Vampires...well, there's the whole sex/death connection, which goes way back, plus the youthful immortality, plus the exchange of bodily fluids, if you want to get technical, plus...well, most people seem to think that Dracula's attack on Mina Harker in Bram Stoker's book was meant to be a repressed Victorian metaphor for rape.
I think it's because vampires are superhuman, but so strictly bounded; werewolves are very hard to defeat without overwhelming force, but there are a million ways to put off a vampire. They can't come into your home unless you invite them, is the major thing. So, yeah, huge power/control/death metaphors, and the exchange/giving of life thing. It ties in very neatly to sex. But then, it also depends on the writer; most tend to make their vampires sexy, but I've read a few whose vampires are mostly scary-eww monsters. The best example I can think of are the vampires in Robin mcKinley's "Sunshine". While there is some limited sexual attraction (though that's mainly part of working out a friendship) for the most part they are very "other" and almost asexual. As well as scary monsters.
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ninetydegrees
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on 2005-07-27 08:10 am (UTC)I think it's because vampires are superhuman, but so strictly bounded; werewolves are very hard to defeat without overwhelming force, but there are a million ways to put off a vampire. They can't come into your home unless you invite them, is the major thing. So, yeah, huge power/control/death metaphors, and the exchange/giving of life thing. It ties in very neatly to sex. But then, it also depends on the writer; most tend to make their vampires sexy, but I've read a few whose vampires are mostly scary-eww monsters. The best example I can think of are the vampires in Robin mcKinley's "Sunshine". While there is some limited sexual attraction (though that's mainly part of working out a friendship) for the most part they are very "other" and almost asexual. As well as scary monsters.