Vampire lifestyle

The vampire lifestyle or vampire subculture is an alternative lifestyle, based on the modern perception of vampires in popular fiction. The vampire subculture has stemmed largely from the goth subculture,[1] but also incorporates some elements of the sadomasochism subculture. The Internet provides a prevalent forum for the subculture along with other media such as glossy magazines devoted to the topic.[2]

Many self-professed vampires actively resent the term "lifestylers," as this tends to carry the connotation that vampirism is not real. Some vampires actually use the term as a pejorative for role-players.

Active vampirism within the vampire subculture includes both sanguinarian vampirism, which involves blood consumption,[2] and psychic vampirism, whose practitioners believe they are drawing spiritual nourishment from auric or pranic energy.

Ideology

Consumption of blood

Like Dracula and other literary vampires, some traditions of modern vampires drink blood, either animal or human, although human is preferred. They claim they need blood to make up for a deficiency of proper energy processing within the body, or that it helps them gain energy and strength.[3]

Sexuality and sexual practices

The link between vampirism and sexuality has been present even before Stoker’s Dracula. With the modern vampire movement, “eroticism has become so entwined with the contemporary vampire scene that popular vampire magazines, like Bloodstone, include previews of the latest vampire pornography, featuring combined acts of sex and blood-letting.”[2] This focus on sex and sexuality stems from vampire literature. In fact, sexual attraction was the most frequent response in a survey conducted among a group of 574 college and high school participants, where the participants were asked what they found most appealing about vampires and vampire literature.[4]

Sex researchers have documented cases of people with sexual (paraphilic) vampirism and autovampirism.[5][6]

Members of vampire subculture

Unlike what is commonly assumed, there are more members to the vampire society than simply those that drink blood. Such members tend to congregate into small clans, usually called covens or "houses," in a tribal culture to find acceptance among others that share their beliefs. Generally vampirism is not considered a religion but a spiritual or philosophical path.[7] There are also many modern vampires that are not part of a coven, but rather are solitary.[3] Most human vampires wear regular or ordinary clothes for the area they live in to avoid discrimination.[2] In addition, there are hybrids, human vampires that take both blood and energy.[3] There are three main types of vampires lifestylers.

Psychic vampires

Psi-vamps are another kind of human vampire that claim to attain nourishment from the aura, psychic energy, or pranic energy of others.[2][3] They believe one must feed from this energy to balance a spiritual or psychological energy deficiency such as a damaged aura or chakra.

Blood donors

Blood donors are people that willingly allow vampires to drink their blood. Within vampire society, vampires and donors are considered equal, yet donors are expected to be subservient to the vampires.[8] At the same time, donors are difficult to find, and because of that, human vampires have no reason to abuse their donors.[2]

Blood fetishists

Fetishists in the vampire community use blood as a fetish or stimulant in sadomasochistic sex.[3]

Vampire role-players

Vampire role-players, otherwise called "fashion vamps", differ distinctly from human vampires in that they are "serious vampire fans and those who dress up in vampire clothing, live a vampire lifestyle (e.g. sleep in coffins), and primarily participate in RPGs such as Vampire: The Masquerade."[3]

Terminology

Term[3] Definition
feeding the taking of energy via blood or other forms
mundane; nil a closed-minded individual/ non-awakened,

non-vampire

black swan a non-vampire that is sympathetic to vampires
fledgling someone that is new to vampire subculture

Controversy

Christianity and modern vampires

In response to the rising vampire subculture, a Christian counter-movement of self-professed vampire slayers has formed that opposes the notion of real vampires.[2] Online, they swarm vampire websites with hate mail and participate in other similar activities,[9] but there are rumors of zealous vampire slayers killing human vampires.[2]

Modern vampirism and crime

Tracey Wigginton gained the nickname "The Lesbian Vampire Killer" after she killed a man in 1989, purportedly to drink his blood. Other serial killers and similar individuals have killed people, believing themselves to be vampires and in need of blood to drink. However, the vampire subculture as a whole does not associate themselves with these individuals, stating that they are not real vampires, and that the subculture does not promote violence or crime in any form.[2] Crime as a whole is rarely associated with vampirism.[8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Skal, David J. (1993). The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. New York: Penguin. pp. 342–43. ISBN 0-14-024002-0.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Keyworth, David (October 2002). "The Socio-Religious Beliefs and Nature of the Contemporary Vampire Subculture". Journal of Contemporary Religion 17 (3): 355–370. doi:10.1080/1353790022000008280.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Williams, DJ (2008). "Contemporary Vampires and (Blood-Red) Leisure: Should We Be Afraid of the Dark?". Leisure 32 (2): 513–539. doi:10.1080/14927713.2008.9651420.
  4. ↑ De Marco, Joseph (May–June 1997). "Vampire literature: Something young adults can really sink their teeth into". Emergency Librarian 24 (5): 26–28.
  5. ↑ McCully, R. S. (1964). Vampirism: Historical perspective and underlying process in relation to a case of auto-vampirism. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 139, 440–451.
  6. ↑ Prins, H. (1985). Vampirism: A clinical condition. British Journal of Psychiatry, 146, 666–668.
  7. ↑ Sebastiaan, Father (2010). Vampyre Sanguinomicon: The Lexicon of the Living Vampire. Red Wheel/Weiser. ISBN 978-1-57863-480-4
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Guinn, Jeff (1996). Something in the Blood: The Underground World of Today’s Vampires. Arlington: Summit Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-56530-209-9.
  9. ↑ Thorne, Tony (1999). Children of the Night: Of Vampires and Vampirism. London: Victor Gollancz. ISBN 978-0-575-40272-0.

Further reading