• Intelligencer
  • The Cut
  • Vulture
  • The Strategist
  • Curbed
  • Grub Street
  • Subscribe to the Magazine Give a Gift Subscription Buy Back Issues Current Issue Contents New York Shop
    Subscribe to New York Magazine
  • Subscribe
  • Profile
    Sign Out
The Cut
  • Style
  • Self
  • Culture
  • Power
Style
  • Fashion
  • Beauty
  • Parties & Red Carpet
  • Fashion Shows
  • Cathy Horyn
  • The Cut Shop
Self
  • Health & Wellness
  • The State of the Uterus
  • Parenting
  • Advice
  • Sex & Relationships
  • Horoscopes
Culture
  • Books
  • Television
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Celebrity
Power
  • Politics
  • Work
  • Money
  • Rebecca Traister
More
  • Latest Stories
  • Video
  • About Us
  • nymag.com
  • New York Magazine
  • Intelligencer
  • Vulture
  • The Cut
  • The Strategist
  • Grub Street
  • Curbed
bloodlust
November 16, 2012

How Vampires Learned to Love Virgins So Much

By Yael Kohen

Share

  • Share
  • Tweet
Photo: Universal/Everett Collection

In the third installment of the Twilight series, Eclipse, when the vampire Edward Cullen refused to consummate (through sex or by bite) his love with Bella Swan before marriage, you probably wanted to gag. As if any hot-blooded twentysomething, be he human or undead, would pass up the chance to lay down with as fair and sullen a vixen. Still, this startlingly pro-abstinence, Victorian view of romance hasn’t stopped The Twilight Saga from grossing $2.5 billion worldwide to date.

Recall the scene that finds Edward and Bella locked in a sexually charged embrace, and there she is, practically begging Edward to give it to her. As she unbuttons her shirt, he stops her: “Not tonight. I just want to be married to you first.” Bella, a product of divorce, is skeptical about marriage and embarrassed by the rejection: “You really make me feel like I’m sort of the, like, villain trying to steal your virtue or something.” He responds: “It’s not my virtue I’m concerned about … It’s just one rule I want to leave unbroken.”

That “rule” — that virginity is paramount to marriage — would seem outdated for a story set in 21st-century America, but Edward is no postmodern Millennial reared on The Hills. He’s more than 100 years old, born at the end of the notoriously repressed Victorian era. Then, modern vampire mythology laid down its roots in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, now the bible for the genre’s lore and mythology.

At the time, Gothic novels were still fresh in the literary canon. Each tale was rife with sexual undertones, often centering on dark, mysterious, and powerful men who took pleasure from preying on young, innocent virgins. Just think of Emily Brontë’s rapist and abuser Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights.

The first vampire to appear in English literature was during this period, in John Polidori’s Gothic short story “The Vampyre,” published in 1819, which introduces the idea of this blood-sucking pursuit of a lady’s “innocence.” In Carmilla, published in 1872, author Joseph Sheridan La Fanu also takes up the new vampire trope; this time, the evil vampire is a female who preys on young women. Stoker drew from both of these stories when he wrote Dracula in 1897, making his Count the most famous of all Gothic villains. This is where the archetype for the virgin-obsessed vampire comes from. 

Ever since, creators of these stories have tortured and celebrated the idea that female sexuality comes in just two shades: vampy (the evil female vampire who uses her sex appeal to lure her prey) or virginal (the doe-eyed girl who must be steered away from the temptations of a mysterious, foreign man). In the introduction to Dracula’s 100th-anniversary edition, Leonard Wolf — the father of the vagina-obsessed Naomi Wolf — reminds us all, “Dracula has embedded in it a very disturbing psychosexual allegory … that there is a demonic force at work in the world whose intent is to eroticize women.”

Fast-forward to now, where pole dancing is a legitimate form of exercise, celebrity sex tapes are entertainment, and the yardstick by which young relationships are measured is how many times the couple has hooked up. It goes without saying that society’s attitudes about sex are completely and irrevocably different. But our anxiety about sex is no less omnipresent. This is especially true among teens who are grappling with losing their own virginity, and for girls who are increasingly bombarded with the idea (and possibly fear) that sex now comes before love. 

You’d think that would make vampires even more aggressive now, but Edward’s restraint is why so many young women swooned over him. The vampire, as a character, has gone from seducer to emo-boyfriend. And, tonight, when The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 comes out, we’ll see him as the protective father. It’s satisfying, of course, but it would have been better had Edward not condescended to Bella (and her virginity) throughout. To see what we mean, click ahead for our gallery of the most famous vampires and their lusty pursuit of virgins.

