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The AfterEllen.com Huddle: Lesbian vampires

The most ironic thing about the latest vampire trend is that they seem to be so full of men. Twilight is all about Edward, True Blood is focused on the Sookie-Bill-Eric love triangle more than anything else, and even Lesbian Vampire Killers starred two dudes trying to make it out of Vampyros alive.

Lesbian vampires have been part of entertainment for decades, so it’s only fitting that they are popping up again, though they’ve been resigned to smaller characters with one-liners and Sapphic glances. Obviously we need to be reminded of our own personal history as blood suckers, from Carmilla in all of its forms to present day depictions of centuries old vamps, we are deeply rooted in the legend of fangs.

TheLinster: I have to stick with the classic: Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve) in The Hunger. The seduction scene between Miriam and Sarah (Susan Sarandon) still is one of the most sensual scenes on film, even though we saw nothing explicit. I wasn’t out (even to myself) when I saw the movie the first time, but I lost my breath when Sarah took her shirt off. I get a little verklempt just thinking about it.

And I will never hear “The Flower Duet” from Lakme without getting that special tingle that I got when I first heard it during that scene. We never forget our first vampire.

Alley Hector: Catherine Deneuve from The Hunger. Paired with the waifish and pale Bowie, they manage to be both scary and sexy like any good vamp should. Susan Sarandon, girl – I understand.

Trish Bendix: My favorite lesbianish vampires are Lucy and Mina of Dracula, specifically in the form of the 1992 film starring Winona Ryder and Sadie Frost. They are both in a relationship with the Dracula, so they aren’t really gay – but they share a random kiss in the rain, which stayed in my brain from the time I saw it at age 9 until this day.

Drummerdeeds:: My favorite is Uta Refson from The L Word, played by the stunning Erica Cerra. I’m not into this whole vampire thing (in fact, I think it’s lame), but Erica makes me never want to wear a turtleneck again.

Heather Hogan: Oh, Sophie-Anne, how you complicate my feelings! I universally adore people who share my middle name – Anne with an “e” – but I universally abhor vampires (due to a traumatic and hugely embarrassing incident in which my second grade bus driver scared the hell out of me on Halloween). But you! You, with your ’40s era style and charm! You, with your real life problems, like the IRS! You, with your Yahtzee fascination! And you, with your whole, “I haven’t enjoyed sex with men since the Eisenhower Administration.”

I’m drawn to you (“She would understand my thick southern accent”) and I’m repulsed by you (“She would suck my blood.”) And that’s just how you want it, isn’t it? You saucy, befanged minx!

Karman Kregloe: Back in the olden days (1989), before there was AfterEllen.com and there were hardly any films with lesbian content, I tracked down a lesbian vampire episode of the television show Nightmare Classics. The episode, Carmilla, starred Meg Tilly, Ione Skye, and Roddy McDowell and was based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s cult classic Victorian novel of the same name, published 25 years before Bram Stoker‘s Dracula. Because it was 1989, the tag line for the film was, “Her unholy friendship …would never die.” Yep, sounds like a lesbian to me.

Because it was 1989, there were no stylized, blood-soaked lesbian orgies, just (as I remember it) Meg Tilly hanging from a tree and biting the neck of a woman (Ione Skye) from what looked like an extremely awkward angle. It may have given her a neck cramp, but it also prevented them from having any full body contact.

It may not sound like much, and that’s because it wasn’t. But it was something, and I had a little crush on Meg Tilly because she looked like one of my college professors with whom I longed to stay up late and do some serious deconstructing. Plus, it was pre-Jennifer Tilly (her sister), and she changed everything.

And there’s so many more where that came from. Ready, go!

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