I saw the trailer for Twilight, the latest vampire romance saga, the other day and am completely lost as to what women see in the whole vampire thing. My wife is equally mystified. Am I missing out on something by not including “Vampire meets and feeds from girl” in our fantasy/foreplay life?

I don't get the vampire thing either, personally. I can give you my theory. In America it ties into rape fantasies. Women are taught from a very young age that they are sexual gate keepers, it is their job to keep men's uncontrollable sexual urges at bay: by saying no, by not dressing provocatively, by not getting drunk at a frat party. A vampire, according to the stories, is an uncontrollable force, a man who has the supernatural ability to overcome your good girl defenses and to totally compel you to "culminate" (drinking blood as metaphor for sex). Thus it's not your fault you totally did it with this hot guy, you're still a good girl, it's his supernatural quality overcoming your otherwise strong defenses.

ew. foreplay? I don't want vampires in my bedroom... thanks.

However, i heard about the whole twilight thing, and i think it's about sensuality. Just a guess. Cos like, vampires are all about the flesh touch and the sensual connection, and the whole pathos thing comes into it quite a bit.

However i've not read Twilight, i'm a bit more old-school, i'm all about vampire lestat et al., my fascination was more along the whole magick/sensual/danger/power thang. Plus awesome clothes, romantic language, an appreciation for ballet, theatre, opera and literature... women dig that.

i don't know dick about twilight, though. I'm just assuming it's roughly similar? :)

I will add, the author of Twilight is Mormon and the book has long been acknowledged as a metaphor for teenage girl sexuality, and a fairly scary one at that.

I will also add that vampires and the like can now tie into reverse feminist fantasies too- sick of having to be strong and independent, women can fantasize about other worldly strong men who can just take care of them, sexually, etc.

Again, not my bag.

Jah, McG is bang on the money.

OK so being in "control" is quite demanding and tough and so on, being a victim of a bloodlustful virgin-desiring mysogynistic murder would be far worse. I'm just saying. :)

Personally I don't get it either - if you're talking about the Twilight phenomenon. Even before mcglory gave me her guffaw-inducing, live re-enactment of it when I stayed at her place during the Ike fiasco.

Seriously, mcg - you should sell tickets to that.

Also, any part for men written by a woman (in this type of book) is probably sheer wish fulfillment, which really bugs me. I prefer my hero's to have some flaws.

The first couple of Twilight books are just an old-fashioned story of unrequited, starcrossed, dumbshit love. I couldn't put down the first book, and I can't pick up the fourth (skipped to the end and decided I didn't care anymore).

I have read a lot of vampire-fantasy-romance books and, at least in the ones that I like, the heroine is a strong woman who eventually dumps the vampire, usually moving on to werewolves.

See, for example, the Anita Blake series -- a small woman with a flamethrower, kills vampires for a living, but then finds one she wouldn't mind having sex with, but HE is attracted to HER because she's dangerous.

The Sookie Stackhouse series (SPOILER for True Blood) is about a woman who has felt unloved and alone, and a vampire courts her. She's an easy mark, but she eventually wises up and dumps him. He begs to get her back, and she doesn't let him.

Sookie and Diana are vampire-loving heroines feminsts can enjoy. Twilight was 3000 pages of foreplay, so by the time you get to the sex scene, you don't care anymore, just get it over with. And it's not much of a sex scene.

Trust me, he has flaws. He lurks in her bedroom and stares at her while she sleeps. He's a jackass who emotionally manipulates the female character for the whole book and treats her like a two-year-old. The problem is that his flaws are apparently "hot."

And hey, if this job search thing doesn't work out, I may well be selling tickets to my Twilight in 2 minutes show, MNM. :)

Its not some ultimate "I can change him from bad boy to good through the redemptive power of my love"?

'cause that was my best guess.

Anything that smacks of teen sexuality gives me headaches these days. Total buzz kill.

T-Rex, so Vampires are the "gateway drug" for Werewolf love? Thats a slippery slope.

mcglory - parody is a tough job but I believe you are eminently qualified.

And you hit it in the nose better than I did - when serious flaws like that are considered 'hot' or even desirable - Eww.

T-Rex - I once had an AWESOME dream that I was a vampire hunter. I could create and throw fireballs at them, and do kung fu. Seriously. It was The. Best. Dream. EVAR.

Capt, pretty sure it's NOT about turning a bad boy good. Nobody ever settles down and plays house with a vampire. You just have illicit vampire sex and then deal with the consequences.

Capt, at least werewolves are warm.

Mightninja, have you read Anita Blake?

mgglory -- except for stupid Twilight.

well... ok. here's where i get in trouble. with someone. Don't know who yet.

But at about 13/14, i had dreams that vampires were sneaking into my room at night, and drinking my blood. Not from my neck, but from my cheeks. And i would repeatedly wake up with bruises around my eyes.

My parents put it down to iron deficiency due to being vegetarian. :/

I don't understand the fascination. Yet at the same time, i totally get it. :/ sue. me. :D

Umm... SPOILER? Well, even then she has to become a vampire to make it work long term. Mortal-vampire has no longevity.

