Sexuality, Homosexuality and Sexual Predation

WARNING! This article contains many details of a sexual nature.

Introduction

The vampire is sexy and seduces us. How many women who get bitten in films and TV shows don't moan? Something tells me it is sounds of both pain and pleasure.

Everybody is fascinated by vampires. It has to do with our unconscious feelings about physical desire as much as psychic things. To be bitten- it's very physical, very erotic. The desire to be blood-sucked is actually very natural' Werner Herzog

Sexuality and vampires is such a popular topic. Vampires today in popular fiction are sexy and lustful, they can be great lovers both sweet and dangerous at the same time. Back in the 19th century the vampire was portrayed as the sexual predator or deviant. This piece will explore the themes of sex and homosexuality in vampires.

Vampires as sexual predators

In gypsy folklore, the vampire was believed to be a sexual entity. The male  vampire was thought to have such a powerful sexual appetite that this would bring him back from the grave. His first act was usually to return to his widow, with whom he engaged in sexual intercourse. The idea of the dead returning to claim a living lover was a popular topic in European folklore.

The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker portrays the vampire Count as a sexual predator who bites young women and 'corrupts' them. The fact that he bites them means that his fangs have 'penetrated' the neck of these women and when they become vampires themselves they are monstrous, seductive, dangerous sexual females- a threat to men in the patriarchal Victorian society.

Lucy falls victim and pays the ultimate price for her sexual nature as a vampire, to be staked by a group of men- the stake representing a penis.
The three vampire women in Dracula attack Jonathan Harker. He is almost sexually assaulted by them before Dracula drives them away.

                                                                      The brides


In Dracula, vampire attacks are literally sexual attacks. In Chapter 21, Dracula comes into Mina and Jonathan's room. The vampire threatens to kill Harker if Mina screams. He bites her on the throat, drinks her blood then slices his own chest and forces poor helpless Mina to drink from his chest. He grabs her head and places her face on his chest. This can be seen as a perversion of the mother feeding her baby but to others it is clearly a scene of sexual abuse. Dracula is chased away by the men who enter the room, he mocks them and assures Mina that he would make her 'flesh of my flesh'.

'Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin  man, clad in black. His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we all recognized the Count- in every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left hand he held both Mrs. Harker's hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his  bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man's bare breast which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. (Stoker, 325-326)

The poor Mina was sexually attacked, she was forced to drink Dracula's 'bodily fluid'. This scene is as disturbing as an account today of a woman who fell victim to a sexual predator.

The TV show Supernatural episode titled 'Live free or Twi hard' makes fun of the Twilight phenomenon and deals with vampires in a gross and funny way. While investigating vampire attacks, Sam and Dean search a girl's room who is obsessed with vampires. Dean picks up a book and describes the cover: 'He's watching her sleep, how is that not rapy?'

As mentioned before in the Dracula articlie, Lucy was visited by Dracula, maybe she was 'raped' or she was 'asking for it'.


So we've mentioned the scary side of vampires, they can be rapists. Now let's talk about vampires being sexy lovers.

Let's talk about sex with vampires

In Anne Rice's novels especially Interview with the Vampire, the vampires are sexless, there is no mention of sexual acts in the novel. The suggestion works better. Still in the novel which was published in 1976 during the hippy sexual liberation era, the vampires seem to have lost the ability to engage in normal human sex and do not procreate. They also don't have sex with their own kind. It is evident that Anne Rice's vampires are impotent.

Today in TV shows and films the vampire is portrayed as enjoying a life of excesses and orgies. In Buffy, the vampires have sex with their own kind and with humans. They have not lost their libido. Buffy has sex with Angel but that turns him evil, she then has sex with another vampire, Spike.

                                                                 Buffy and Spike

In True Blood, Sex with vampires is shown excessively, when the vampire climaxes, he must bite theneck of his or her human partner. For male vampires, the fangs coming out during sex are a representation of the erection.

In The Vampire Diaries, sex is also shown between vampires and humans but not too excessively (the show being for young adults mostly) there is mention that vampires are infertile, this is perfect as they don't require the use of protection or birth control.

However in Twilight it seems that vampires are not infertile as we thought. Edward has sex with Bella only after marriage and she falls pregnant with a vampire/human hybrid.

Homosexuality

Now that we've mentioned vampire sex, and human with vampire sex, let's talk about homosexuality. Since the vampire lives under no moral codes, he can choose any sexuality he wishes.

The very first mention in 19th century fiction of homosexuality was the short story Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.
 Carmilla was such a sensation. It portrayed a passion between two girls in a euphemistic language of the day, but it was quite clearly sexual in nature. In an age where young women spent a great deal of time together, often without male company, such feelings were bound to evoke great curiosity, particularly from female readers.

