Keep vampires sexed up – or, the curious case of “the Mormon Anne Rice”

Image of Dark Angels: A Collection of Lesbian Vampire Erotica (also: UK).

Like superheroes are such significant icons for people who feel like they have to live with a secret (and so identify strongly with the double lives superheroes are forced to lead), vampires are strong cultural icons and their stories metaphoric for erotic outsiderism. Which is why I felt something needed to be said about the “Twilight” series author, who is a devout Mormon. A lot of people don’t know this, and that the religion’s beliefs are strongly interwoven into her work. As a “Twilight” fan myself it surprised me, but let me make informed decisions around how I was identifying with the work as a whole. Hence this week’s Chronicle column, How to Make Love Like A Vampire – Violet Blue: Vampires need sex, and “Twilight” doesn’t cut it. Snip:

Everyone’s all moist about “Twilight.” That’s the vampire book-and-movie series aimed at young adults, rife with emo angst and throbbing with deliberately unfulfilled sexual tension. You know, the kind that can sort-of never be fulfilled. And if you’ve ever spent time here in San Francisco, you know the town is just full of Gothy vamps of all species.

Anne Rice only compounded the notion, writing her Vampire Chronicles in that creepy Victorian on Divisadero and Fell; I’ve been there several times and it’s really spooky inside. As in gargoyles carved into the fireplace and ceiling light sconces with feminine siren imagery of indeterminate origin. No wonder Rice wrote about Lestat there — it’s just too bad about the whole born-again, unsexing-of-Lestat thing though. That’s enough to make one’s blood run…lukewarm.

Vampires are hot, which is why the Goth scene will never, er, die here. It’s possible to go to the DNA Lounge any night of the week and see pale beastlets who look like they just fell — in sparkly slow motion — through the roof of Stonestown Galleria’s Hot Topic store and landed on the dance floor. Some even have actual fangs where they should have standard-issue human eyeteeth. The wanna-be vamplust runs deep here. But goths, emos and gamers (often confused for the undead) are not vampires.

Still, when the city preps for Halloween and the vamps emerge from their crypts (or the DNA’s upstairs bar, take your pick) we see just how damn sexy vampire chic really is. A combination of fluffy, corseted Goth girls and moody broody boys, plus a layer of fetish (and kinky BDSM) aesthetics, makes the vampire allure come together. They never die. They’re so emo. They can dress themselves. They’ll die looking their sexiest. They are more powerful than you are, and require you to beg — for life, for death, for a roll in the coffin. And, they bite. Vampire lust hurts so good, and it’s dangerous. Vampires are aloof and have super hot bodies. This is sexier than messy, trendy, drooly zombies. And way sexier than that “balloon boy” costume I’m sure we’ll be seeing at least five dozen of come the weekend. (…read more, sfgate.com

Spoiler “Twilight” comment after the jump.

A friend wrote me about this, saying:

“You do know I hope that (from what I hear) in the fourth Twilight book
she has to become a vampire because the vampazoid baby she’s been
impregnated with and refused to abort as some kind of weird pro-life
nutjob statement (the author is a complete fucking born-again
Christian crypto-Mormon rightwinger) claws its way out of her womb
after trying to kill her for 9 months? Finally giving her EXACTLY what
she’s wanted for after four books of begging. Proving that what you
don’t want is very good for you… is anybody else feeling warm here?”