Vamping it up: the outfits? The sex? The age defiance? Just what is the appeal of vampires to gay and lesbian audiences? (culture).

The outfits? The sex? The age defiance? Just what is the appeal of vampires to gay and lesbian audiences?

When you think of a man who dresses well, stays out late, and has an endless appetite for supple young flesh, admit it: Vampire is the second thing that comes to mind. So it's surprising that when Brain Stoker created the Dracula character in 1897 there was nary a trace of homoeroticism to be found in the creature. Yet vampires have always held irresistible appeal for queer readers. Whether it stems from the secretive nature of the enterprise or the totally swell black satin cape, that certain something was distilled when Anne Rice published her novel Interview With the Vampire in 1976. Although the book was not overtly gay, the undercurrents of homoeroticism were unmistakable as the vampires Lestat and Louis scampered about the globe devoting special attentions to their exsanguinations of young men and eventually cohabited in a nontraditional living arrangement that included the child vampire Claudia.

Scott Miller, in last year's In the Blood (iUniverse.com), introduced the gay vampire into the romance genre. The allure of the vampire as a romantic entanglement, the author claims, is "the life-or-death risk, the trading of fluids, the fact that it's always at night ... it's a little risky, and that's what vampires offer us." He adds, though, that, "Like roller coasters, it's risk in a completely safe context" for readers.

Film vampires occupy a special niche, since the undead tend to be played by rather attractive performers. It's impossible to forget the thrill of Catherine Deneuve feeding on the delicate Susan Sarandon in 1983's The Hunger, while 1987 brought us the teen vampire classic The Lost Boys, in which director Joel Schumacher treated the youthful cheekbones of his cast like works of porcelain art. Say what you will about the '80s--these films got us away from the image of the living dead as a craggy Middle European in a rented tuxedo.

Out film director David DeCoteau (Leather Jacket Love Story) has taken the gay vampire to another level, though whether that step is up or down is purely a matter of taste. Last year's direct-to-video The Brotherhood (Rapid Heart Pictures) was a campus-centered story featuring the DeCoteau trademarks of hideous real estate, perpetual lightning, and at least one scene that's the gay male equivalent of the Playmate pillow-fight pictorial. (If you're a fan of DeCoteau's soft-core, boy-heavy spookiness, you might try his nonvampire flicks The Brotherhood 2: Young Warlocks and Voodoo Academy, both also available on video.)

Lesbian vampires on film go back at least as far as 1936's Dracula's Daughter; they experienced a sort of heyday in the early '70s, but these were primarily films made by and for straight men, most glossily exemplified by the 1970 Hammer film The Vampire Lovers, adapted from the 1871 LeFanu lesbian classic, Camilla. Television took a tentative foray with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which the witch Willow existed briefly in an alternate universe as a sapphic bloodsucker. Whatever your chosen medium for the thrill of being ravished by a creature who manages to embody life, death, and couture, author Miller notes that "it's a personal taste thing--just like pornography."

Jones also writes for Backstage West.