This aspect of the vampire myth, particularly in its portrayal of lust as a deathly form of greed, in which the aroused lover wants to consume the loved one, had never before been expressed so directly in gothic fiction. From this point on, the vampire becomes an iconic image of the sexually voracious individual, whether male or female, seeking to destroy the objects of its passion by feasting on its flesh and drinking its blood. In this way the myth begins to explore and express the controlling destructive aspect of human sexuality. What was particularly shocking about Carmilla was that this covert discussion took place in the taboo context of lesbian love, and that the author attributed such intense sexual  feelings to women as well as men. Le Fanu was influenced by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Christabel" which has a similar story.

Carmilla was to have a lasting legacy in vampire literature. It greatly influenced  the most famous novel of the genre, Bram Stoker's Dracula.


Louis and Lestat's relationship

The first suggestion of homosexuality is the famous coffin scene in the novel. Somehow the vampires chose to sleep in coffins, a cliché that has been altogether rejected in the 21^st century. Lestat realizes that he hasn’t prepared a coffin for his new ‘friend’ Louis so they must share one. Louis refuses at first asking to go in the closet instead. Many excuses are uttered by Louis as to why he can’t sleep in a coffin, he is claustrophobic and dreads having to share a ‘bed’ with Lestat, another ‘male’. Obviously Louis could just say ‘No way 
man, I’m not sharing a bed with you, I’m not gay!’ But he relents. Lestat says ‘and you will get in on top of me.’ Louis describes the experience ‘I lay face down on him… filled with a  with a distaste for being so close to him’

 Louis has his very first homosexual experience since becoming a vampire, of course Lestat did bite him first, so we could say Lestat came on to him first and kissed him.Louis learns to feed but is unable to attack the slaves of his plantation so Lestat takes over and offers him one slave’s neck. Louis describes his first experience: ‘ the sucking mesmerized me; the warm struggling of the man was soothing to the tension of my hands.. I was drowsing, falling into weightlessness. Louis’s experience is pleasurable, he experiences a ‘rush’ and drug like high. The biting of the neck and sucking the blood is somewhat orgasmic.
Louis and Lestat’s relationship is ‘complicated’, they are companions living together, they certainly don’t like each other but must live together. There is some kind of co-dependency between them. They are perhaps a gay couple in denial. In the novel Louis expresses clearly what he thinks of Lestat ‘I did not like Lestat at all. I was far from being his equal yet, but I was infinitely closer to him than I had been before the death of my body. But before I died, Lestat was absolutely the most overwhelming experience I’d ever had.’ Maybe Louis liked it somehow!

Louis and Lestat are a couple and have specific roles in a relationship. ‘Louis is feminized, presented as passive, delicate and sensitive, and speaks about his feelings at some length. Lestat’s masculinity is strongly emphasized; the consummate hunter, he is aggressive, arrogant and unfeeling.’ (David Punter, Glennis Byron, The Gothic, 2004)

Like the typical gay man, the vampire goes out at night and hunts, he must ‘hide’ and stay discreet. He is promiscuous and can ‘infect’ others. There could be a mention of the fear of STDs here such as AIDS. ‘While the homosexual has continued to be figured as what threatens the ‘norm’ in some 20^th and 21^st century fiction, the vampire has nevertheless become a significant site of resistance for queer and lesbian theory, and traditionally texts have been seen to offer opportunities for queer critical rewritings. As often observed, the vampire is particularly well adapted to signify ‘deviant’ sexuality.’ (Punter, David and Byron, Glennis, The Gothic, 2004)

One interesting aspect of the vampire’s lifestyle is the idea of gender. The modern vampire does not select his victims based on gender necessarily, gender is no longer important to him. In the old films and novels, especially Dracula, the male vampire attacks women and the female vampire attacks men. This has been completely rejected today. The vampire attacks whomever he wishes. ‘Vampires in modern vampire fiction do not seem to differentiate between male or female lovers/victims; they lie down with women and men as the occasion provides. Most can be characterized, if anything, as bisexual. Homosexual or heterosexual seem irrelevant to the nature of vampirism, and unduly limiting. Vampires as they appear in fiction today transcend the bonds of gender as they have transcended the bonds of mortality’ (Candace Benefiel, ‘Blood Relations: The Gothic Perversion of the Nuclear Family in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire’. The Journal of Popular culture Vol. 38, No. 2, 2004)

