Consider vampires...

[charliesmum]

We got our lovely fast computer back, and it only cost $80 for a new hard drive. So yay and stuff.

Charlie had a great 2nd day with the new minder - she took him to the pool, where he got to play with his best friend. I'm so pleased Charlie is finally having a real summer holiday.

The boyfriend played with Charlie in the pool, and is a lovely young man. Gonna be a teacher.

Anyway, I had a vampire dream last night, probably because I just read a Lauren K. Hamilton book about vampires, but it also occured to me that I dream of vampires when I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed. I think vampires symbolise to me the act of letting go, of having someone else be in control, in charge, and then I don't have to make any decisions. I was wondering if that was part of why they have such a lasting appeal to writers and movie makers and people who like to wear black alot.

It's really odd. Zombies aren't sexy at all. Werewolves, well, Lupin maybe, but over all they are either savage monsters or tragic figures. Ghosts are either scary or vengeful, or both, but never particularly sexy, but Vampires get all the girls. (or boys if you're Anne Rice)I think it does all come back to control, or losing control, which frankly is what sex is about in some ways.

What do you think?

Comments

[cactus-wren.livejournal.com]

What I want to know is which LKH book did you read, and did you like it? I've read all of her books, the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series. You must have read one of the early AB ones since you said "Werewolves, well, Lupin maybe, but over all they are either savage monsters or tragic figures. ", because were's come into play alot further along in her series.

Glad Charlie is finally getting some fun out of his summer - and his sitter, lol. I'm happy she's turned out better than the last one.

[wolfma.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! for Charlie!

That's an interesting point about vampires.

[october31st.livejournal.com]

Vampires, eh? Well, off the top of my head:

-They always seem to be attacking young, virginal girls
-Being immortal, they always seem to have accumulated a lot of money and status along the way, and therefore seem to be impeccably groomed, have the best of everything, live in mansions, etc.
- There's a sense of control with them. Whereas zombies and werewolves just sort of... lunge at your throat, they always seem to be exceptionally well-mannered, polite, seductive to the point of being hypnotic. They know exactly how to behave to win you over. THEN they lunge at your throat :P
-Less messy. Zombies eat your brains, werewolves savage you, vampires just bite your neck hard enough to draw blood. Kinda kinky ;)

That's all I could come up with, but I know what you mean... there's a weird sort of attraction to them, if in a rather dark, sadomasochistic way.

[deviantauthor.livejournal.com]

Vampires are just a lot of fun to write because you can do anything with them.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

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.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

I read a Dan Savage column about a guy who had a zombie fetish. And I know they make "horror porn", which kind of disgusts me because it conflates sex with fear and I find that disturbing.

That said, I've totally studied the business about why vampires are perceived as being sexy, and I can't remember a lot of the details. Just that vampire fiction, if I'm not mistaken, began with LeFanu and other writers around that era, and in books at that time - at least in American books written by men, which was obviously most of them - women were generally perceived either as perfect household goddesses or as whoreish temptresses. Female sexuality was demonized very literally in the form of vampires.

But I can't remember what's cause and what's effect here. Were women written as vampires because vampires were sexy and dangerous, or did vampires become sexy and dangerous after LeFanu got the ball rolling? You'd have to ask chavvah. I'm forgetting so many details I might as well just be making shit up.