vid87 said:
Focusing strictly on the sex metaphor, I've always felt they represented rape and predatory tendencies in lieu of actual emotion, their being physically dead but in human form a kind of illusion of love and human intimacy that gives way to, since we're talking blood here, feral interactions that corrupts a live-creating act. I believe the older incarnations involve hypnotism and that you had to voluntarily invite one to be with you for them to get close. Plus, they're often charming, regal, sophisticated men or sexually drenched succubae, something that (at least in the stereotypes) attracts the opposite sex. I think a major reason vampires have lost their...bite is because we are not only more open about sex but have begun supporting sexual independence. I think it happened in something like Vampire Diaries (heard about it only), but the predatory aspect kind of fades when someone WANTS to be turned - it's a shift in the power dynamic.
There's a lot to what you're saying. Seduction isn't looked down upon anymore, and love is no longer required for sex. The amazing thing to me is that this is supposedly progressive - modern feminism for example celebrates women seducing men as representing "female empowerment", not as something terribly wrong on a basic moral level. Modern feminism doesn't seem to care or maybe even to understand that sex between people who don't love each other is traumatic, and degrades the people regardless of whether those people are sufficiently in touch with their own feelings to notice or whether they've been convinced by a pro-seduction society into believing it's right.
Back when seduction was deemed immoral, Vampires were symbols of that very immorality. That was WHY they had to hide in the shadows, have secret societies, and the like - because seduction was not permitted in society.
The way modern feminists would have it, sex has no emotional, relational, or psycho-chemical involvement whatsoever - it amounts to "getting your rocks off", it's merely a more pleasurable alternative to masturbation. The sex partner is, at least while he or she is in bed, not a human being at all, as pornography shows - he or she is a tool who gives you pleasure.
The underlying message of the Twilight series and why they appeal so much to young, pro-seduction people is that vampires are integrating into society. Vampires are no longer shunned - yes they have their own clique but they are allowed into school as students, allowed into hospitals as doctors - they are close to becoming fully integrated with humanity, at which point that "human" society will have fully accepted seduction as an acceptable social practice. For pro-seduction people, Twilight is saying "Your time is coming soon".
It's like a feminist in the Star Wars universe being approached by Darth Vader. She recoils instantly but then senses the power that she can use to "make the genders equal". So she accepts the Dark Side, believing that men celebrate seduction and she can't stop that so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Women should celebrate seduction too, and the power it gives them! she triumphantly realizes. "I fuck who I want", the celebratory mantra, with a smile creeping across Vader's face.
It's not so much "how society defanged the vampire" as how the vampire fanged society. Once the vampire's work is done, there's no need for him in art.
Once human society integrates anything into it, it always calls the result "society" - the identical word is used for both the new society and the old society. So 1930 Germany was "society" and 1940 Nazi Germany was "society".
When something becomes real, it is no longer as interesting as fiction.