Letâs shed a little educated light on the resurgence of this whole âVampire Romanceâ genre. Now, before you justifiably click away, assuming Iâm going to start talking about Twilight, let me assure you: This is not about Twilight. This is about vampires. Twilight is not a vampire book, itâs Hello Kitty caliber softcore pornography for First Level Goths. It is entirely unconnected to the true resurgence of the vampire, present in anything from True Blood to The Vampire Diaries to Anne Rice to Being Human and on and on. No matter how effeminate, emotional, romantic or just unabashedly gay the shows, movies, and novels featuring the modern vampire might be, they do undoubtedly contain actual vampires. Not pallid fairies that glitter when you tickle their anus: Vampires. Theyâre back. But why?

BUT WHY?!

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Itâs clearly apparent that this resurgence is geared almost exclusively towards women, so to truly understand the re-emergence of the vampire, you first need to understand the female mind. Luckily for you, I majored in Feminist Studies in college (mistakenly believing, due to the exclusively female attendance of the classes, that I had somehow stumbled upon an unattended all-you-can-eat buffet of hot, nasty bitches. But I found no hot nasty bitches there â only proud, strong women who deserved my respect and admiration. Later, I found all the hot nasty bitches in the sociology wing, but thatâs a story for another time, and another court stenographer). The vampire, if broken down by its core story components, should have a primarily masculine appeal: Super-powers, monsters, hot lusty bitches and vicious maulings â on paper that sounds like classic Man Territory.

Watch out, it's sticky. All of it.

For women, however, the appeal is something beyond the core components: Vampires are cold, dead, emotionless creatures. Most women want two things from a romance: To be physically saved and occasionally dominated by a big, strong, impassive man, and to in turn emotionally save and dominate that same physically strong, but psychologically weak man. Vampires, being quite literally dead, are the most in need of saving. They have lost touch with life itself and need to be ânursedâ back into their own basic humanity, the ultimate metaphor for a crippled emotional state. And their supernatural strength and monstrous nature means theyâre always able and willing to both save and dominate their fragile women (especially appealing in this case because the women need not be insulted; theyâre only âphysically weakerâ because they lack those accursed vampiric powers).

"No, I don't feel like I'm re-enforcing gender stereotypes by playing up my weakness, he's a vampire and batman!"

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Vampires have experienced this resurgence among women because they most represent this dynamic without further interpretation. If you tell a basic vampire story, the domination/submission elements will always be present, even if you donât actively try to include them. But most supernatural fiction possesses these same elements as well; they need only be presented with slight tweaks to fit the âRomantic Monsterâ genre. Like so: