Lost Boys

Associations between vampires, sex, power and control go back as far as vampire stories themselves. As with all folktales, the particular shape of these monsters morph and shift, depending on the particular societal fear they embody—and very often the fear has been that of transgressive sexuality. In Greco-Roman mythology, the bronze-footed Empusa, daughter of Hecate, transformed into a young woman to seduce and feed on men, while medieval Jewish folklore warns of the bloodsucking ways of Lilith, Adam’s first wife who preferred sex with an archangel to subservience to her husband. In Filipino legend, the bat-woman manananggal preys on newlyweds, bridegrooms-to-be and pregnant women, while the iimpundulu of Zulu mythology turn from birds to beautiful, bloodsucking young men. More recently, Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla depicts its titular vampire as a bewitching, predatory lesbian. The sexuality of vampires can be read as inherently queer, tearing into heteronormative family values with their deviant desires and all-penetrating fangs. But the male vampire as smouldering seducer of women, using his social and sexual privilege to drink his fill without any lasting consequences (to him), has become a particularly potent figure in the pop-cultural pantheon over the past two hundred years.