Question: Why are vampires so sexy, and why are they so very much in vogue at the moment? Of all the ghoulish undead, I believe vampires are the only ones we lust after, but why? Were they perhaps the first to realise that the neck was an erogenous zone?
If you haven’t noticed that vampires are hot shit right now, you must be living on another planet. Whether it’s sexually frustrated teenagers in the Twilight books or rampantly sexual frolickers in HBO’s True Blood, vamps are everywhere.
In popular culture, vampires have long been depicted as suave, good-looking gentlemen, likely to whisk a woman off her feet. True, this is generally so they can have their wicked, bloodthirsty way with them, but somewhere along the way the women tend to forget this and fall in love them (some women really will do anything for a date).
The main issue that arises is a feminist one – is the love that women have for vampires inherently sado-masochistic? I remember reading an article that argued the Twilight books were hugely misogynistic, presenting us with an abusive relationship in which the female offers herself up to her vampire lover, heedless of what he may do to her. Whilst I felt this reading to be a little far-fetched, the journalist had a point –finding love with a man whose primal instinct is to murder you does not spell out “healthy relationship”.
This feminism vs. vampire issue was almost thwarted by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show which featured a kick-ass (literally) female character sent to vanquish lifeless lotharios. Sure, she fell in love with one of her targets on the way (she’s only human), but her love was pure and wholesome – his name was Angel for Christ’s sake. This was all well and good, until Angel left to make his own spin-off show and the writers had to find a new love interest. Cue another brilliantly inspired name: Spike. Peroxide of hair and clad entirely in leather, you knew this boy was bad news. Their relationship was a hell of a lot hotter than anything she ever had with Angel, but it definitely sent feminism back a few notches.
So we come to True Blood, by far the best thing on television at the moment. There’s so much sex in this that you might as well be watching soft-core porn, but at least the women are now on equal footing – yes, we still want to shag the vampires, but at least in this show it’s a recreational sport, and one that’s enjoyed as much by the women as the vampires themselves. They’re known as “fang bangers” (how brilliant is that?) and they certainly know what they’re doing. Now, if all the female characters that sleep with vampires could just stop winding up dead, we’d really be on to something…
