# What does a Vampire look like?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-a-vampire-look-like/1013532
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** movies
**Created:** [January 28, 2025, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-a-vampire-look-like/1013532 "2025-01-28T14:27:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 4

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### Author: ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2025, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-a-vampire-look-like/1013532/61 "2025-01-30T10:42:57Z")

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> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Of course, the stage shows couldn’t let it stat there. Dracula came in the night and did borderline-sexy things to women (not men – Harker gets attacked by Dracula’s “wives”, not Dracula), “seducing” them to his desires. Even if Stoker didn’t intend his vampire to be sexily irresistible, he certainly laid the groundwork, so performers can hardly be blamed for taking the idea and running with it.

I suspect some of it is the changing attitudes of society towards sex. When sex was looked at as purely evil and predatory the “borderline sexual” Dracula was portrayed _as_ forceful, predatory and unsexy. A seductive Dracula was off the table since that would require that seduction might actually _work_, and admitting that women are sexual beings with agency of their own was unacceptable.

As society became somewhat less categorically hostile towards sex, especially female sexuality, vampires started to slide more towards the seductive archetype; especially as it became more acceptable to admit that women _are_ actually interested in sex and the vampire wouldn’t necessarily have to _force_ her into anything.

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