Can vampires have sex – with mortals, with other vampires, with anything – or not? I doubt the question is ever answered in the original legends. In novels and movies and TV, it seems to vary with the whim of the author: Sometimes vampires can have sex; sometimes, they’re very clearly dead-in-the-genitals and drinking blood is the nearest thing to a sexual experience they can have. (I keep waiting for Anne Rice to introduce a “Vampire 69” – two vamps, each latched onto the other’s femoral artery – but she never does. I guess she’s just not as sick as I am.) Anyway, which is the better approach and why?
While sexless corpse type vampires can be interesting, they generally aren’t.
I prefer vamps - good, evil, or morally conflicted - who are sexual beings.
Not that the sex they have has to be healthy - they can just use it as a hunting skill (seduce and kill), or they can be sexual predators out for their own hedonistic pleasure. But, having a vampire with a healthy sexual relationship - with another vampire, or with a mortal - that can be good, too, though, of course, the latter requires a vamp who at least wants to be ‘good’, to an extent. (Save for cases where the chosen human is also an evil type.)
(Related… I’m fairly fond of the idea of a vampire forming an intimate - emotionally and sexually - relationship with a human who lets the vamp feed on them (obviously not full draining), and have used it in stories myself. Unfortunately, the only case of that that I’m familiar with in stories that I didn’t write, or at least participate in the creation of the universe - is True Blood… If anyone has suggestions for stories to check out like that, I’d appreciate the recs…)
“Hey, when did the building fall down?” - Spike, after he and Buffy knocked boots for the first time.
Sexed.
I’m indifferent.
Isn’t everything better with sex?
I’d prefer vampires who can have sex, but for whom sex is not any sort of special experience, or which has any particular significance. Like, I could stick someone’s left small toe up my nostril, but why would I? It simply has no interest for me.
Now, there probably would be some vampires who would use sex as part of their hunting routine, but it’d be all about the hunt, and not at all about the sex, nor would it be something that every vampire could pull off effectively (just because you’re an unholy supernatural manifestation of death doesn’t make you a good actor).
Even better would be vampires who seem fascinating, but also just plain off, somehow, such that only someone with a truly peculiar perversion would ever be sexually attracted to them in the first place. Something like where the bestiality taboo meets the uncanny valley.
That depends. Is Twilight better than Let the Right One In?
No sex please.
Rather amusing choice for the ‘sexless’ option, given Eli’s relationships with Oskar and Hakan.
Wait, is there vampire sex in Twilight? I don’t recall any from the movies.
Hot lesbian vampires for me please.
I usually prefer the sexual ones, it allows for more complex characters. And of course, it’s sex.
In PN Elrod’s Jonathan Barrett, Gentleman Vampire series she had two vampires do something close to that; they alternated instead of doing it both at once though IIRC. It helps that for them giving blood is as ecstatic as drinking it; they use the blood exchange method of vampiric reproduction.
Tanya Huff’s Blood series has that. PN Elrod’s Vampire Files does as well. In both cases it’s basically a boyfriend/girlfriend type relationship with blood drinking added (generally during the sex act).
Did I misunderstand something about this movie? I thought Eli was literally unsexed, and didn’t see anything that was sexual about the relationships. The closest ting I recall actual sex being an element was the “-.- … … …” through the wall, which is pretty abstract. I got dependency, protection, and companionship as the main elements of the relationships in that movie.
I guess very abstracted sex is key to the vampire mythos, going back to Bram Stoker - but when it is literal it just comes off as Harlequin Romance with some practical effects thrown in. Snore.
I like them sexed but not oversexed, or maybe I like them sexed so long as I happen to like the sex described… I’m probably overthinking things.
An example: the one Anita Blake I’ve read was ok… until I caught myself skipping over yet-another-sex-scene, but it wasn’t boredom so much as that every single one seemed to involve “oh noes I shouldn’t do this but I can’t stop myself” for at least one participant; that stuff makes me want to grab the person in question and proceed to educate them by the method of repeatedly driving their face into the nearest support beam. Here: now you’re unconscious and don’t have to stop yourself any more. Twit.
I did love that the main char was stuck on defining sex as “PiV only” and her long-time vampire lover explained to her new vampire lover (both of them European and male) “it’s an American thing”.
I also like it when they take pleasure from eating or drinking even though they don’t need to; I think it’s because if I found myself again in a situation of “can eat a whole chicken in one sitting and not have it show” my attitude would, at least for a while, revert to what it was when I did have that 15yo metabolism.
I always assumed vampirism was their sex. It would seem odd for them to be interested in the more mundane kind.
Eli’s physical condition doesn’t preclude all sexual contact, just some forms.
And the scene between Hakan and Eli just before he goes off and gets himself captured is the key one.
Then, of course, the kiss she gives Oskar near the end.
Eli may not have any sexual desire herself, but she seems to indulge Hakan’s clear desire (either because she’s developed an emotional attachment to him, or because it keeps him loyal), and will likely similarly indulge Oskar when he’s no longer a 12 year old who doesn’t think you do anything special when you go steady (for the same reasons, though the emotional attachment possibility has stronger support).
Thanks for the recs, Trihs.
Either sexed or sexless vampires are fine, as long as they don’t act like angsty losers. The only time I’d accept that “oh noes I shouldn’t do this but I can’t stop myself” nonsense is if said character actually takes proactive measures to stop themselves instead of whining, such as by going out the next morning to get a nice tan.
Try the St. Germain series by Chelsea Quin Yarbro. There are a lot of the books now, and they vary somewhat in quality. The first one published, and one of the better ones, is Hotel Transylvania. St. Germain is a several thousand year old vampire who is one of the good guys, and although impotent has lots of sex (mainly oral) with women with relationships ranging from causal to centuries-long (a few of his girlfriends come back after death as vampires, not surprisingly). There is also a heavy element of historical and romance genres, which normally I’m not interested in but in this case it works for me.
This wiki has a list of the published novels and their place in time, just scroll down.
It most certainly was. The veritable father of Serbian linguistics and ethnography Vuk Karadzic made it very clear that a vampire (vukodlak, literally “wolf coat”) would go to great lengths to have sex with his widow, especially if she was young and pretty. See this articlefor a bit more detail.
I still have fond memories of The Vampire lovers from my youth, the lesbian vampire(Ingrid Pitt) romping with her potential victim in the bedroom, both as I recall with their tits out , though that could be wishful thinking embellishing memory.
It’s the real thing. Both were utterly beautiful. Very underrated adaptation of LeFanu’s Carmilla, too. Highly recommended.
If this is really a prime thing for you, *Vampyres *is available streaming on Netflix right now. It has no plot to speak of, but you might not notice.