By Suzanne Carré

The vampire of the modern imagination didn’t just appear in the mid 19th century. The vampire of fiction is not based entirely on Slavic folklore as commonly supposed. Vampires of the Eastern Europeans were ghoulish entities feeding off the blood of the living but surprisingly, they didn’t usually have fangs to do this. The fanged vampire is a culmination of pagan gods and medieval witchcraft. The vampire we love today has evolved over centuries, gaining with each change new properties. Unlike most myths, the vampire has not surrendered the remarkable traits it acquired over the ages—that is of course until the 20th century.

The past 100 years have dramatically shaped the vampire so even devotees of the vampire cult complain they no longer recognize the idol of their admiration. The denial of certain vampire characteristics is due to a number of changes in the 20th century, and I hope to explain them all. But to do that, I need to focus on the really challenging behaviors, the bad boys of the preternatural domain get up to, and upset writers enough to leave them out.

Possibly the most revolting habit of vampires is drinking blood. From the first mention of such a need in literature of the 1700′s, the partaking of blood from the living has both intrigued and disgusted us. The horror element satisfies that part of the brain that loves to be scared. The repulsive idea turns our stomachs, to such a degree some radical solutions have been offered to alleviate the lust of blood. So lets look at vampires doing what vampires do best—gorge on blood—our blood.

Blood Lust

The Victorians were not the innocent prudes we think they were. They may have had a problem with sex (ha, what’s changed?) but they were into horror—the more gore the better. Just like we can’t seem to get enough of true crime stories on the news, documentaries, or in print, so did the population of English subjects under Queen Victoria. Literacy was quite high for the time but those who couldn’t read had a rich vocabulary to comprehend the fancy words often used by flamboyant writers to sensationalize their reports. It meant there existed a wide audience hungry for a retelling of the worst in human behavior.

When we think of Victorian criminals, Jack the Ripper is infamous. But he was one of many bloodthirsty murderers to fill the tabloids of the time. To grab an audience, there was nothing to compare with the gruesome details of a murder. It is not surprising then that any theme encompassing the elements of blood and death roused interest and generated excitement. So when the vampire entered the new fiction genre of Gothic Horror, the reception was a following more thirsty for blood than the fanciful myth.

Fangs and Sex

Personally, I think the Victorians got the idea of the vampire bite more than contemporary vampire followers. The bite is sexual, and it forms a blend of the insatiable curiosity over blood, kindled from the Romantic period, and the repression of sexual pleasure in “enjoying it too much.” Sexual confessions of the Victorian period relate the intensity of sensations derived by the love-bite to the point of obtaining blood. The partner who inflicted the bite then played the vampire and consumed the blood of their lover by tenderly licking the wound. For some who report the necessity in their relationships, drinking blood this way was the only guarantee of orgasm.

Although the reports are rare, and not necessarily because they were unusual, they provide a reason for why vampire tales ignited more than curiosity and represented more than just a good read. The vampire was a sexy beast by the way he/she preyed upon the victim. This combination of blood and sex is beautifully illustrated by Bram Stoker in the captivating scene where the “brides” of Dracula feed from his protagonist. Under these circumstances it is not difficult to see why the novel was so successful.

Novels like Dracula, published in the 1800′s, pushed boundaries but only to permissible limits. Unfortunately in the century to follow, writers either were totally uncomfortable with the sexual overtones or missed the concept entirely (and from my survey on the internet some are shocked over the suggestion of the bite and sex). Vampires feed from blood, not because of the Slavic myth but because the original goddesses of fertility drank blood. Blood and sex are inextricably linked, and our reproductive cycles demonstrate this. We willing give power to the vampire during the bite, not only by yielding, but essentially in all the life-force and sexual potential blood represents.

The Era of the No-Sex Bite

Modern vampires tend not to bite, or they raid a blood bank, or they use artificial blood, or they pick on drug-addicts, or they sedate their victims, or they do anything to avoid hurting us—including giving up their vampire existence. Oh dear! Vampires are not politically correct so having them convert to a vegetarian diet or apologize for their blood drinking habit is not going to make our relationship with the supernatural any easier. I think I’d sleep better at night knowing there is a descent vampire out there—somewhere.

We need more fangs, with vampires drinking more blood, and from a lot more necks. The only way to keep the vampire alive is to truly feed our imagination with more of the bite. We need to get in touch with what the bite means and feast metaphorically with the vampires of our minds. The eroticism of the vampire bite was not lost on the Victorians, and in their reports of sexual deviation, there is no further violence past the drawing of blood. Having fantasies are healthy, not necessarily including vampires, while suppressing them is a concept more scary than any horror story.

From what I see in the trend of denying the vampire the right to bite, we don’t just stop the sexy beast from feeding, we deny a part of ourselves. The problem I think is that modern writers stare long into the face of the vampire and they don’t like what they see. Vampires are mirrors into our souls, the darkest and foreboding recesses of our being, so cutting out the heart of a vampire is a form of self-sacrifice. The modern trend is to make the vampire softer, sweeter, and hopefully all the best we’d like to be—but where does the vampire go? Once the romance is played then there is no further use of the vampire, and the reality of love affairs comes crashing down around us. Then that particular form of the vampire perishes.

My vampires are intellectual, calculating, and have no qualms with killing if they see the need for it. They harvest blood because the only value humans have is they are a good source of food. The vampires in my novel are highly sexed, enigmatic, but at the same time liberating. They are there to make us think before they invite us to dream.

So how do you see the vampire bite?

Today, we might squirm at the bite but we are more liberal with the sex. So next is another bad thing vampires get up to—they seduce us, especially threatening men by conquering the hearts of women.

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