Dark Friday: Vampires and Sex

Of all the monsters of fiction, the only one primaly associated with sex is the vampire Nonetheless, the vampire of folklore was not a sexually attractive figure; he was a dead man who fed on blood, a monster about as attractive as a zombie. Bram Stoker changed all that with his novel, Dracula. Stoker used the vampire as a metaphor for the Victorian view of sex as innately dangerous. In Dracula, sex with the Count transformed women into seductive sirens and horrific baby killers – the opposite of the Victorian ideal of chaste and nurturing womanhood. Originally, only female vampires were especially beautiful. Lamias and other such spirit-like vampires were always ugly in their true form, but had the ability to shift their appearance to that of a beautiful maiden, in order to lure men to them.