Sexuality and the Beast

[JulianMoon]

Not sure if this is too NC-17 for these forums, but does anyone see a parallel between sexuality and the Beast? Both are sort of like self-willed entities that sort of override our sense of reason and self-control until the Hunger is satiated. What do you think?

[21C Hermit]

That's quite a classic symbolism of vampires in literary, I think - at least in the more modern ones after Dracula came out. Before that it was more about spiritual corruption, and its manifestation as physical decay and predation. Still, the theme of something that should be pure and blissful (sexuality) being corrupted into something sinful and atrocious (predation) is certainly there as an overarching narrative.

[Aya Tari]

I do not agree. The Beast is about death and should be repulsed by sexuality, at least in VtM in my mind, because sexuality is about embracing life. Characters in VtM need to embrace Humanity and life to maintain their sexuality and, if they reject Humanity and life, they cannot enjoy sex (though they could potentially use the lure of sex to draw in their prey). For example, no Kindred can enjoy sexuality while following a Path, even if that Path embraces the Beast.

[JulianMoon]

Aya Tari: is the idea that Kindred on a Path can't enjoy sex your head canon, or is it actually in a book? I had a (female) character on the Path of Cathari who loved sex.

[Rumata]

I do not agree. The Beast is about death and should be repulsed by sexuality, at least in VtM in my mind, because sexuality is about embracing life. Characters in VtM need to embrace Humanity and life to maintain their sexuality and, if they reject Humanity and life, they cannot enjoy sex (though they could potentially use the lure of sex to draw in their prey). For example, no Kindred can enjoy sexuality while following a Path, even if that Path embraces the Beast.

Necrophilia is a form of sexuality. And since when is the Beast about death? The Beast very much values its life, if Red Fear is any indication.

[JulianMoon]

Rumata: Ewwww. Sorry, I guess I shouldn't be judgmental, but that's my first reaction.

[Aya Tari]

Necrophilia is a form of sexual deviance, on par with bestiality, and should probably not be considered a form of sexuality.

[Heavy Arms]

Any paraphelias (like necrophilia and bestiality) are forms of sexuality that inherently result in either psychological harm or an inability to function in society.

-----

Anyway, to the point of the thread, the Gothic literary approach to many traditionally evil creatures (and thus the WoD interpretations of said monsters) was to use those monsters as metaphors for repression of natural urges (sometimes, it's barely even a metaphor). As a side note, Dracula was not the first in this regard even if the most enduring example.

So the primary vampire literary inspirations for VtM draw on using vampires as metaphors for unhealthy expressions of desires repressed by society. This includes lots of things, including sex. So yes, the Beast is supposed to have parallels to unhealthy sexuality. But it should also be contrasted against healthy sexuality in some fashion.

[Rumata]

Any paraphelias (like necrophilia and bestiality) are forms of sexuality that inherently result in either psychological harm or an inability to function in society.

-----

Anyway, to the point of the thread, the Gothic literary approach to many traditionally evil creatures (and thus the WoD interpretations of said monsters) was to use those monsters as metaphors for repression of natural urges (sometimes, it's barely even a metaphor). As a side note, Dracula was not the first in this regard even if the most enduring example.

So the primary vampire literary inspirations for VtM draw on using vampires as metaphors for unhealthy expressions of desires repressed by society. This includes lots of things, including sex. So yes, the Beast is supposed to have parallels to unhealthy sexuality. But it should also be contrasted against healthy sexuality in some fashion.

Dracula is not a metaphor for sexuality. Dracula is a metaphor for immigration. It is a novel about nasty slavs comming to glorious europe with their filthy gipsy underlings and stealing all the women. Dracula himself is the representation of modern eastern barbarians comming to tople glorious new Rome of the British Empire. Dracula in novel is literally a descendant of Attila the Hun. He's also a smelly foreigner with weird accent who is incapable of passing for a Noble British Gentleman under any circumstances, a fact Dracula himself admits.

[JulianMoon]

A) The character of Dracula most certainly IS a metaphor for sexuality, specifically the archetype of the Demon Lover (also called the G***y Lover in some ballads, and B) I think you're being sarcastic, but if you're not, that sounds really racist.

[Rumata]

A) The character of Dracula most certainly IS a metaphor for sexuality, specifically the archetype of the Demon Lover (also called the G***y Lover in some ballads, and B) I think you're being sarcastic, but if you're not, that sounds really racist.

I am not being sarcastic in the least and yes Stoker's novel is really racist. The concept of vampirism is a metaphor for greed. It's stealing life from the others. Your landlord, the taxman, the government - all vampires. Then people got the idea of attaching sexuality to vampires. But Stoker's Dracula is not a sexual vampire. He's not a metaphor for sex. He's a greedy foreigner who's trying to steal wives from the noble people of England.

[Thoth]

Post Dracula Vampiric feeding involves penetration (fangs), a fluid exchange (blood) and usually climax by at least one of the parties involved. Not exactly a difficult sexual metaphor to fathom.

The beast can just as easily be seen as frontal lobe damage where your normal thought process that filters out many impulses turns off for a while.

If you put the beast into terms of sexuality, the discussion descends into what is right, what is healthy, what is normal, etc, etc. On the other hand if you look at it in terms of neuroscience, it drains most of the glamour and edginess away from the genre, but you also bypass a great deal of extraneous discussion.

Before Dracula was a brand name, most vampire stories didn't have Fangs as thing that was associated with vampires. In fact depending on where in the world you read up in the mythology, vampires didn't have a physical form, they were just ghosts or spirits that leeched life essence from healthy people, so blood wasn't even a clear connection to them. During this period Vampires were considered the primary vector for disease that was afflicting the given community.

[Heavy Arms]

Dracula is not a metaphor for sexuality.

Not as directly as his precursors in The Vampyre or Carmilla. Dracula as a character is a mixture of the The Vampyre's Lord Ruthven, and Varney the Vampire (along with a number of other sources).

The racism and anti-foreigner aspect of Dracula is mixed with sexuality though, because it plays on both the attraction of the foreign/unknown/dangerous, as well as the moral panic/backlash against such things.

And, if you look at my post again, you might not that I did not say the Dracula in particular was a metaphor for sexuality. I said that the literary genre that Dracula came out of uses monsters as metaphors for various desires (greed is a desire), and sexuality is one of those (again, there are examples of far more direct sexual metaphor vampires from the same era of the genre).

[JulianMoon]

Back to the topic of Paths of Enlightenment and whether they can enjoy sex. I think Kindred on the Path of Cathari definitely can. It's probably not sweet vanilla sex, but it's still sex. Kindred on the Path of Death and the Soul might have a tougher time, since it's all about repressing your feelings, and sex is definitely a feeling. Still, might be fun to try seducing someone on that Path...

[Rumata]

Back to the topic of Paths of Enlightenment and whether they can enjoy sex. I think Kindred on the Path of Cathari definitely can. It's probably not sweet vanilla sex, but it's still sex. Kindred on the Path of Death and the Soul might have a tougher time, since it's all about repressing your feelings, and sex is definitely a feeling. Still, might be fun to try seducing someone on that Path...

I don't think Death and Soul can't enjoy sex. They are just afraid to. Like Puritans. Sex = emotions = bad.