http://theoatmeal.com/story/twilight

I would love to know more about your prof — and if she is writing or presenting on the series… I am co-editing an anthology she might be interested in contributing to. The call for papers can be found at my blog, Seduced by Twilight.

Thanks for the great post!

On the other hand, I am pretty interested in intersections between texts, so I’ll take a stab at your second paragraph.

Most of what you highlighted about vampire sexuality (and if that’s not a thesis worthy sounding topic, I don’t know what is) seems pretty consistent with what I’ve read of vampire literature from Bram Stoker onward.

My personal tastes run towards political meaning in literature (with my preferred reading of Dracula being a commentary on the dangers of a parasitic Aristocratic class feeding off of the productive middle class while simultaneously seducing them), but the sexual elements of Dracula in particular, and vampires in literature in general, are impossible to miss.

Much like with Edward (here I’m going from the movie, which I did see), vampire bitings are pretty consistently a parallel for penetrative sex. Hearkening back to Anne Rice, most every description of her feedings combine the obvious penetrative imagery with an intense, euphoric joining that culminates in death or close to it. Compare that to when Edward sucks out the poison from Bella’s wound at the end of the movie and it seems to me that Meyers is simply carrying onward the traditional themes of vampire sexuality established by other writers.

Obviously the most interesting thing though is where Meyer deviates from traditional vampire sexuality. As far as I understand it, her real innovation is the re-inversion of the inversion that is vampire sexuality.

Looking at the vampire lit I’m familiar with it strikes me that vampire sexuality is an inversion of human sexuality. Where the sexual act for humans is (traditionally) procreative, for vampires it is destructive. Anne Rice does some really interesting things with this, such as the self-annhilative nature of vampire fetishism (the character of Jesse and many others) and explorations of chastity (Louis) and rampant libertinism (post-awakening Akasha) in the vampire mode.

I suspect there is none as interesting as Claudia however. A child vampire, she seems to serve two key functions. One, she is an attempt by Louis (and somewhat Lestat) to defy the destructive nature of the sexuality by creating a child (and I’m not even looking at the dynamic of her having two fathers and her relationship with them). Two, she is sexually fascinating in that she does not age. Since she was made when she was a pre-pubescent girl she is perpetually trapped in that body and rages against the denial of the physical signs of her sexual being (thus raising the question of what it means to be both a sexual and immortal being).

Meyer is different though – and I don’t know that I care much for it. From what I’ve been told of her stories and what I saw in the Twilight movie, I feel that Meyer has grossly unbalanced vampires as a literary device by removing all their weaknesses (sunlight, silver, garlic, blessed objects, etc.) but letting them keep all their strengths (immortality, faerie-like glamour, superhuman speed, strength, invulnerability, etc.). The same holds for their sexuality. As Bella and Edward are proof of, in Meyer’s universe vampire sexuality is also procreative.

Now, looking back over this, I can’t say I’ve actually responded to any of your points. I hope you’ll forgive me that though, and please feel free to indulge in any further explorations on the topic. I don’t have nearly enough good analytical literature discussions now that I’ve graduated.

American social-conservative sexuality is quite sexual, really. Penetration is the only barrier–as long as you’re operating within the realm of heterosexual monogamy. It’s a highly sexualized realm, but it’s also a highly limited realm.

What actually makes less sense to me is the necrophiliac, oral fetishistic, etc. overtones. Is Meyer aware of how those things are working in this story? Or is it just that they’re okay because they’re operating in a heterosexual, monogamous context?

While Twilight is (presumably, I haven’t read them) heteronormative, It’s interesting that she didn’t adopt the fairly ambiguous sexuality of Anne Rice’s vampires, considering that I’ve been given to understand that just about everything else from the novels is lifted damn near straight out of her work.

Maybe we should give her a little bit of credit for not entirely ripping off the Vampire Chronicles?