Leave the full moons to the werewolves and the haunted houses to the ghosts. Vampires have fee rein of the night, every night, and they're out there --- waiting --- for you.
The vampire phenomenon is alive - or maybe not so alive - and well in the GLBT community. Although GLBT vampires might appear to be the latest craze, they actually have a history that dates back at least a century or two. David Doyle, aka Qvamp, a queer vampire expert and Webmaster of www.queerhorror.com, writes, "The earliest literature on queer vampires occurred in the 19th century. One of the earliest references to lesbian vampires is in a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge entitled Christabel and published in 1817. In it, Geraldine and the vampire Christabel desire each other strongly."
Doyle goes on to explain that the earliest piece of gay male vampire literature appeared in 1884. The piece, entitled 'Manor," appeared in the short story collection Matrosengeschichten (Sailor Stories), written by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Known as the first modern gay activist, Ulrichs coined the term Uranismus, or Uranism, to refer to homosexuality.
And although Bram Stoker's Dracula character, based on historic figure Vlad Tepes, wasn't gay, Doyle reports that there has been some speculation about Stoker, who formed a close 30-year friendship with actor Sir Henry Irving after Stoker praised Irving's play in a review for a college newspaper. Irving was so impressed with the review that he asked to meet Stoker and later hired him to manage the actor's career. "Immediately after starting work for Sir Henry." Doyle writes, "Bram began to court his future wife, Florence Balcombe, an ex-flame of Oscar Wilde. For the rest of his life, Bram was inseparable from the flamboyant Sir Henry." When Irving died in 1905, Stoker was devastated and died seven years later, in 1912, at the age of 64.
"The modern traditions of vampires, and especially queer vampires, draw heavily from Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles," writes Doyle. "… While sexual desire is never explicitly stated, the decision by Louis and Lestat (the main characters of Ann Rice's books - both male vampires) to become a 'non-traditional family' is. Also, the language used to describe the vampires and their relationship suggest[s] more than friendship between them."
But in terms of written history, Doyle credits Countess Elizabeth Bathory as one of the biggest influences on vampire lore and legend. "[Bathory] was a 16th century Hungarian countess who supposedly bathed in the blood of young women in order to keep her youth," Doyle reports. It is possible that she killed as many as 650 young girls for their blood. And, instead of showing remorse for the killings, she apparently found them erotic.
Doyle has done a great deal of research on vampires, focusing on GLBT vampires and homoeroticism in the vampire culture, and has some ideas about why GLBT people might be drawn to the subject. "[V]ampirism is often likened to being queer. Both conditions bring the person outside of the norm, they do something seen as predatory and/or evil, both are ostracized and hunted by those who hate and fear them. Because of this, many theorists point out vampirism as a metaphor for being queer, but they are not saying that the vampires are queer themselves."
Whatever the reason, the GLBT community ahs embraced these immortal icons nationwide and in Colorado. Gay and lesbian vampire books are selling steadily at both relatively WILD and The Book Garden bookstores in Denver, and more of these types of books are in the works.
Marc Crouch and Ron Metz, owners of relatively WILDE bookstore, say that they have quite a few gay vampires books and they sell very well year round. Masters of Midnight, a book featuring four vampire novellas, including "Bradon's Bite" by local author Sean Wolf, is their number one seller in the horror book genre. The vampire theme is so popular says Crouch, because "it's erotic. Anne Rice started the whole thing with Lestat. And Metz says, "They (vampires) are the bad boy. You know how people like the bad boy."
And women are apparently just as susceptible to the lure of the "bad girl." Debra Myers, book buyer for The Book Garden, says "[Vampire books] are very popular with lesbians because it's hot sex. Who doesn't want to bite another woman's neck? It's an exchange of power, it's a seduction, it's risky, it's hot. Also, you get to be immortal after you do it."
Everyone seems to be bitten by the vampire bug, and as long as the community continues to show its support, there will never be a lack of fang-flashing fiction. Well-known San Francisco author and editor M. Christian is currently editing the anthology Blood Lust; Gay Vampire Stories from alyson Books, has just finished his own vampire novel and is contracted for a second. Christian has his own ideas on the appeal of the vampire.
"Some folks like to say it has to do with style and eternal beauty," says Christian, "the idea that vampires are immortal but still manage to be good looking, or at least stylish. …
"Others like to say that vamps are sexual - but different, very much like homosexuality, outside the mainstream, so to speak," he says. "I think that has a much more interesting interpretation. …
"I also think part of the allure is immortality, but … is that a gay thing or a human thing? … If there's an answer to why vamps are so popular with gay men and lesbians, I think it probably has less to do with any one of these as it does that all of them are working together: a bit of style, the sexual nature of predation, immortality - and a lot more I'm sure that's as individual as any of us who like vampires."
If you're ready to stick your neck out, go to www.queerhorror.com for info. And keep those fangs retracted until Halloween.
Article originally published in Out Front Colorado newspaper in the October 22, 2003 issue with permission of QueerHorror.com. Article reprinted verbatum with permission. Do not copy or redistribute without express permission of Out Front Colorado and QueerHorror.com.
