The Vampire Diaries, Taylor Swift and teen angst

Having lost a week due to illness I have been working my way through a boxed set of The Vampire Diaries.  I’ve always been fascinated and turned on by the idea of vampires, and when I was verging on becoming a teenager and my friends had posters of the Bay City Rollers on their walls I had pictures of Christopher Lee as Dracula.  It makes me horny just thinking about it! Cloaks and fangs were just so much more appealing than tartan trousers at half-mast!

I am a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, (which I discovered in my mid 30s and adored the writing and humour) although for some reason I never connected with the Twilight phenomenon. 

Vampires are sexy.  They just are. And The Vampire Diaries explores a kind of dysfunctional triangle between the human Elena and the brooding (good) vampire Stefan and his dangerous but charming vampire brother Damon (the name gives it away really), who both love Elena.  Light and dark, good and bad.  Delicious contrasts. There’s loads of other stuff too, and most of the characters are pre-18, very attractive and still at high school.  It’s all about sex, relationships, teen angst, sex, angst.  Etc.  And triangles offer wonderful opportunities for writers.

It’s pure escapism and I think what I am enjoying is the whole teen thing, when life revolved around what you looked like and who you went out with (sort of).  Before mortgages, tedious jobs, responsibilities, and reality.  I’ve also been listening to music by Ke$ha, Taylor Swift and Rihanna, whose lyrics are also mostly about sex, relationships and angst.  And I do remember that from my teens to twenties, sex and love was the centre of my universe.  I devoured The Secret Garden, Story of O, Anais Nin, explored anything connected with  BDSM, and was consumed by an intense relationship that caused me a great deal of angst and pleasure and pain.  Life had a purity and simplicity that has been lost.  Watching the Vampire Diaries reminds me that I was indeed a teenager.  Once.