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.
