According to Charlaine Harris in “Dead Until Dark” a good vampire appears to be white, heterosexual, dressed in basic clothing (shop at Dillards), live alone, are monogamous, date humans, drink synthetic blood, and hopefully have ties to the confederacy, at least during the Civil War (“‘You fought for the Confederacy,’ I said wonderingly. ‘If you still had your uniform and wore it to the club the ladies would faint with joy,’” (60)).
Typically vampires are displayed in two ways in the novel:
“Mainstreamers” like Bill
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“Nesting” vampires
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Drink synthetic blood
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Drink blood from fangbangers or glamour humans to take blood when they want.
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Drinking blood appears to very much be a sexual nature because Bill often drinks from Sookie after he has sex with her and the first time she really sees his fangs is when she first goes to the Compton house and meets the main nesting vampires. A man, Jerry, is offered to Bill and begins rubbing up against him. As Sookie notes, “The strain in my vampire’s face was terrible to see. His fangs slid out. I saw him fully extended for the first time. The synthetic blood was not answering all Bill’s needs alright,” (73).
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Bill is far from openly sexual and is pretty careful about not being too forward with Sookie.
His sexuality is in question because he does have sex with Sookie plenty, but that doesn’t mean he has no interest in men at all. When Jerry rubs against him (as mentioned earlier), he does fully extend his fangs. While he doesn’t explicitly show a sexual interest, the phrases “fangs slid out” and “fully extended” do imply a sexual innuendo.
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Nesting vampires are repeatedly shown to be open about their sexuality, to the disgust of the main character, Sookie.
“Malcolm pulled the human male to him and gave him a long kiss. I began to feel sick. That kind of stuff is private,” (72).
“The male vampire with the tattoos put his arm around Janella and rubbed her breasts. I could feel the blood drain out of my face. I was disgusted. It got worse. Janella, as lost to decency as the vampire, put her hand on his crotch and massaged,” (72).
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Speaking of sexual activities, nesting vampires appear to be far more open about their sexuality and sexual activities. When Sookie visits the Compton house for the first time and meets the main nesting vampires of the novels, she is disgusted with how openly the vampires do sexual things, especially if it is homosexual in nature.
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Live on their own (“‘Vampires like me, who live alone, are a little better reminded of their former humanity,’”(78).)
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Live in groups (“‘When vampires live in nests,’ he said suddenly, ‘they often become more cruel because they egg each other on. They see others like themselves constantly, and so they are reminded of how far from being human they are,’” (78).)
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The argument is made that vampires should live alone because the solitude makes them better, makes them more human. Vampires that nest are described as losing their humanity because they spend so much time with other vampires and see how different they are from human beings.
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Courtney Sellars