Yet another pop culture phenonmenon that I have misread

I don't get twilight. I leafed through some pages to try to figure out the mystery, and it all seemed like typical teenage TWOO PASSIONATE LUV. Bleck. And he was totally stalking her and staring at her and instead of being romantic it was creepy.

I'll have to admit that I do love a good bodice ripper, and doubly love them if they're supernatural. Being Wiccan, I really dig pretty much anything involving witches, vampires and their ilk, but real Wicca isn't what you read in books. Not by a long shot. I sort of like the dark, biteyness of the whole vampire lore. Oh, and the Phenomenal Cosmic Powers. Me likey. I like it for the same reasons I enjoy DnD and Fantasy/Sci-fi books/movies. It takes me out of my boring world for a while and puts me in one that's not so boring.

T-Rex - I gave up on Anita Blake. I lurved early ass-kicking, gun-toting Anita. Now it's Porn Sex Fiend Anita. Sigh.

Ellie, I totally agree about Anita. But the first books were sooo good. Now I don't read them any more, including the fairy ones.

(Capt, sometimes after you've done vampires, you move on to werewolves and then it time for the fey. Laurell K's descriptions of goblin love were NOT hot.)

mcglory, sounds like you read more of the Twilight series than I could stand. Did you really read them all??? It's my genre, and I couldn't finish, as it were.

I don't get the vampire thing at all. I'm not alone because me and my real life female friends were just talking the other day about how we just don't get it.

T-R - LKH drank a little too much of her own kool-aid. She had her husband do an Anita comic book, and if you've ever seen her blog, what she says about her husband is positively nauseating.

T-Rex - I have not...although several people tell me I should!

Oh no. I read the first one and then the wikipedia entry for the other ones.

I actually had a friend ask me the other day if I liked Vampires or Ware wolfs better. Never really having thought about it, I chose Vampires. Now after reading this thread I would like someone, preferably McGlory, to analyze the werewolf fantasy character for me so I can make a more informed choice as to which character best would suit my fantasy-

sasychica, no intelligent analysis from me, but since men just get hairy-er and hairy-er with age (back hair, butt hair, ear hair, nose hair), I think most heterosexual women end up with a werewolf, whether they like it or not.

Or a recliner that burps, per Roseanne.

Heh. I don't know as much about how werewolves function in romantic literature... as far as I know the idea that they operate as such is relatively recent (at least compared to vampires). In the few examples I can think of: Buffy and Twilight, when they're in their "man" form they seem to be given the characteristics of dogs: loyal, kinda boring, trustworthy, pack or family oriented. The monster is the inner id of the man unleashed: dangerous, wild, and very hairy. So they *can* be domesticated in a way vampires can't, because they only turn bad with the full moon and you can just cage them up then- werewolves are only sometimes monsters, not all the time like vampires.

In trashy novels, werewolves don't only change with the moon, although they become more unstable with the full moon.

When weres show up, the plot generally revolves around the pack - there is a lot of politics, and the violence is less one-on-one and more of a team sport.

The way that werewolves feed on humans is also more animalistic, to a vamp we are wine (and we may enjoy being fed upon), but to a werewolf, we are hamburger, dog food, and you never survive.

The pack makes werewolves even more unsuitable in the long run than vamps. Obviously an allegory for the nightmare of in-laws. Ha, ha.

I'm more of a zombie fan myself.

Clearly, it is latent anti-Semitism. Have you ever heard of a Jewish vampire? We'd miss the Early Bird Special every day?

So I think I would have to stick to my original preference. There is a little something anti- feminist about it, but oh well. If I had to choose it would have to be a vampire fantasy.

I've never read any of the Twilight series so I can't speak to those, but as BoL mentioned - Lestat would be my preference (as a character, not as a sexual fantasy - Louie on the other hand?)

I'd have to say that it is about the flirtation with the dark side and giving in to the dark side we all have - a little different than McG's thoughts on giving up the good girl role, but along the same lines. Additionally I think vampires are mysterious and powerful and yes, they are bad boys. And although many women (who, me?) are attracted to bad boys (though not abusers), we don't want to change them though we do want them to be madly, deeply in love with us. I think it makes some women feel desirable in a way that being wanted by a "normal" guy doesn't. Perhaps we think passion and desire burn hotter in bad boys? I dunno.

I think last night's South Park addressed the vampire "epidemic" in a serious and frank way...as an affront to all of the goth kids who have been doing this for decades.

I guess if you like guys who suck, vampires will work.

I love the McG analysis, but I think there's also something about the loneliness of the vampire that's a big thrill for teenaged girls - I think the intense social pressure of adolescence makes the idea of having eternity and a fashionable crypt to yourself very attractive. In this case, it's more of an identification with the vampire than sexual desire, per se.

The quiet broody goth thing definitely isn't the classical vampire/rapist, though - this is mostly my reading from the teenage vampire genre books.

I blame Sheridan le Fanu, Frank Langella, and Anne Rice. The vampire of Nosferatu and the ACTUAL Bram Stoker's Dracula was a "human leech," a bloodthirsty creature that was human shaped, more or less, but had none of our specifically human drives. Eat, live, eat some more, periodically piss out some blood-urine--certainly not the wronged eternal lover played by Gary Oldman.

