My, What Big Fangs You Have: Response to Vampire Stories

This comment contains spoilers pertaining to Twilight, the Sookie Stackhouse series, and the Anita Blake series.

When I was a teenager, I was reading Anne Rice’s vampire novels and role-playing in Ravenloft, so for me personally it’s no stretch to maintain my interest in reading vampire-oriented fiction. I’m pleased, too, with the mainstreaming of vampires, mostly in urban fantasy because it means I have more choices. But I am curious about the cultural reasons behind this surge in vampires in urban fantasy and paranormal romance. (Werewolves, wizards, and faeries are also getting a solid burst of popularity, but I’m going to start with the vamps and see where it leads.)

The earliest vampire stories probably emerged as allegorical warnings, perhaps meant for young girls specifically but perhaps geared for a general audience. Early vampires were much more scary than sexy, and the death by nocturnal exsanguination element was consistent. The idea of a creature who lives by stealing the blood of its victims is certainly evocative; for people without modern medical knowledge, vampire bites might have explained symptoms like paleness, lethargy, and plain old death.

Vampire stories evolved into sexual allegory, with Bram Stoker’s Dracula most famously exploring the sexy side of vampirism. The commentary about men who take advantage of women sexually was appropriate in many societies in which girls’ chastity and virginity were sacrosanct. Of course, losing one’s virginity before marriage was considered as bad as death.

Anne Rice is surely responsible for propagating the erotic modern vampire. She, like her Queen of the Damned, can count herself mother of many, many fictional vampires in urban fantasy. Edward Cullen from Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series, Jean-Claude from Laurel K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, and Bill Compton from Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series (and hence the Trueblood series on HBO) are the example vampires to which I will refer.

Sex is a pivotal element for each of my example vampires and their human female mates. In two of the three cases, the vampire is responsible for his lover’s first sexual experience, and in the exception, Jean-Claude and Anita, Jean-Claude is Anita’s second lover and then only after a very long period of self-imposed abstinence. This would indicate that the vampires represent, not just the antiquated idea of “lost” virginity, but a sexual awakening for the female characters. Vampires are well-suited as symbols for such awakenings; they are beautiful and physically irresistible, as indeed sexual urges often are, though American culture would not have it so for women. But vampires are also dark and hidden from the daytime, mundane world, which again is apt for a country where mentions of sex and the female sex drive are often taboo.

A few years ago I would have argued that women felt a particular affinity for vampire lover fantasies because they are free from the concerns one would have with a human lover: disease and pregnancy. Both Hamilton and Meyer managed to muddy those waters, most prominently in regards to pregnancy.

Perhaps the aspect of vampire boyfriends that resonants most with modern female readers is their nocturnal habits and daytime hibernation. During the day, the vampires are completely and entirely removed from the picture. But, unlike human men, they aren’t at work, or hanging out with their male friends, or out philandering. They are unconscious, asleep, and unavailable for good or ill. Particularly for Sookie, this “dead time” affords her continued self-reliance; in fact, with great frequency the vampires are dependent on her during the day. In the Twilight series, the only one of the three series in which the vampires can be active during the day (although they cannot be exposed to direct sunlight), Meyer goes through great pains to point out that Edward is busy focusing on artistic and intellectual endeavors when he’s not around Bella. Bella is primary, so much so that Edward evens sits in her room and watches her sleep on many nights.

Edward is actually an exception to the rule in certain other regards as well: although he does finally agree to have sex with Bella once they are properly wed, he’s generally opposed to sex because of his idea, which does turn out to be wholly justified, that he will hurt Bella. In Edward, we see a repudiation of Bella’s sex drive and a fairly scary notion that equates sex and violence for poor, human Bella. The domestic violence parallels in regard to Edward and Bella’s first sexual encounter are inescapable; she is covered in bruises, and he is horribly contrite, though, of course, he didn’t mean to do it. Yikes. But, rather than explore that particularly heinous line of thought, I’m going to take a look at Edward’s place in the cult of abstinence, a social phenomenon described extensively by others, including Trey Parker and Matt Stone in the recent episode of South Park entitled “The Ring.” Also, Jacob Clifton, sublime reviewer on Television Without Pity, notes about Edward (he also indicts the Jonas Brothers, by the way): “I get that they’re, like, sex methadone, but it seems like a dangerous precedent to teach your kids to sublimate their sexuality in that way…” (Read the rest of Jacob’s comment; it’s both hilarious and insightful, though be forewarned that it’s embedded in an American Idol recap.)

At any rate, I must conclude that vampires in urban fantasy are allowing American women to engage in a kind of discourse about sex that struggles to happen in other kinds of media. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that vampire fiction taps into unconscious ideas about sexuality and is finding a mainstream following because it hides the difficult conversations behind fangs and coffins, which, it turns out, is where we like them.