There is something incredibly seductive about darkness. We
generally associate darkness with the animalistic desire of the human condition,
the seedy underbelly of humanity as it were. As a society, we expect activities
outside of “normal,” acceptable social behavior to take place in the darkest
corners. With few exceptions (yes there are more instances than the Twilight and Blade series of vampires’ ability to day-walk), vampires are seen
as creatures of the night and are thus associated with darkness.
The liberality of the vampire adds layers of meaning to the
mythos. Vampires are often depicted as unbridled desire. They take what they
want without considering the consequences. This association with liberality
can, in part, explain the vampire mythos’ place in the social trends. For
example, some sociologists have noted an uptick of “vampire as villain” during
times when cultural conservatism is at its peak while the romanticization of
the vampire often occurs during times when cultural liberalism is at its peak. Why
might we see this trend?
Vampires epitomize the connection between death drive and
sexuality as characterized first by Sabina Spielrien. In contrast to the characterization
these drives as distinct, separate impulses by Freud later in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Spielrien
saw the desire to destroy and create as inextricably connected drives. The
drive towards destruction cannot be separated from the drive towards
reproduction. Spielrien saw sexual union as the destruction of two in order to
create one entity. Sexual expression thus
results in the figurative death of the individual.
Vampires personify death and sensuality. Let’s consider the
key component of most vampire myth: consumption of blood. I won’t look at the
implications of the “blood as life” component, but instead focus on the method
by which the blood is extracted from the man or woman. This bloodletting often
occurs from one of three places on the body: the neck, wrist, or inner thigh.
Of course, these are the locations of the three major arteries within the body
(carotid, ulnar, and femoral) but also areas considered to be erogenous zones. Then
there is literal penetration of the elongated canines into the flesh. One need
not make too much of a logical leap to see this action’s equivalency with
sexual intercourse.
The vampire’s bite elicits one of three possible reactions:
fear, arousal, or both. The reaction of the victim often depends on the
intended impact of the encounter on the viewer/reader. When the vampire is
meant to be the villain of the story, the bite is often animalistic and primal.
The emphasis is placed on the destruction of the victim. It is less of an
intimate moment and one that tends towards the ripping out of throats and
tearing of flesh.
In direct opposition to the archetype of the vampire as
monster is the tragic romantic hero archetype. These encounters between vampire
and victim take on a sensuality that plays with the intermingling of pain and
pleasure. The bite is tender with an initial twinge of pain that culminates in
the victim expressing an almost orgiastic release before the moment of death. One
of the euphemisms for the orgasm is la petit mort, translated from the French
as “the little death.” This colloquialism stems from a long past belief that each
orgasm caused a release of one’s life force. There is also a moment at the moment of orgasm
when a person’s heart may skip a beat, which in some cases can lead to literal death.
In this scenario, the experience of the bitten may vacillate between fear and
arousal although it is entirely possible to be solely a pleasurable experience.
Further exploration of specific texts and their vampiric
characters would lend itself to an even richer analysis of the mythos as I have
only touched on the surface of the dynamics at play.
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