Sheridan le Fanu wrote Carmilla in the nineteenth century, and its tale of a beautiful female vampire who chose and maintained female victims was overtly sexual. Over a century later, the kind-of-sexy Draculae of years past, as portrayed by suave actors like Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, were focused in the very sexy Frank Langella, a stage and eventually screen Dracula.

But of course, I must ask: What's Wrong With Vampire Love?

I am all over the vampire thing. Mostly because of those damned Sookie Stackhouse books. But, even before that. I wouldn't say that it was anti-feminist. Because, anyone who knows me would tell you that I would not go for that. In foreplay or fantasy. I just like the id aspect. Anybody, male or female, going for what they want when they want it. I don't want anyone to protect me. I don't want to change anyone with my pure, pure love. I just want someone who can hold their own when in my company.

I don't get it. Nothing sexy about vampires as far as I can see...well, maybe Wesley Snipes...but that skinny little guy constantly on my TV these days? Not.

Vampires in general aren't my thing. Spike from Buffy? OMG. mcglory, what's that say about me?? He's a classic bad boy, that's for damn sure. I'm not into goth emo types in general though, and Spike is pure punk anger. LOVE HIM!!

Spike rocks, ruth - no doubt about it.

I think vampires in trashy lit are appealing for the same reason the bad boys in all trashy novels are appealing - because they are always redeemed/transformed through love.

Capt - I think you are closer than some folks are giving you credit for - the "romantic" vampires are normally compared to the evil vamps (a la Angel or Spike in Buffy) because they can love. Some folks get off on danger, even vicariously, but that isn't really my thing. I like early Anita because she, like Buffy, is a powerful character in her own right but "conquers" the vamp and werewolf through her ability to love. Sappy, I know, but that's why they work for me.

Okay, I've been hiding in the corner long enough...I'll admit that I absolutely adore the character Edward Cullen, who is the Vampire in question from the Twilight books. And sadly, I act like one of those crazy ass little teenage girls. I'm even going to a midnight showing of the moive tonight. Don't worry, I'm already ashamed.

And I know exactly why I am so obsessed with his "vampire love". It has NOTHING to do with the fact that he's a vampire. He could have been an one-legged elf and I would have felt the same thing. Okay, maybe not with just one leg.

To me, his character fulfilled every unrealistic expectation I have about love. Eye gazing, total devotion and adoration. Eternity. 24/7 of Passion. Cheesy dialogue and all.

Perhaps this hits home with women and young girls who have self esteem issues (heck, that could be me), but the idea of a man never wanting to leave me....seems perfect. I've always been the crazy girlfriend/wife who's constantly thinking in the back of mind, "Does he REALLY love me?" With Edward's character, you know without a doubt much he adores Ella not by his words alone, but his actions.

Seriously, whenever I completed the books, I wanted to reach over and slap my sleeping husband across the head. Why would it be so hard to just channel a fraction of that into him?

Well, I guess because it isn't realistic. Do men really act like Edward? Nope. Would I be scared to date a vampire. Probably. Would I be creeped out to know a guy loves and craves me so much that he spent every night of his life staring at me as I slept? Heck no that wouldn't creep me out...that's the kinda love I'm looking for!

To me, the perfect relationship is that first love from high school multiplied times 100 and then add in sex. That is what I want, but that is not what reality gives me. I can't remember the movie it's from but a line my husband always says to me is, "You don't wanna be in love. You wanna be in love in a movie."

That would be Bella. Sorry.

I loved Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and took a lot of grief for it.

Rachell - I can get the desire to have a man that has a Deep Unrealistic All-Consuming passion (which is why I love a good bodice-ripper) but something about Twilight and the staring just translated as creepy, rather than swoony.

I second Ruth's Spike-flavored vampire love. Spike hated (or ate) everybody, but had Hot, Dark, Dirty, All-Consuming Lurve for Buffy. I'd rather have a vampire that threw me up against the wall and had his evil dastardly way with me than one that stared at me while I drooled in my sleep.

But that's me, and I'm not knocking the twilight-love, but I guess I prefer my Twoo Wuv a little dirtier. But, like I said, I love a good bodice-ripper, so I am by no means a Fiction Snob.

I guess if you feel like you aren't getting that already in a relationship, then it would be appealing. But if the book is actually starting to make you unhappy because your life doesn't reflect it...then there is a problem.

I think a real man who never wanted to leave you would have you inflicting self-injury just so you could get into a psycho ward and escape from him.

My first model of love was just that eternal devotion model, but one heartbreak at 15 cured me of that forever.

So, when some women are attracted to somebody who is eternally there 24/7, perhaps it is how she wants him to make her feel rather than be there all the time? Just a guess.

Rachell, the quote is from Sleepless in Seatle.

"That's your problem, you don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie."

And, I don't get vampires as sex symbols.

late to the vampire conversation, but yesterday i saw an excellent adolescent-vampire movie, though i would not think it good for kiddos, called 'let the right one in'. it's swedish and the girl is the vampire, and it is both beautiful and uncomfortable. really.