I mean, I was talking to some very dear and sweet people from my church tonight--they'll remain unnamed for protection purposes--and they asked me what I wanted to do after college (the most hated question of all time). I mentioned that I was working on a novel, and would like to be able to support myself that way. The conversation went a little like this:
Them: Oh! What kind of book is it?
Me: Erm. Well, it's about a Japanese vampire... who works as a detective. Sorta. And it's about his coming to terms with his own humanity.
Them: Hm.
Me: Eh... and you know, it'll be sorta philosophical.
Them: A vampire.
Me: Ahh.... yeah.
Them: Oh did you hear about --totally unrelated subject--
And while I understand that most people imagine anything vampire as either Twilight, True Blood, and Blade/Underworld/Dracula 2000, I still don't understand why people get stuck at the word vampire. I mean, sure, they're somewhat malevolent creatures, usually painted as hyper-sexualized nymphos (which I don't understand the physicalities of, seeing as a dude needs blood to... you know...), and they tend to stalk their objects of affection...
Okay, never mind, I see why people are weirded out by them. I mean, I love the idea of a vampire, but I don't really care for most of the modern vampire fiction/movies, except for maybe Daywalkers. That was a good movie.
Here's my point: vampires are like super-people. They're written the way people (in general) would be if they had immense strength, insatiable thirst for life itself, and didn't have anything that could stop them (kinda like if Andre the Giant took steroids). But they're sensual/spiritual, not sexual, in my opinion.
Why? Okay, let's think back a bit. In legend people believed that blood held special properties, that the blood was tied to the soul, that a balance of humors would lead to health, etc, etc, etc. Basically, blood was life, life was blood. Vampires were thought to be soulless creatures of pure evil, that wanted nothing more than to drink blood. Hang with me for a moment, this next bit is a doozy.
There is nothing more sensual and spiritual than sharing your blood (life) with another creature to keep them alive. (You could argue this as sexual, I suppose, since it's an exchange of liquids, penetration, etc, but honestly, there is no work of literature that you can't interpret as either sexual or a Jesus story or both. Go read the poem Goblin Market, you'll see what I mean). HOWEVER: the fact remains that there is an exchange of life, either stolen or freely given, either of which being very sensual.
So. If humans were to strive to be Godlike (or morally correct, or whatever), and vampires existed, willingly giving a vampire your blood to keep them alive would be akin to God giving Adam and Eve the Garden of Eden, and a vampire stealing blood would be like Lulu (Sorry, that's my nickname for Satan) doing all that bad stuff to Job to try and take Job's spiritual side away from him. And that is why I like vampires. You can't do much better than giving your own life for someone else.
In conclusion: This is why people should donate blood. It's sort of like vampirism, but with less germs. Vampires don't brush their teeth, you know.
(I need to not write blog posts when I'm tired. I get weird. Also, there was supposed to be a really cool, spiritual point in here somewhere... Hm.)
Well, and part of the reason they became known as sexual objects was because it was blood that was considered exchanged when people had sex, not other bodily fluids that modern science has proven are exchanged (see John Donne's "The Flea") The neck was also considered a very sexual part of a human because of the carotid artery.
ReplyDeleteAt least you aren't making him Edward. Sparkle, Sparkle, Sparkle.
This is true, and I suppose I don't mind a little bit of sexuality w/ vampires, but when you get things like True Blood that are written for hyper-sexualized people, where there's a huge amount of sex scenes that just aren't plausible, it bugs me... I mean, Anne Rice had incredibly sensual/sexual vampires, but they never actually had sex, at least not in the books. They did in the movies, which was weird. But whatever.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, hell will ice over before I write a sparkly vampire.