View
1 / 17 Photos
John Polidori's short story "The Vampyre" (1821) The novella that introduced the vampire to English literature, focusing not on normal ... John Polidori's short story "The Vampyre" (1821) The novella that introduced the vampire to English literature, focusing not on normal men who pursue women’s “innocence” in Gothic novels, but on men who happen to be blood-suckers, too.
Carmilla and Laura in Joseph Sheridan LeFanu's novella Carmilla (1872) When we first meet the vampire Carmilla, she slides into the bed of 6-yea... Carmilla and Laura in Joseph Sheridan LeFanu's novella Carmilla (1872) When we first meet the vampire Carmilla, she slides into the bed of 6-year-old Laura and feeds from her breast. Twelve years later, beguiling Carmilla returns as a young, mysterious maiden, who seduces Laura: “She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear,” The lesbian undertones are alive, long before theTrue Blood era.
Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) with Lucy (Frances Dade) in Dracula (1931) Bela Lugosi may have originated the role of Dracula in American film, bri... Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) with Lucy (Frances Dade) in Dracula (1931) Bela Lugosi may have originated the role of Dracula in American film, bringing to it an Eastern European accent, but his version — no doubt, owing to the times — was stiff and lacking in erotic charge. Even when he turns her into a vampire, the sex-and-bite scene is fully omitted.  Photo: Everett Collection
Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) with Lucy Holmwood (Carol Marsh) in Horror of Dracula (1958) Christopher Lee, who would appear in nine Dracula h... Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) with Lucy Holmwood (Carol Marsh) in Horror of Dracula (1958) Christopher Lee, who would appear in nine Dracula horror films, was the first film version of a vampire to have actual fangs. He’s also a much more sexualized version of Dracula: He actually kisses his victims before he sinks his teeth into them. In Horror of Dracula, Lee’s first stint as the Count, Dracula visits Lucy night after night, sucking her blood and transforming her into one of his own. Photo: Everett Collection
Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) with Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham) in Dracula AD (1972) The seventies brought with it a series of camp... Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) with Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham) in Dracula AD (1972) The seventies brought with it a series of campy, sexually charged versions of the Dracula tales. In this version, Christopher Lee reprises his role as Count Dracula, only he’s 100 years older as the movie takes place during the post-hippie, sexually free heyday of seventies. Virginity, if present, is implied. Photo: Everett Collection
Count Dracula (Udo Kier) with Perla (Silvia Dionsio) in Andy Warhol’s Dracula (1974) In this spoof on the vampire genre, Dracula is dying and ne... Count Dracula (Udo Kier) with Perla (Silvia Dionsio) in Andy Warhol’s Dracula (1974) In this spoof on the vampire genre, Dracula is dying and needs to find the blood of “wirgin” to restore him. Since there are very few left in Romania, he heads to Italy (where better to find a virgin than a Catholic country?) and happens upon a family of sisters. But virgins they are not (thanks to a popular farmhand), and each time Dracula drinks the impure blood, his power weakens. When his attention finally turns to the youngest daughter, who is still a virgin, the farmhand thinks the way to save her is to rape her. Photo: Everett Collection
Count Dracula (Frank Langella) with Lucy Seward (Kate Nelligan) in Dracula (1979) Frank Langella’s version of Dracula is less horror-movie frea... Count Dracula (Frank Langella) with Lucy Seward (Kate Nelligan) in Dracula (1979) Frank Langella’s version of Dracula is less horror-movie freak show than sexy debonair villain wooing his next conquest. In this case, the conquest is Lucy Seward, who, in this version, comes off as an independent-minded flirt, who has no qualms engaging in PDA with her fiancé, Jonathan Harker. Eventually, she turns her attention on Langella’s supposedly sexy Dracula. And she doesn’t resist when Dracula comes to her bedroom late at night to bed her and bite her.  Photo: Universal/Everett Collection
Countess (Lauren Hutton) and Mark Kendall (Jim Carrey) in Once Bitten (1985) In this teenage vampire comedy that reverses the vampire-virgin dyn... Countess (Lauren Hutton) and Mark Kendall (Jim Carrey) in Once Bitten (1985) In this teenage vampire comedy that reverses the vampire-virgin dynamic, Lauren Hutton plays the vampire Countess who seeks to prey on the teenage virgin Mark Kendall. She needs to take a bite from a virgin three times a year in order to stay young and beautiful. But in eighties California, virgins are increasingly hard to come by. Mark, in the meantime, is a frustrated teen whose virgin girlfriend won’t give it up. Photo: Samuel Goldwyn Films//Everett Collection
Count Dracula (Gary Oldman) and Mina Murray (Winona Ryder) in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) Francis Ford Coppola must have known he could bring u... Count Dracula (Gary Oldman) and Mina Murray (Winona Ryder) in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) Francis Ford Coppola must have known he could bring us a better, more sexually charged version of the Dracula story, because this one captures best the essence of the original book. The difference, of course, is that this version is a love story: Dracula believes Mina is his lost love reincarnated. Which makes him not just a blood-sucking fiend with a need for blood to survive, but also a wounded monster mourning the loss of his one true love.  Photo: Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection
Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise) and Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) with Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) in Interview With a Vampire (1994) Ann... Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise) and Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) with Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) in Interview With a Vampire (1994) Anne Rice’s tale about the vampires Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac are filled with homoerotic innuendo. But it was Claudia, turned when she was just 5 years old, who helps drive the plot forward. The three of them form a kind of vampire family, but as the decades pass, Claudia, who becomes a woman trapped in a child’s body, grows frustrated. When she looks at a nude prostitute, Claudia can only fantasize: “I want to be her.” Photo: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
Angel (David Boreanaz) and Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) Midway through the secon... Angel (David Boreanaz) and Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) Midway through the second season, a virgin Buffy finally gives it up to her moody vampire boyfriend Angel. The moment seemed to bring emotional satisfaction to fans who were longing for this relationship to work. But Angel loses his soul as a result. Turns out, the gypsy curse that had given Angel his soul came with a precondition: If Angel experienced one true moment of happiness, all would be lost. Photo: 20th Century Fox/Everett Collection
Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) in True Blood (2008) When the show first begins, Sookie Stackhouse is a 25-year... Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) in True Blood (2008) When the show first begins, Sookie Stackhouse is a 25-year-old virgin, and her ability to read minds is the number-one deterrent against men who have sick sexual thoughts. But she can’t read Bill’s, a relief, and the two are drawn together, eventually giving in to each other after Sookie’s grandmother’s funeral.  Photo: HBO/Everett Collection
Jessica Hamby (Deborah Ann Woll) and Hoyt Fortenberry (Jim Parrack) in True Blood (2008) Jessica is just another teenage virgin when she gets ma... Jessica Hamby (Deborah Ann Woll) and Hoyt Fortenberry (Jim Parrack) in True Blood (2008) Jessica is just another teenage virgin when she gets made. But transformation from virgin to vampire doesn’t automatically make you sex-starved. Jessica still wants a relationship, and she finds one with Hoyt, a sweet 28-year-old virgin who still lives with his mom. The pair lose it to each other. Unfortunately for Jessica, though, vampires have miraculous abilities to heal, which means Jessica always grows her hymen back. Photo: Doug Hyun/HBO/Everett Collection
Jennifer (Megan Fox) in Jennifer’s Body (2009) Oscar-winner Diablo Cody (Juno) turns her sights on the horror genre. In this black comedy, Jenni... Jennifer (Megan Fox) in Jennifer’s Body (2009) Oscar-winner Diablo Cody (Juno) turns her sights on the horror genre. In this black comedy, Jennifer is a teenage cheerleader who falls victim to a group of male bandmembers who want to sacrifice a virgin in exchange for fame and fortune. When they asked Jennifer about her sexual history, she lied, so the death just turns her into a flesh-eating demon that preys on men to maintain her beauty. Photo: Doane Gregory/20th Century Fox Licensing/Everett Collection
The Twilight Saga (2008) Over the course of three movies, the sexual tension between Bella and Edward continues to escalate as Bella put pressure... The Twilight Saga (2008) Over the course of three movies, the sexual tension between Bella and Edward continues to escalate as Bella put pressure on Edward to finally do the deed. But Edward is a traditionalist who wants to wait until marriage so as not to take her virtue. It’s enough to make a modern woman say ugh. But the tweens seem to love it. And when Bella and Edward ultimately get married and have sex, it leaves bruises on Bella’s body. She gets pregnant real quick. Photo: Summit Entertainment
Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley) and Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) in the televsion series, Vampire Diaries (2009) In this teenage series on the CW ... Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley) and Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) in the televsion series, Vampire Diaries (2009) In this teenage series on the CW Network, we have vampires for the Gossip Girl generation. Virginity as a theme is remarkably absent as Elena has to choose between two vampire brothers. We never know if she’s a virgin before she finally sleeps with Stefan — blissfully, it doesn’t seem to matter — but she had a human boyfriend before she met the sexy vamp, and well, they’re teenagers. Photo: Copyright © ©CW Network/Courtesy Everett Collection / Everett Collection
Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey in 50 Shades of Grey (2011) Christian Grey is not a vampire, but the erotic novel started as Twilight fan fi... Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey in 50 Shades of Grey (2011) Christian Grey is not a vampire, but the erotic novel started as Twilight fan fiction, and its main character, a billionaire mogul with a fetish for inflicting pain on his sexual partners for pleasure, is as close to vampire as a human can get. (He calls his playroom, where he brings his submissives, the “red room of pain.”) When he meets Anastasia Steele, he must have her. Except that Ana is a virgin, and Grey’s proclivities in the bedroom are not for the inexperienced. In two books, Ana gets her sexual education. And, in the process, Grey falls in love. Of course.
1 / 17

