Fangbangers & Swinging Cannibals

November is dismal in Montreal. The gunmetal sky casts a pall over everything. The bitter north wind chills you to the bone. There’s no escaping the city’s funereal gloom. You can see it in our drawn faces. You can smell it in the dry, withered leaves that litter our streets. 

The town's a cemetery. Swathed in black, we seem to mourn the passing of summer as we brace ourselves for the cold months ahead.

Here, sex has its seasons. In spring, it surges like a flash flood, washing away our reserve. The first sight of bare skin, so long concealed, is a revelation. In summer, the high tide of lust, when the oppressive heat flows over us, our bodies come together slowly, magically, as in an opium dream....

Now, my dormant libido finds itself buried beneath six feet of permafrost, craving the warmth of December’s holiday revelry, aching to be reborn in the promise of a happy New Year. 

* * * 

In plain English, what I’m saying is this: The non-monogamous sex scene dries up in Montreal in the fall, so PC and I have kept to ourselves lately. Hunkering down with whiskey and hot chocolate, we’ve been getting cozy on the couch, catching up on quality TV we never otherwise watch. 

Familiar with my penchant for all things Victorian, a close friend recommended True Blood. We’ve been mainlining it steady for six days. It’s become our obsession. For my part, I’m determined to see it through. I wanna find out whether or not this Southern Gothic offers any positive representation of my kind of sexuality. 

Historical Vamps & Lesbian Tramps 

The vampire: A vehicle we use to express the dark side of human nature. Synonymous with savage brutality and transgressive sexuality, the appeal of this mythical figure never gets old. Case and point: Neither the Blood Countess Elizabeth Báthory, who allegedly sacrificed hundreds of virgin girls to bathe in their blood, nor Vlad the Impaler were actually vampires, but their predatory cruelty continues to haunt the popular imagination to this day. 

The repressed Victorians were relentless in their censure of sexual practices that undermined the sanctity of the matrimonial bed (did you know that some doctors prescribed the cauterization of pubescent girls’ clitorises to keep them from masturbating? That is seriously fucked up.). Not surprisingly, this Puritanical age was fascinated with the vampire as a symbol of sexual transgression. 

Bran Stoker’s novel Dracula may come to mind most readily, but are you familiar with Carmilla, Sheridan Le Fanu's lesbian vampire novella? This story reveals an uneasy tension between the condemnation of alternative sexuality and its eroticization: 

“In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die – die, sweetly die – into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which is yet love.” 

-Carmilla, a.k.a. Countess Mircalla Karnstein, speaking to her lover and distant relative, Laura 

For those of you who are not fluent in Victorian speak, “enormous humiliation” is a euphemism for lesbian sex acts. Carmilla the vampire is therefore lust incarnate: Her incestuous, Sapphic embraces have the power to transform innocent virgins into bloodsucking whores. Or so the author fears. 

True Blood 

In keeping with tradition, True Blood seems to use the figure of the vampire as a vehicle to explore alterative forms of sexuality that deviate from the mainstream. I’ve just finished watching through to season 3, and so far the series has branded non-monogamy as predatory, violent, and evil. What gives?

Example #1: Season 2, episode 18

Bill and his maker, Lorena, meet at the aptly named Hotel Carmilla and reminisce about their early days as wife-swapping vampires. Their memories implicitly “out” swingers as sleek, sexual predators who will drain you of life and wealth. 

Example #2: Season 2, episode 16

Maryanne the maenad, a figurative vampire who preys on human energy, transforms the locals into a groveling band of entranced revelers who indulge in orgies and cannibalism while under her spell. In this case, group sex amounts to a devil-worshiping ritual that transforms us into barbaric and bloodthirsty, man-eating whores. 

True Blood or True Fears?

My concern is this: How deliberate is True Blood’s condemnation of non-monogamy? Does the series’ vilification of open forms of sexuality seek to engage critically with mainstream society’s  taboos, or does it reveal the writers’ own Puritanical prejudices? 

I’ve been waiting for a series that speaks to my experiences and views on non-monogamy. Is True Blood it? During this dreary month of November, before the holidays call PC and I away to our own Bacchic celebrations, I’m hoping to find out.