Vampires, Sexuality, and SciFi
Vampires, Sexuality, and SciFi
(I wrote this on Saturday night, but couldn’t post it due to a lack of internet access)
I’m writing this blog post from Rye, New York, home to Lunacon – a science fiction/fantasy convention that I’ve attended almost every year since I was an infant. With Professor Benavides’ talk on Vampires and Sexuality fresh in my mind, as well as just the course in general, I’ve been attending some panels and pondering some ideas that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. I thought I’d post about some of these things and give everyone some more food for thought, especially anyone who is into science fiction/fantasy or just vampire themed entertainment.
The first panel I went to this morning was called “V for Villainess.” The description of the panel: “There’s a tradition of certain archetypes of villainesses in genre. The vamp, the black widow, the Lady Macbeth, and the hag. In most cases, the kind of villain they are is strongly linked to their gender and sexuality (or lack thereof), a defining quality that their male counterparts lack. Are we getting new villainess archetypes in post third wave society, or are these same ones being recycled?”
I didn’t understand most of the references made in this panel, because I actually don’t read much science fiction/fantasy literature (my attendance at Lunacon is more of a family tradition than a hardcore interest). But there were some interesting conclusions reached. The panelists and other attendees seemed to agree that the same archetypes are still being drawn on, even by those who consider themselves as post-feminist thinkers/writers. In tandem with this idea is the fact that a character with depth and development is better than once that is just an archetype, yet female villains and heroes are most likely to simply be the latter (and just less common than male villains and heroes in general). Finally, this is ironic in a genre that is, at least perceived as, socially liberal.
I then went to a panel called “Bite Me” about the recent surge of vampire themed TV shows/movies/books etc. One of the panelists proposed that in many cases, including “True Blood” and “Twilight” the male vampires are simply a modern version of Prince Charming: powerful, rich, and often from a time when they were aristocrats, giving them traditional gentlemanly manners. While this is not true for all vampire males (for example, the “bad boy” vampire is still often desired by the female protagonist, assuming a heterosexual romance), it is interesting to think that when I was growing up, the perfect man was Prince Charming (or perhaps in my specific case, Frederick Wentworth), but for my sister, the perfect man (if you can call him that) is Edward Cullen.
While we’re on the subject of vampires, something that struck me during the lecture/discussion on Tuesday was the debate about immortality or eternal life – whether it is perpetual desire or the end of desire. Obviously, Christian (and many other religious) thinking would say that the eternal life we achieve after death is absent of desire. But for vampires, it is the opposite: their thirst for blood is never satiated, as Foucault would say, they are “always-already trapped” (83).
Tonight, there’s a panel “Sex and Science Fiction,” which is going to explore why sex is such a pervasive aspect of the SciFi/Fantasy genre. Some proof of this pervasion: At the same time, a panel called “Bondage NOT in Brundage,” (simply a reference to the room it is usually in) about “kink and sex and alternative sexualities, and why we love them” as well as a panel called “Online Gaming Vs. Porn,” is going on and there were late night showings of hentai both last night and tonight.
Tags: fantasy, lunacon, porn, science fiction, sexuality, vampires, women
