Vampires, Gay Men, and Sex

The men at Esquire are worried. They are fearful that we as women are so tempted by Vampires like Edward that we are forgetting about real, heterosexual men. Their cause for concern is serious; they think that the Vampires resemble all the hot, gay men with perfect features and bodies (not excluding beefcakes like Dan Savage) and that we women in our heart of hearts, would prefer to sleep with a gay man or a Vampire over a straight man.

The author’s premise is that in the Twilight series, which we NEVER seem to hear enough about, the young, slightly helpless heroine Bella falls in love with an elegant, seemingly unattainable guy from her school- ergo, the aloof gay student at the high school, which is supposedly every girl’s secret fantasy. He also cites the Trueblood series as casting both Vampires and Gays as outcasts or “freaks” and gives other examples of how we helpless women are always lusting after “men” who want to suck our blood.

I can see the correlation between elegant men and Vampires, but I think it’s going way too far to suggest that all straight women want to sleep with gay men or to assume that every woman, if given the choice, would invite a Vampire to her bedroom. Seriously, back in the day, when I was a young lass, I would specifically go out dancing in the gay clubs so that my friends and I could dance freely without the fear of being harassed. I definitely lamented the fact that some of the fine-cut pieces of meat on the dance floor weren’t straight, but I didn’t go home and cry about it.

There’s also a certain freedom in having friends of either sex who don’t want to sleep with you. When Bella is with Edward (I know, I know-it’s really embarrassing that I actually read the first book), part of the attraction between them is that he could actually kill her, which is quite the opposite of liking someone who you could never get. One is presumably the most dangerous relationship you could have and the other is the safest type of relationship you could have.

My theory is that men not only wish that all the ladies in the world were hot for them, they wish they could date someone 100 years younger. Seriously, what guy doesn’t secretly want a Lolita in their life?