Sexual Politics and Taboo, With Teeth

Vampires have been a tool to explore taboo sexuality since the very beginning.

by Lindsay Lee Wallace

Vampires signify sex—it’s one of the most frequently repeated pieces of genre analysis in horror media. While there may be debates around the original intent of those creating vampire stories, the association is clear in modern and classic narratives alike. And because vampires are monsters, the sex they signify is monstrous is well.

Deviance is a moving and intoxicating target—and sometimes, society likes to capture an ideal degree of deviance, with just the right balance of danger and censure. Moments like these have seen the vampire more “mainstreamed” in the last few decades, with stories like Twilight and True Blood, in which sexuality becomes an overt selling point to titillate audiences without tipping into being too scandalous for acceptable mainstream consumption. 

But vampire sex hasn’t always been the backpack merchandising opportunity it is today. When Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula came along, it didn’t take long for contemporary critics to tie the predatory count to various flavors of sexual deviance. The Count was a hairy-palmed man with oddly effeminate habits, who lived in a foreign land, and did his own housework. He signified the strange, the odd, the unfamiliar—the queer.

But as much credit as Stoker gets for deploying vampires as a metaphor for deviant sexuality, the truth is that Sheridan Le Fanu, whose Gothic novella Carmilla was published twenty-six years earlier in 1872, did it first. 

As much credit as Stoker gets for using vampires to signify deviant sexuality, Sheridan Le Fanu did it first. 

Carmilla is, in short, the story of a mysterious house-guest and the innocent young woman she seduces and feeds on. When it was published, the existing canon of the vampire was largely masculine (as is still the case today). By focusing on a female vampire, Carmilla took the bold step of committing a taboo within an already taboo arena. 

Portrayals of female vampires often lingered on the physical. Carmilla is no exception—but in her case, these observations come from a woman’s perspective. Carmilla is described as “the most beautiful creature” that our virginal protagonist Laura has ever seen. However, as the two women grow closer, and it becomes increasingly clear that the bond they’re developing is a “cruel” and “strange love” that “will have its sacrifices,” Laura grows anxious and ill. She becomes increasingly suspicious of Carmilla, and “…wonder[s] whether [her] pretty guest ever said her prayers.” 

Vampires are often seen as dominating their victims by means of the feeding process. The majority of vampire stories featured male monsters feeding from swooning maidens, making predation and sexuality inextricable—and when Laura begins to dream of Carmilla taking her blood, and telling her “you are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever,” it’s evident that her sinister guest is staking the sort of claim that at the time would have been reserved for a man. To project that dynamic onto a relationship between two women, especially at a point when there were scarce other representations of similar relationships, served to uphold the prevailing belief that such a bond was unnatural and dangerous, and could be most effectively captured through what was already understood to be a “sick,” monstrous bond. 

While some parts of Carmilla may resemble a love story, it’s clear that this relationship should be seen as so dastardly that its equivalent is that of a vampire and its victim, “…discolour[ing] and pervert[ing] the whole state of [Laura’s] life.” Readers could experience—and even covertly enjoy—this titillating tryst, with the knowledge that it was fully, safely censured.

Another, more modern example of a story that harnesses the sexuality of the vampire to explore the edges of social acceptability is Octavia E. Butler’s Fledgling, published in 2005 and intended by Butler to be a fun and more frivolous diversion from her weightier work. Unlike Carmilla, Fledgling is a story that involves affirming, positive sexual agency—in this case, for a Black woman, creating a dynamic that our society continues to be simultaneously uncomfortable with, exploitative of, and violent towards. She also, however, appears to be a child.

“I’m old enough,” the protagonist Shori assures her definitively adult lover Wright before their first sexual encounter, “to have sex with you if you want to.” At this point, as far as either of them knows, Shori is twelve. “You’re so young,” Wright comments, “it is scaring me. But not enough to make me dump you.” 

Unlike Carmilla, Octavia Butler’s Fledgling is a story that involves affirming, positive sexual agency.

We will go on to discover that Shori is actually fifty-three and part of the Ina, a group of vampires with biological (as opposed to supernatural) origins who age more slowly than humans. Her mature amnesiac mind, in what appears to be the body of a pre-pubescent girl (or an adolescent Ina), creates a precarious scenario: It’s made clear that Shori isn’t a child, but her early relationship with Wright is hard to handle, and also hard to parse for intention and meaning. 

Considering that Butler meant for Fledgling to be the start of a series, it’s perhaps worth noting that the time Shori spends being regarded as a child by readers was intended to make up a relatively small proportion of her story. Regardless, it’s clear that Butler—a writer whose storytelling was incredibly deliberate and often challenging—was fully prepared to use the often-airy trope of vampiric sexuality with her usual incisiveness and precision. 

As the novel goes on, Shori’s recovery of both her memory and her physical health make it easier (though never simple) to see her as the adult she is, and the story’s treatment of her shifts accordingly. She eventually asks another human character, Theodora, to form a human-Ina bond with her that centers around blood-taking and physical intimacy. “You are a vampire,” Theodora asserts, mirroring Wright’s earlier, identical observation, and driving home the point of Shori’s true identity and age. 

While the initially shocking sexuality of Fledgling is understandably hard to move past, the story is (unsurprisingly) much more nuanced than Carmilla. Once Shori becomes aware of her identity, she enjoys sexual relationships with a variety of people, of multiple genders, exercising agency and even dominance in ways that are clearly enjoyed by all enthusiastically consenting parties. Shori is a Black woman enjoying her sexuality. What’s more, sexuality is only a small facet of Shori’s story, which is also focused on her desire to learn more about her heritage, and avenge her family. Butler’s portrayal of her strength and growth is far from the censure that vampiric tropes would have implied in an earlier work.

Carmilla is something of a spiritual predecessor to Fledgling, as a vampire story with a female protagonist that includes what’s perceived as taboo sexuality. But Fledgling is evidence that our attitudes toward both sex and storytelling have evolved since 1872. It is not an obvious morality play. Instead, Butler toys with our established expectations, using them to tell a story that doesn’t just point to and denounce a taboo, but calls into question several. It’s not at all a simple representation of our anxieties concerning sex. In a modern context, it can also be a statement of empowerment. 

The vampire and its once fringe sexuality may have been largely mainstreamed in our current cultural moment, but the cyclical nature of horror will hold onto the deviance trope. And as long as the association exists, writers and creators like Butler will continue to use that tool to not only highlight, but move beyond the simple censure of early works, telling more complex and powerful stories.

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