Where Bill goes off the rails in this interview, IMHO, is when he implies that the modern woman fantasizes about rough sex but is unable to realize that fantasy (if she wants to) without a vampire in the mix. What's so interesting about this is that vampire fiction originated because writers couldn't explicitly explore the idea of women's sexuality in print--therefore, vampirism was a metaphorical way of doing so. The often unwanted bite was written as unwanted primarily to exonerate the female character (and, by extension, women in general) of any actual responsibility for the bite/sex.
I can't decide if Stephen Moyer is aware of that history and is riffing on it or if he's just talking out of his ass. If he is referencing that, he's still doing a bad job of it. Because of so many things, most of them mentioned in that excellent article that you referenced--rape was never the point of those stories (women wanting to have sex at all was intense enough and the entire point of vampire stories was letting women explore that), women are perfectly capable of asking for whatever they want sexually, and RAPE IS NOT THE MAN'S PROBLEM.
THAT, I think, is what makes me so upset. The quote is so, "Woe is men, we can't rape women without it being frowned upon by society." IT IS NEVER OKAY TO RAPE ANYONE, SO THERE'S NO WAY OF KNOWING WHEN IT IS OKAY SINCE IT NEVER IS. GRRRR!
I'll say it again: DIE IN A FIRE, VAMPIRE BILL.
Apparently, my rage mixed with my memories of the British Gothic Fiction class I once took makes me very, very rambly.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-08-27 03:13 am (UTC)Where Bill goes off the rails in this interview, IMHO, is when he implies that the modern woman fantasizes about rough sex but is unable to realize that fantasy (if she wants to) without a vampire in the mix. What's so interesting about this is that vampire fiction originated because writers couldn't explicitly explore the idea of women's sexuality in print--therefore, vampirism was a metaphorical way of doing so. The often unwanted bite was written as unwanted primarily to exonerate the female character (and, by extension, women in general) of any actual responsibility for the bite/sex.
I can't decide if Stephen Moyer is aware of that history and is riffing on it or if he's just talking out of his ass. If he is referencing that, he's still doing a bad job of it. Because of so many things, most of them mentioned in that excellent article that you referenced--rape was never the point of those stories (women wanting to have sex at all was intense enough and the entire point of vampire stories was letting women explore that), women are perfectly capable of asking for whatever they want sexually, and RAPE IS NOT THE MAN'S PROBLEM.
THAT, I think, is what makes me so upset. The quote is so, "Woe is men, we can't rape women without it being frowned upon by society." IT IS NEVER OKAY TO RAPE ANYONE, SO THERE'S NO WAY OF KNOWING WHEN IT IS OKAY SINCE IT NEVER IS. GRRRR!
I'll say it again: DIE IN A FIRE, VAMPIRE BILL.
Apparently, my rage mixed with my memories of the British Gothic Fiction class I once took makes me very, very rambly.