Rebecca and Hannah chew on the question: Are all vampires are a little gay? We discuss the background of Bram Stoker’s Dracula; consider food, appetite, and eroticism; and critique the connection between vampire media and the AIDS epidemic. Rebecca rants about the infuriating homophobia in Vampire Academy, Hannah gets excited about the many vampiric scenes in Saltburn, and it’s determined that for vampires, sex and feeding are one and the same.
Come vamps, join us around the campfire.
Major Spoilers:
* Dracula by Bram Stoker, 1897
* Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead, 2007-2010
Other media mentioned in this episode:
Poetry
* “The Vampyre” by John Stagg, 1810
Fiction
* “The Vampyre” by John William Polidori, 1819
* Varney the Vampire: or, the Feast of Blood by James Malcolm Ryder and Thomas Pickett Prest, 1845-1847
* “Good Lady Ducayne” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, 1869
* Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872
* “Manor” by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, 1885
* I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, 1954
* ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King, 1975
* Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, 1976
* Hotel Transylvania by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, 1978
* The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez, 1991
* The Awakening by L.J. Smith, 1991
* The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zárate, 1998
* The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris, 2001-2013 (True Blood)
* A Quick Bite by Lynsay Sands, 2005
* Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, 2005
* Peeps by Scott Westerfeld, 2005
* Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste, 2022
* Forged in Blood by Sadie Kincaid, 2024
* Bride by Ali Hazelwood, 2024
TV
* Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1997-2003
* True Blood, 2008-2014
* Vampire Diaries, 2009-2017
* Interview with the Vampire, 2022-Current
* What We Do in the Shadows, 2019-2024
Film
* Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, directed by F.W. Murnau, 1922
* Dracula, directed by Terence Fisher, 1958
* Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, 1992
* Blade, directed by Stephen Norrington, 1998
* Interview with the Vampire, directed by Neil Jordan, 1994
* The Twilight Saga, 2008-2012
* Saltburn, directed by Emerald Fennel, 2023
* Nosferatu, directed by Robert Eggers, 2024
* Dracula, directed by Luc Besson, 2025
Additional Reading
* Bram Stoker, “The Censorship of Fiction,” 1908
* Bram Stoker, Lady Athlyne, 1908 (for Stoker’s views on bisexuality)
* Christopher Craft, “Kiss Me With Those Red Lips: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” Representations, no. 8 (1984)
* Talia Schaffer, “‘A Wilde Desire Took Me’: The Homoerotic History of Dracula,” ELH 61, no. 2 (1994)
* Sarah Sceats, “Oral Sex: Vampiric Transgression and the Writing of Angela Carter,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 20, no. 1 (2001)
* Janai Subramanian and Jorie Legerwey, “Food, Sex, Love, and Bodies in ‘Eat Pray Love’ and ‘Black Swan,’” Studies in Popular Culture 36, no. 1 (2013)
* Harry Benshoff, “Monster and the Homosexual,” The Monster Theory Reader, 2020
For podcast updates, vampire memes, and consumption suggestions, follow us on Instagram! @vampirecampfirepod
This episode was written, recorded, and produced by Rebecca Glazer & Hannah Spiegelman