The subject of sexual intercourse like in humans is never present or mentioned in Anne Rice’s novels.  The killing and feeding are enough erotic pleasures for the vampires. The fangs are ‘phallic’ as they ‘penetrate’ the skin. It could be argued that the vampires no longer require sex because logically their sexual organs are dead, no longer viable and not necessary for procreation. Therefore no longer abound for sexual procreation, the vampire no longer needs a sexual appetite. He compensates by attacking and biting. What the vampire needs that is similar to human needs is companionship. Lestat needed a companion and so turned Louis, they may appear as a gay couple but they do not engage in lovemaking. ‘Lestat and Louis can never really make love; they can only play at making house.’ ( Haggerty, George)

Like many established gay couples who wish to adopt children, Lestat and Louis get the chance at playing the roles of parents and forming a family. Louis discovered a weak little girl mourning over a dead mother and fed on her, horrified, he fled the scene, Lestat found her and brought her home. The little Claudia is turned by Lestat, he did this to keep Louis as he was threatening to leave. Lestat wishes to form a family and keep his relationship with Louis from falling apart. ‘Claudia the vampire, is made specifically to provide a companion for Louis. The whole scene reads like a couple having a child in an attempt to make a failing relationship more viable.’ (Candace Benefiel)

The two male vampires have now a vampire ‘daughter’, just like a gay couple who adopt. Interesting how it was so simple for them to ‘adopt’ when in society today it is complicated for gay couples to have children.

 There has never been any child-vampire as fascinating as Claudia, a little girl of angelic beauty who kills her victims as easily as playing with dolls. A naïve creature, sensual, perverse, generous, adorable and terrifying, Claudia is a unique character. Louis loves her as a parent. He has the role of the ‘mother’ and he cares for her and shows her love. Lestat has the role of the ‘father’, instructing her how to kill. ‘There was much pleasure in caring for her’. ‘She was my companion, my pupil… Father and daughter. Lover and Lover’. Pedophilia and incest begin to appear here: ‘Louis’s relationship with Claudia, the child vampire, threatens to break taboos in several ways. First they are, in a vampiric sense, parent and daughter, therefore the relationship is incestuous. Second, although she has the emotions of a woman, the Lolita-like Claudia has the body of a girl, therefore the relationship is also pedophilic.’ (Bartlett, Wayne and Idriceanu, Flavia, Legends of Blood: the Vampire in History and Myth. 2005)

Claudia sees Lestat and Louis as both her fathers and lovers. She is a five year old girl who fully matures into a woman trapped inside a child’s body. ‘She was never to grow up… she was to be the demon child forever.’ Family drama is approaching here, like many couples who adopt children, when a child grows up and starts acting up, chaos ensues. Claudia asks many difficult questions about her origins and about vampires. She becomes cold towards Lestat and blames him for turning her and making her like this. Unable to grow up, doomed to remain a child forever Claudia’s rebelliousness is similar to the behavior of an adolescent, turning this into the quite unconventional domestic family drama. Her rebelliousness can also be seen as a feminist rebellion against patriarchal society. While in many other novels and films vampirism allows 

females to revolt, in this novel however ‘Vampirism is no release from patriarchy, but a perpetuation of it… Instead of being released by vampirism, she is trapped in a mock-family as self-enclosed and strangling.’ (Auerbach, Nina, Our Vampires Ourselves, 1995)

Claudia becomes aware that she is a plaything, a doll, Louis even describes her so ‘Doll, doll, I called her. That’s what she was. A magic doll. Laughter and infinite intellect and then the round-cheeked face, the bud-mouth. It is clear that Lestat and Louis are not perfect fathers, they poorly deal with Claudia’s rebelliousness while in human families a child is either punished, controlled or talked to. A human adolescent who asks about ‘the birds and bees’ usually gets some good guidance and answers, but Claudia who asks about her origins and vampires, gets no answer and is ignored. One can only understand why she is so angry.

The vampiric family is an interesting image in Gothic fiction. It is not an average family as this one is semi incestuous. Such a family can be seen in Stoker’s Dracula with the count and his daughters or lovers. In trying to live a perfect happy family life, Louis and Lestat discover to their horror that their precious little ‘doll’ daughter changes in her mind but not in her body, resulting in the breaking of the family circle.

Conclusion

Vampires are more than just monsters, they become metaphors for all the forbidden, immoral, taboos and illicit sexual desires and behavior humanity may seek and desire. Modern vampires are devices, motifs for all those. In modern gothic fiction, vampires are romantic heroes readers sympathize with and modern day young ‘alternative’ couples could wish to become like them. Anne Rice has portrayed her vampires as Byronic tragic heroes who go through existential phases, appear homosexual and sexually deviant but do not engage in sexual acts, only in some metaphorical sense. Rice’s vampires can only embody the image of the ideal gay family.