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Vol. XII Issue 6
By Steve Morris A strikingly handsome man stalks the dark alleys
of a big city. He has lust in his eyes and the smell of fear in his nose.
He is searching for something. Or someone. He seeks the youth, strength
and beauty that can most easily be found in this urban sprawl of bars,
nightclubs and bathhouses. He does not want to convert, he wants to share.
He does not want to hurt, he wants to live. He could be anyone —the
high school quarterback slinging burgers at the fast food joint down the
street, or the loving father dispensing advice in the fancy law office
downtown. Only one thing is certain, he is hungry. He could be searching for the love of his life or the lust of his night. Or he could be a vampire. Vampires and queers have long been associated for many reasons. Even before Anne Rice's homoerotic Interview with a Vampire debuted in 1976 the two minorities have been closely entwined. Very seldom are the vampires of novels and tales defined as homosexual, but they are always free to follow their own path. The vampire of legend pursued an unusual lifestyle and had unusual relationships. They are accused of wanting to convert others to be like them and they are ostracized and hunted by those who hate and fear them. Sound familiar? Vampire lore has been shrouded by the veil of homosexuality from the very beginning. One of the earliest references to vampirism was the Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory. According to legend, the Countess, born in 1560, had long been involved in witchcraft and the dark arts and had taken up with a "black-clad stranger with a pale complexion, dark eyes and abnormally sharp teeth." She was also reportedly very fond of buxom young women and would often travel to visit her lesbian aunt and would participate in the women's orgies. As the notoriously beautiful woman began to age, she became increasingly infatuated with her looks. As she was being tended to by one of her maidens, the young woman accidentally pulled the Countess' hair. Elizabeth responded by slapping the woman hard enough to draw blood. The blood fell onto the hand of the Countess and she was convinced her hand looked younger instantly. She then ordered that the young woman be killed and her blood drawn for the Countess to bathe in. Before these acts were finally discovered Elizabeth had killed and drawn the blood of over 600 women and was rumored to have tortured them in unimaginable ways—and to have found the entire experience strangely erotic. Her accomplices were all put to death either by being beheaded or burned at the stake, but The Bloody Countess was walled up inside her own castle and eventually died in 1614. Some tales claim she drank the blood of her young victims; some say she only bathed in it. Regardless of which version is more accurate, more and more scholars now believe that she, as well as the Hungarian prince Vlad Tepes, better known as Vlad the Impaler, were the real-life inspiration for Bram Stoker's infamous Dracula stories. A recent Irish documentary even goes so far to suggest that Stoker himself as well as his famous vampire were both gay and that Dracula was inspired by Stoker's relationship with the flamboyant London actor Sir Henry Irving. In most of the early literary references to vampires, the homosexual undertones are only hinted at and limited to subtext. But the allure has always been there. In 1884 the first modern gay activist, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, wrote a short story called "Manor" which was the first literary collaboration of gay men and vampires. In the story, two young men fall in love and when one is killed, the other goes to his lover's grave to drink his blood. In response to this behavior, the community kills the man, and he returns not as a ghost, but as a vampire. But the attraction between literary vampires is usually more subtle. In Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles, the two male vampires, Louis and Lestat, never state a sexual attraction for each other, but they do speak of their desire to create a "non-traditional family." And the language that Rice uses to describe the vampires and their relationship suggests a much stronger bond than simple friendship. Enthusiasts of Rice's work have long argued over the sexuality of her sultry vampires but Rice has remained ambiguous on the subject. Openly gay filmmaker David DeCoteau finally brought queer vamps to the big screen with his Brotherhood movies. While these films show no man-on-man action, the scenes of the sexy male vampires seducing the young freshmen on campus into their life of evil has done for gay men what Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise did for young women in Interview With a Vampire. Vampires are sexy. The allure of the danger, the desire and the lust is undeniable. The undead have been part of our culture for centuries. From the earliest mentions of the word "upir" in 1047, describing a Russian prince as a "wicked vampire" to the more modern references such as the Blade movies and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer. Some discount the tales as merely fiction, while others are fascinated by the folklore and believe it to be true. Still others are convinced they are vampires themselves. Legend says that there are many ways to become a vampire aside from the bite of a vampire itself. Other historic methods include having a vampire step on your shadow (certainly a less painful alternative), having a cat jump over your dead body or being the seventh son of a seventh son. Additional procedures include committing suicide (anyone seen Kurt Cobain recently?), being born with teeth (those Osmonds have always looked suspicious), or having red hair (damn that Ron Howard). While the Warner Brother's vampires turn into comically clumsy bats and Grandpa and Lily Munster still sleep in their coffins, today's vampires are a much more sophisticated lot. There are those that go so far as to cap their canine teeth to give them the elongated, sharpened look of a Hollywood vampire, but most are not the black cape wearing, pale faced Goths that inhabit so many high schools and malls. Today's vampires are every day people who may or may not know they are vampires. There are a myriad of websites, magazines and meetings of modern day vampires all over the world. They work, just like queers, to dispel the myths and fears about themselves. They do not sleep in coffins, fear sunlight, turn into bats or any other animals and they do not convert others into vampires. On his website www.queerhorror.com, a man who goes by the name of QVamp points out that simple mathematics show that if each vampire has to kill fairly often to stay alive, and each bite turns the victim into a vampire, then mortals would have stopped existing long ago. "If we start with one vampire, and he has to kill one person each night to survive, who in turn become vampires themselves, then in 5 days, 32 people are dead. In 10 days, a thousand people are dead. In two weeks, sixteen thousand are dead, and in 1 month (well, 33 days), the entire world has been consumed." While there are some who consider themselves "blood vampires" and actually feel a physical need for and feast on the blood of others, there are many more who feed on other forms of pranic or life energy. These people are called psi-vampires. They gain sustenance from the psychic energy of others rather than their blood. They claim to be able to draw small amounts of energy from large groups of people, or large amounts from a single person, leaving the individual drained and exhausted. Most of the world's modern day vampires blend in with the rest of society just like everyone else. To the naked eye no one could tell that they are vampires. And when they feel it is time to let people know about themselves, they go through the same coming out process as gays and lesbians do. And for those that are queer vampires, the process is even more difficult. Not only must they deal with homophobia and how their loved ones will react, but they also must come to terms with the fact that many people think they are crazy for calling themselves vampires. But vampires feel they must be who they are just like homosexuals do, even if it means the possibility of persecution or ridicule. Coming out is just as important to a vampire as it is to gay men and lesbians. Whether or not vampires are real is up to each of us to decide, but one thing is certain, the lure of the vampire mystique will live on. Literature and movies have convinced the world that those strikingly handsome men and women who search for blood are enticingly sexy, mysterious and sensuously dangerous. The world of vampires has been created as an erotic playground of lust, blood and desire. So the next time you see that handsome man walking through the shadows of a dark street with one thing on his mind, think twice before approaching him. Odds are he is after only one thing, but what that one thing is, only he knows for certain. Posted October 31, 2003 |
