By Suzanne Carré

When we think of popular folk-lore vampires, we immediately think of fangs. It’s those well developed teeth that define the vampire like no other supernatural creature. Fangs for biting, designed for drinking blood, and to intimidate aggressors, are essential markers to proclaim the vampire presence. Pearly whites just don’t come with more sex appeal than a set of elongated cuspids.

But why? What is it about the vampire’s polished enamel that’s got us so rapt?

Symbols of Power

The vampire of myth, as developed in Western Europe, has long had an association with magic. By the Victorian era, the practitioner of the dark arts, the warlock in life, became the vampire after death. This modification of the myth, to explain the source of vampires and their supernatural powers, cemented the relationship between vampires and ultimate power. Now with control over all things in the natural world via magic, the vampire also controlled the balance of life and death through their bite.

And the vampire bite draws blood, the very essence of life, so with the ultimate kiss from the vampire there is a bridge between our fragile human existence and immortality. When the vampire uses his fangs to extract blood, he drains the life from his victim, and gains energy from the feed. But if the human survives the bite, to morph into a vampire themselves, the fangs then are vessels conveying more than blood. The fangs of the vampire ultimately represent the transition from mortal to preternatural, and the power to command the two states of reality.

Fangs and Sex

The vampire with his fangs set ready to bite a human neck is an image used in print and on film to envisage the sexual potential of the vampire. The process of the bite is highly erotic: especially in the choice of the neck being an erogenous zone, made all the more foreboding by the glint of sharp fangs, mingled with a tantalizing facet of the supernatural, and involving the forbidden act of drinking blood. It is for us the compulsion to connect with a raw sexuality we created in the late 1700′s, a mixture of our society’s fear of death and sex, which still resonates today.

That’s only part of what we get out of the bite, but what is it for the vampire? If the bite is erotic for us, then surely the act of biting is equally satisfying for the vampire. It is except for one problem— the bite is too dangerous a concept for us to admit to. In our uneasy relationship with the vampire and their  bite, we restrict the need of the vampire to feeding, with the primary blood lust being a symptom of evil. We try to deny it but we can’t avoid the sexual drive for the vampire seeking the bite.

In our vampire romances and movies, the bite smolders with an almost suppressed sexual overtones, all the more telling with the vampire invading our bedrooms to influence our dreams, and sup upon our necks. The swooning of the victim with the bite, the engorged veins flushing the neck, and the ecstatic union of vampire and human, has gained increasingly more blatant sexual potency in recent years. The bite is very much a symbol of sex, one that haunts us because it represents our primeval, repressed sexual urges. No matter how sexy we make the vampire, we still haven’t conquered all our fears of this dental penetration.

Sexual Pleasure and Pain

It is the thought of the vampire bite that sent chills through generations of vampire fans. In the 1700′s, the bite represented the uncertain and essentially unattainable romantic death. In the 1800′s, the vampire bite became more associated with the reality of dying from disease, both physically or morally. In the post-Freudian world, the bite suddenly became painful, and the purpose of the vampire bite changed from vehicle of death to one of perversion. In the late 20th century, the sexual awakening of the vampire reinforced this connection. When analyzing the attraction of vampires in our modern world, this mixing of ultimate pleasure with incredible pain has the experts puzzled.

I have often asked myself about the pleasure/pain explanation and I find it wanting. The prime reason is our willingness to submit to the vampire. The correlation between the excuses for seeking pain in punishment, shame, or degradation are not apparent in the vampire-human relationship. Sex with the supernatural bad boys is wanted and set with equally determined donors. The perfect females are the vampire sex-goddesses set to teach men what it’s all about, or seduce like no other girl can, but they act in power plays more than judgment roles. If we were true victims of our sexual inadequacies, we would beg the vampire to stop, not beg for the vampire to start.

The Function of Fangs

In my novel, the vampire fangs are highly sensitive and using them allows the vampire to derive sexual pleasure. Engaging the fangs in a bite, even without drawing blood, derives immense pleasure for the vampire, so they welcome the bite to their own necks, as well as seek to attain it. Pressure on the fangs when piercing stimulates, forming an incentive to involve the fangs in feeding, for increasing the sensations during coitus, and simply as the ultimate kiss to their lover. In attaining their satisfaction, the fangs prove to be the center of vampire sensual gratification, because in relaxing from their climax, the fangs resonate with a pleasant vibration— a signal to the vampire they have attained a mind-blowing orgasm. To my vampires, the fangs are prized erogenous zones and symbols of their sexual capacity.

So why do we imagine our dreams with fangs? We all have our personal reasons for such fantasies but when it comes to inviting in the vampire, it’s not a simple date with the supernatural we are seeking. We want the romance of the bite, the power sharing when the vampire indulges in the bite, and we crave to participate— all so the vampire will welcome us into their preternatural domain.

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