//You know… physically speaking vampires would still be able to be on the receiving end of sex. It’s not like their orifices were supernaturally disappearing after being turned… A functioning member is not the only thing that grants a man the ability to have sex.
Some vampires say the blood acts as a sort of substitute. That they simply don’t feel the need to have sex in a physical way. Which is fine. To each their own.
But I sometimes I can’t help but wonder if it is really necessary to view the (IMHO obviously remaining) anatomical ability of vampires to still have sex in some form as a thing that is somehow suddenly so impossible that it borders on the absurd to even think of it. Some seem to be rather aggressive about it-
I’m in agreement – Blood-sharing is the highest form of intimacy between vampires but why should that include other forms of intimacy and closeness, especially with creatures who are so attuned to physical sensation? We were told in the Story of the Twins that the spirit Amel (and this was known even before we learned AR’s take on what Amel really was/is in PL and PLRoA), was starved for the sensations of the physical, driven to wanting physical experience to the point that it actively sought contact, drew blood from human in minuscule amounts and then ultimately assumed a symbiotic relationship with Akasha’s body as she died, creating a new sort of being altogether.
It was about sensation, about experiencing all that was possible to experience. Vampire senses are enhanced upon their change from mortal to immortal and those enhancements continue throughout the existence of the vampire. That’s my verbose way of saying –why deny the pleasures of the flesh (unless that is one’s choice rather than an impossibility)?
And if the vampire embarks on a relationship with a mortal (probably not advisable, but arguable inevitable with some personalities) certainly there is nothing to prevent the vampire from pleasuring the mortal or even taking pleasure from that moral. In addition, the mind gift would likely have uses as an ehhancement.
Canonically, AR began with the idea that vampires did not have sex, but even that had exceptions(Marius and Pandora, for instance) after time had passed. It was described as less than satsfying. Many -most, actually- physiological details are left ambiguous, so who is to say what is functional or not.
Fanfic, though…it goes anywhere the imaginations of the authors want to take it. Some prefer to stick to canon, others, not so much. There are as many variations as can be imagined and they can and do change with the levels of interest each author might want to express/explore. I don’t see either way why it would be impossible, only that the pull of blood-drinking might be al that some of them want. Everyone’s mileage vary on the subject, of course.
I don’t know the real reason, I don’t know anyone who does. I don’t know if it was Anne Rice’s choice, or Neil Jordan’s.
I think there were a lot of factors that went into that decision, and it stirs up alot of issues and questions, alot has been written about it and alot more can be written about it!
TL;DR: 1) I think it was done to cut time, Louis being distraught about losing a wife and child is immediately understandable to anyone who hasn’t read the books. It starts off the film with Louis questioning the reasons of a God that could punish him for seemingly no reason at all.*
2) The other main issue is whether Louis is/was straight or if he actually was bisexual/homosexual/etc. as a mortal and Lestat entering the picture and pulling Louis into vampiring made it possible for Louis to let go of his preconceived ideas and social/religious/etc. repression and accept himself for what he really was. Neil Jordan probably wanted that left open-ended and unanswered.
(*It could have set up the whole Louis-frustrated-about-how-religion-plays-into-vampiring, but that was cut from the film, too.)
1) One of the audiobook recordings for IWTV has a runtime of 14 hours and 28 minutes [X] and that’s ALOT OF STORY to condense down into a movie that can’t be that long. Scenes have to be cut.
The movie we got is 2 hours long, and in 1994, I seem to remember movies being more in the 1.5 hour range. Titanic, clocking in at a little over 3 hours long, was kind of ridiculed by the critics for that lengthy runtime. These days, a 2-3 hour movie is not really as big a deal.
Building in the right amount of time/scenes to show the circumstances of Paul’s death and why Louis felt so responsible for it, that would have increased the runtime and delayed the amount of time we get to the actual vampiring. I can’t check the film right now but I think Lestat appears within the first 15 minutes of the movie, for good reason. To get the vampiring STARTED.
2)
In 1994, same-sex marriage was legal in zero states. Now it is the law of the land. Movie!IWTV was already pushing the envelope to suggest that Louis/Lestat were in a romantic relationship together. So, if Louis starts his story as having been married to a woman, it would appear that he’s established as being straight. On the surface.
HOWEVER! this is a Neil Jordan movie, and one of his previous movies, the Crying Game, Jordan had gender issues and sexual orientations as main concerns, so perhaps starting Louis off as SEEMING TO BE STRAIGHT and then having Lestat swoop in and now Louis is “with” Lestat somehow, experiences that moment of intense intimacy when he is given the Dark Gift… so Jordan seems to be asking the audience if Louis was actually bisexual or homosexual as a mortal and suppressed it? Since we never see Louis and Lestat actually make love on screen (aside from the Dark Gift happening), does it still count as a homosexual relationship?
^I think Neil Jordan wanted these questions left open-ended, and for that to be part of the exquisite torture that is the Louis/Lestat ship. Is it platonic or romantic? Jordan isn’t telling, and neither is Louis.
There is, as I said, a lot more to it than that, but these are the main issues that come to mind for me, and I’m also trying to be concise. Anyone can reblog/comment with more ideas.