Tags:

  • love and war
  • vampires
  • virgins
  • bloodlust
  • twilight
  • robert pattinson
  • kristin stewart
  • More

More Galleries

May 26, 2023
Cannes Film Festival 2023: Red Carpet  There’s more than movies to be shown. Here are all of the looks at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. 
keeping up with the royals May 6, 2023
All the Looks From King Charles III’s Coronation  Robes, crowns, and Katy Perry. 
By Brooke LaMantia
met gala 2023 May 2, 2023
Met Gala 2023: All the Looks  See all the dresses, some on-theme and some, well, not so much — honoring Karl Lagerfeld at the Met Gala. 
By Brooke LaMantia
oscars 2023 Mar. 12, 2023
Oscars Red Carpet 2023: Every Look  Rihanna! Florence Pugh! Michelle Yeoh! They’re all here. 
celebrity Feb. 19, 2023
All the Best Looks From the 2023 BAFTAs Red Carpet  Florence Pugh, Barry Keoghan, and Angela Bassett brought color to the red carpet. 
grammys 2023 Feb. 5, 2023
Every Look From the 2023 Grammys Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Lizzo, Bad Bunny, Adele, Doja Cat, Jack Harlow, Mary J. Blige, Sam Smith, and more.
By Brooke LaMantia
golden globes 2023 Jan. 10, 2023
All the Looks From the 2023 Golden Globes  Sheryl Lee Ralph, Jenna Ortega, Jessica Chastain, Julia Garner, Jeremy Allen White, Angela Bassett, and more. 
parties! Sept. 23, 2022
Katie Holmes, Chloë Sevigny, and More of the Bestest Party Pics This Week  Chanel, Mejuri, and more celebrate. 
parties! Sept. 16, 2022
Doja Cat, Lil Nas X, and More of the Bestest Party Pics This Week  Fendi, Frame, and Coach all celebrated NYFW. 
emmys 2022 Sept. 12, 2022
Emmys 2022: All the Red Carpet Looks  Updating: What Hollywood is wearing to the 2022 Primetime Emmy Awards. 
By Olivia Luppino
nyfw spring 2023 Sept. 9, 2022
Gigi Hadid, Chlöe Bailey, and More of the Bestest Party Pics of the Week  Saks Fifth Avenue, Longchamp, and more celebrate the beginning of NYFW. 
rip Sept. 9, 2022
The Queen Sure Did Love to Color-Coordinate  Monochrome for decades. 
red carpet Sept. 6, 2022
The Venice Film Festival Is a Major Fashion Event  Valentino and Gucci and Armani, oh my. 
red carpet June 5, 2022
All the Best Looks at the 2022 MTV Movie and TV Awards  Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Hudgens, Jay Ellis, and more! 
parties! May 20, 2022
The Bestest Party Looks of the Week  Harry Styles > everyone! 
parties! May 13, 2022
The Bestest Party Looks of the Week  Bury me in Dove Cameron’s Saint Sintra skirt. 
parties! May 6, 2022
The Bestest Party Looks of the Week  Cue the Met Gala after-party FOMO. 
met gala 2022 May 2, 2022
Met Gala 2022: All the Looks [Photos]  Billie Eilish, Kim Kardashian, Michelle Yeoh, Hailey Bieber, Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Blake Lively, and more. 
parties! Apr. 29, 2022
The Bestest Party Looks of the Week  This one goes to Olivia Rodrigo and her sweater vest. 
parties! Apr. 22, 2022
The Bestest Party Looks of the Week  “Fuck those Zoom tops.” 
  • Style
  • Self
  • Culture
  • Power
  • About The Cut
  • About New York Magazine
  • Newsletters
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Press
  • Media Kit
  • We’re Hiring
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Ad Choices
  • Do Not Sell My Info
  • Accessibility
The Cut is a Vox Media Network. © 2023 Vox Media, LLC. All rights reserved.