Vampires and Desire: Blood, Sex, and Ritual in Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Fiction

Abstract

Vampires remain an enduring icon. Over centuries, vampires have traversed literary genres, moving between liminal spaces of life and death, inhabiting cultural currents, and reflecting social anxieties. Using a literary framework, this chapter offers an analysis of the relationship between vampires and desire, as the latter remains central to vampiric representations in adult paranormal romance and urban fantasy fiction. In the paranormal romance genre, the codes and conventions of the vampire character as a grotesque or monstrous creature are adapted and recast as part of constructing a popular romantic lead. While these novels still recall the well-known characteristics of the vampire as a predatory figure, they also often display the undead as tender-hearted, or at times even love-sick, protagonists. Urban fantasy genres, however, remain generally unconstrained by notions of romance or an expectation of a “happily ever after.” Even with attempts to sanitize or popularize vampires within these literary genres, this chapter demonstrates that these iconic figures have not forsaken their murderous appeal, nor have they relinquished their transgressions in favor of being depicted as “good” over “evil.” It is the intention of this chapter, therefore, to analyze how the vampire’s uncontrollable desires are still continuously made manifest through notions of blood, lust, sexual cravings, and ritualized kinship.