Anne Rice herself changed it because she claims she wanted people to see Louis could be bisexual, but also because she doesn’t understand her own goddamn character and the importance of his motivation and what Paul’s faith and loss represented anymore.
She has expressed surprise before that people called it out and weren’t happy with it, which really says more about her and the lack of thought that went into this change than anything else.
Neil Jordan didn’t change it, and would have handled it well, I’m certain.
♛I took to these modern products right away, and they come in flavors, some of them have warming effects, it’s dazzling!
But you know, there were such things before there were specific products for them. I preferred grapeseed oil, but you can use other oils. Contrary to popular belief, spit dries very quickly. Too fast to be of much use for this purpose.
Now, blood as lube took me longer to adjust to.
Our blood is thicker than mortal blood, and dries slowly, but even so… sometimes it’s easy to look at the landscape of my lover’s writhing body, see the blood that I’ve drawn or applied, and feel a frisson of dissonance. That I haven’t actually done them harm, unless that was exactly what they demanded from me…
For us, anywhere that can be bitten or cut can be an erogenous zone *winks*
Well, not “sex” in the way we usually think of it. Armand did bite Lestat and drink from him in The Vampire Armand, when Lestat was in a coma in the chapel of a former convent (St. Elizabeth’s) in NOLA (even in that unconscious state, he had been defending himself, but allowed Armand that brief intimacy).
According to AR, blood sharing is the Ricean vampiry equivalent of sex:
It’s described as being more intimate than human sex, feeding and being fed from is not just about the physical liquid, it’s an all-consuming experience.
When things seem to be accepted as canon/fanon, we get a little playful with word usage… if blood sharing = sex, then we sometimes just use the word “sex” when it doesn’t mean the penetrative sex we usually associate with the word for humans. Keep in mind that there are humans in relationships who are unable (or do not want) to experience genitally-penetrative sex, and they can still be sexually intimate with each other in other ways. So it’s partly in how you define sex and intimacy.
♛A polyamorous relationship? *sits up, grins, rubs his hands together* Anon, if and when you successfully manage it, you tell me how to do it! I’ve been trying for years to get Louis to accept David and David to accept Louis for this very arrangement; does it not make perfect sense that if they love me separately, they should be able to love me together, at the same time, in the same bed, or wherever we are?! Why the hell not! Alas.
I do have some experience with threesomes – andmoresomes – but only really outside the context of a relationship, and that is typically with people who don’t expect the ongoing relationship aspect. These purely physical interludes can be extremely satisfying, the extra set of hands, the extra lips… etc. Such indulgence. Like an upgrade from your bathtub to a jacuzzi with jets (Not that I don’t also love my bathtub as it is *flicks a fang*).
I won’t tell you it’s not worth trying, but I would advise you to tread carefully, especially if you’ve all called it platonic already. As in a two-person friendship that you might want to escalate into a romantic relationship, there’s the risk of losing them if the feeling isn’t mutual. How do you know when to do it in that situation? Well… every relationship, between friends or lovers, is defined by the people in it, you mutually set the expectations and limits together.
When do you decide that you want to be closer to someone? What are the signals they give that they want that, too? Not every relationship requires physical intimacy, that’s something you mutually decide, too.
My love life is flashing before my eyes and I can’t pick out answers to those questions *frowns* Unfairly, the best I can tell you is what’s been true for me, that you’ll know when you know, when you can’t keep your hands to yourself because you need their skin on yours, you want to feel their heartbeat with your own and you have a burning need to ask them, “Can I hold your hand?” … And you are 99% sure that they’ll say, “Yes.”
Thanks for the compliments on my blargh! *u* I try to answer asks thoughtfully and respectfully and expect the same consideration back from whoever reads my answers ^_____^
As always, #your headcanon may vary, bc we’re talking about fictional vampires, they are not people. Whether you consider them to be people in their own world is up to you. For me, I see them as ex-people. They share a supernatural parasite that gradually eats away at their mortal parts, replacing it with its own immortal substance, perfecting their host bodies to its own design. So they exist beyond the definitions of sex and gender for me.
I do not believe the vampires are canonically capable of penetrative sex but do I love fanart/fanfic/RP where they have penetrative sex? YES, YES I DO, MORE PLZ. Have I commissioned such fanart of it for myself? Y E S. Will I commission more of it or write my own in the future? YOU’RE GOTDAMN RIGHT I WILL. I love the creativity of the fanon interpretations and I will support these ideas forever.
According to Lestat vampires don’t feel sex drive,
I don’t recall anywhere in canon where Lestat says that vampires do not feel a sex drive. He has described himself as a sensualist, and we know he falls in love easily. I think that they do feel a sex drive, just not in the genitally-penetrative sex way (not the most eloquent phrasing there but I can’t think of another way to put it; “PIV/penis-in-vagina” just doesn’t apply to most of our gay ships).
Turning vampires seems to be their ultimate “sexual” act that they can perform, bc it is equivalent to pregnancy (a fledgling is being “born to darkness”), and it is always described primarily as the sharing of the Blood between maker and fledgling. I headcanon that Lestat loves the act of performing this, and that’s partly why he has had SO MANY FLEDGLINGS. So I believe that they still do feel sexual lust, it’s channeled through the experience of taking/sharing blood, and other sensually physical things.
