north and you have it’s area. Delavan was a circus town coincidental or not. Old world Wisconsin isn’t to far away either. > **[Delavan, Wisconsin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delavan,_Wisconsin)** > > Delavan is a city in Walworth County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 8,505 at the 2020 census. It is located 45 miles (72 km) southwest of Milwaukee. The city is located partially within the Town of Delavan, but the two entities are politically independent. Delavan is home to Delavan Lake which brings in a large number of tourists each year, and is also close to Lake Geneva, another popular tourist destination. > Delavan sits in the middle of what was once an inland sea. During th... > **[Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Dells,_Wisconsin)** > > Wisconsin Dells (formerly Kilbourn) is a city in Columbia, Sauk, Adams and Juneau counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 2,942 at the 2020 census. The city takes its name from the Dells of the Wisconsin River, a scenic gorge that features sandstone formations along the banks of the Wisconsin River. It is a popular Midwestern tourist destination, home to several water parks and tourist attractions. Wisconsin Dells is about 42 miles (68 km) northwest of Madison, the state Th... [http://www.beastofbrayroad.com/](http://www.beastofbrayroad.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/54 "2008-09-29T23:35:27Z")
> [@Harmonious\_Discord](#): > > The Dells and Bray road are a far distance apart. Center it close to Delavan or Elkhorn and give some random reports a distance north and you have it’s area. Delavan was a circus town coincidental or not. Old world Wisconsin isn’t to far away either. > > [Delavan, Wisconsin - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delavan,_Wisconsin) > [Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Dells,_Wisconsin) > > [http://www.beastofbrayroad.com/](http://www.beastofbrayroad.com/) I was wonderin if anybody would catch that.:D:cool: ---
**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 30, 2008, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/55 "2008-09-30T01:52:55Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > I was wonderin if anybody would catch that.:D:cool: I think it’s a family of feral clowns or circus freaks from Delavan a hundred years ago. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/56 "2008-09-30T02:06:56Z")
> [@Harmonious\_Discord](#): > > I think it’s a family of feral clowns or circus freaks from Delavan a hundred years ago. Or maybe something more skeevy than goths-who-think-they’re-vampires: Juggalo tweekers. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622/57 "2008-09-30T08:11:02Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > [Depends on the vampire.](http://www.cult-cinema.ru/pictures/screenshots/transylvania_6-5000/transylvania_6-5000_6.jpg) [It certainly does.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwf-QEeXg04&feature=related) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-vampires-are-skeevy-not-sexy/465622.md?page=2)