I have my own ideas about this, but I’d like to hear yours.
The TV is on but the sound is off. There was some random show about vampires, and it was just dripping with sexuality. Why don’t we get the same charge out of zombies? Or do we?
Vampires want us for our bodies while zombies value our braaaiiins.
I’ve always loved vampires. They are my favorite supertnatural creature, but I don’t find them the least bit sexual.
I don’t find them sexy either. I have to guess it’s because they can’t get pregnant.
Vampires never used to be sexy. They used to be bestial, the embodiment of the dark side of man’s nature.
I can’t say this for sure, but I’m pretty sure the blame for Vampires=sexy can be laid pretty heavily at Anne Rice’s feet. Vampirism is an allegory for sex in a lot of ways. Giving yourself utterly to someone, the vulnerability of the bite, the penetration of the fangs, the exchanging of fluids. The fact that most current vampire myths have some degree of bond forming between a vampire and (his) prey also speaks to the (mostly) feminine mindset that wants to see that if you just open yourself to him, he’ll be inextricably linked to you forever.
Great post, but I’m not sure if I agree with the quoted bit. I’m too lazy to look up which came first, Anne Rice or Fright Night, but Fright Night had a lot of sexuality. As did Bela Lugosi. Even the original Nosferatu (and the remake) had some sexuality, in a really creepy way.
Interview With the Vampire predated Fright Night by about a decade.
However, The Vampyre and Carmilla predate them both by more than a century.
Oh, and quite a bit less obscure…Dracula isn’t exactly a poster boy for the ‘non-sexy’ vampire idea - Drac himself, in the novel, is a bestial thing, but also seductive, and the females who attempt to kill Harker early on are far from unappealing. This, however, doesn’t apply to any of the well known movie version, except for Nosferatu, which made Orlok more bestial and unpleasant than Dracula. [Edit - to clarify, by this I mean the Universal and Hammer movies make Dracula undeniably a desirable being, not just strangely seductive, despite his vaguely inhuman countenance.]
Is vampire sexiness a masculine sort of sexiness? Human females being attracted to male vampires feels like a way more popular meme than human males being attracted to female vampires.
The overt sexualisation - not just “the wolf in sheeps’ clothing” style, but the sexy, rockstar, girls want to be with him and so do boys androgeny personified sex god vampire is a pretty Ricean creation.
Earlier vampires had an appeal despite their bestial nature. The hormone-flooded vampires of now had a definite if not genesis, then real boost from Rice’s boy-love-fests.
It’s all about penetration.
Being bitten is usually presented as being pretty orgasmic.
Lighting and stage sets.
“Welcome to my home. Come on your own free will. Go in peace, and leave something of that happiness that you bring.”
–the count’s welcome to his guest at his castle.
Quoting from Stephen King’s nonfiction book Danse Macabre:
I think it’s because of the taboo nature. Let’s face it, being in a relationship with somebody who’s dead falls well outside of social norms. And that invokes the Romeo and Juliet syndrome - only a love that is truly great can overcome that amount of social disapproval. So people back-rationalize it and decide that any love that causes that amount of social disapproval must be truly great.
Vampires are sexy to women because they get to sleep with powerful strangers and not be responsible for it. In fact, it may make you the heroine.
Zombies are “sexy” to men because we get to take people and shoot them in the face and not be responsible for it. In fact, it may make you the hero.
It may be more popular now, but there have been sexy female vampires in popular culture since at least “Carmilla” (1872), and the female vampires in Dracula (1897) were overtly sexy in a way the Count was not. In Dracula the appeal of Dracula’s brides and vampirized Lucy are pretty obvious: they’ll be beautiful forever, they don’t have the usual Victorian hang-ups about the body/physical contact/Christian morality, and they *vant *to put their big red lips on you. The title character in “Carmilla” has all that, plus she makes out with pretty girls.
I’d speculate that more relaxed social attitudes towards sex and easy access to a wide variety of pornography means men today are less interested in metaphors about hot, dirty, bi-curious nymphos than they were in the 19th century.
I don’t find vampires sexy; I find them disgusting.
No wonder I feel so out-of-touch with popular culture nowadays. Every other movie, book or TV show is about vampires, which makes me want to throw up.
Vampires represent giving in, submitting to the power of another, losing yourself to something bigger, better, and more immortal than you would ever be on your own. So yeah, it’s pretty much the same thing as falling in love. And it always has been. Watch Bela Lugosi’s performance, (or Max Shreck’s) and you’ll see that it’s always been there.