In fanon there is a wide spectrum of whether they can have genitally-penetrative sex, some even speculate that their um… output… would be very bloody. There is fanart/fanfics/RP/etc. in which they can have that kind of sex, and ones in which they cannot.
in The Tale of the Body Thief one of the things he wants to expierence when he has a human body is sex because he says this is something he can’t do with his vampire body.
^This is up to every reader’s interpretation, and yes, in my opinion, Ricean vampires in canon cannot have penetrative sex. My main evidence for them as being unable to have genitally-penetrative sex comes from [hit the jump for spoilers].
AR has written alot of other novels with genitally-penetrative sex being an important factor, so I doubt it was an oversight in denying it to her vampires. If you want to go by her as the authority on her novels, and many ppl do, she posted definitively about it when asked about Daniel and Marius in PL:
AR does not go into much further detail than that, even in canon, other than the fact that the sharing of blood is more intimate for them than than simple mortal penetrative sex. Part of why she chose this may be to avoid the issue of pregnancy the way mortals do it; a baby cannot grow in undead flesh, y’know?
TL;DR: Personally, I headcanon them as unable to have genitally-penetrative sex. There are human couples who are unable (or do not want) to experience genitally-penetrative sex, and they can still be sexually intimate with each other in other ways. So it’s partly in how you define sex and intimacy.
But in his book Armand mentions that he had sex with Marius several times.
Armand was mortal for some of that book, and Marius did sexual things with him, but not genitally-penetrative sex. After Armand is turned, Marius and Armand have an intimate moment with a mortal woman together, but again, it is not genitally-penetrative sex for them.
My main evidence for them as being unable to have genitally-penetrative sex comes from:
Louis’s description of sex in IWTV:
Claudia asks Louis about sex in IWTV, and he replies that it “‘…was something hurried…And… it was seldom savored… something acute that was quickly lost. I think that it was the pale shadow of killing.’”
^He’s talking about it as occurring in the past, I think he means when he was mortal. Here he says it’s not equivalent to the act of taking blood from a victim, sex is a lesser experience for him.
Lestat’s description of his non-functioning Priapus in QOTD:
“I studied my reflection … and the organ, the organ we don’t need, poised as if ready for what it would never again know how to do or want to do, marble, a Priapus at a gate” – Lestat, Queen of the Damned
^This quote has been interpreted over and over again as meaning many things, one of which being that the vampires have a permanent boner, which I disagree with. I highly doubt Louis, someone with a lot of dignity, would be fine with walking around for eternity with a permanent boner. I blame this misunderstanding on the translators who translated “poised” to “erect” in various other languages.
I interpret that quote as meaning that his Priapus is just “waiting.”
and Pandora’s description of Marius’ non-functioning (but very hard) dick in her book. Pandora wants Marius to sex her up on their ‘wedding night’ and he can’t do it, but they try, awkwardly:
He covered me and kissed my cheek. “Drink from me,” he said, “drink until the pain goes away. It’s only the body dying, drink Pandora, you are immortal.“ “Fill me, take me,” I said. I reached down between his legs. “It doesn’t matter now.” But it was hard, this organ I sought, the organ forever lost to the god Osiris. I guided it, hard and cold as it was, into my body. Then I drank and drank, and when I felt his teeth again on my neck, when he began to draw from me the new mixture that filled my veins, it was sweet suckling, and I knew him and loved him and knew all his secrets in one flash which meant nothing. He was right. The lower organs meant nothing. He fed on me. I fed on him. This was our marriage. –Pandora
I think AR is telling us that in order to be immortal, a great sacrifice must be made. Not just outliving your loved ones, food and drink, sunlight, and your appearance being altered. For many people, sex is as necessary to life as eating and breathing. To give that up for eternity is a huge sacrifice, but, you do get super powers an immortality. Fair trade?
[^ fanart by @liquorandptsdvarietyshow who deactivated, but I’m crediting them and I have permission to repost their art]
We don’t really know much about mortal!Louis’ sex life… in the movie he had been married, and the wife had died in childbirth, one would hope that was his kid, and then he was hanging around w/ whores when he was trying to get himself killed, but he barely even acknowledges that one whore’s presence, even though he has his arm around her to stabilize himself. My general impression of Louis is that of all the vampires, he’s one of the least sexually-motivated.
In IWTV, Louis tells Claudia re: sex: “ ‘It was something hurried,’ I said, trying now to meet her eyes. How perfectly, coldly blue they were. How earnest. ‘And… it was seldom savored… something acute that was quickly lost. I think that it was the pale shadow of killing.’ ”
We don’t know if he just said that to be make her feel better about the fact that she’ll never experience it but Louis usually tells the truth.
I don’t think Louis would have had sex w/ Merrick.
Spoiler alert.
So would Merrick and Louis have had sex? If Merrick wanted it she probably could have voodoo’d him into it, she voodoo’d him into breaking his moral principle to never make another vampire. Without bewitching him, I’d say no.
I-want-my-IWTV 