A Coffin in the Closet

“None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.”

― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

When I was a young boy, my mother would often come into my bedroom to discover the curtains drawn and a pile of toys set at the side of the large toy box. Upon lifting the lid, she would find me laying inside in corpse pose complete with my vampire cape and plastic fangs. It was clear very early on that I was an imaginative child that loved all things dark and spooky. I don’t recall the first time I ever saw a Vampire on tv or in movies, but I do remember owning a kid’s picture book edition of Dracula that I absolutely adored. The Vampire is so ingrained in popular culture that many of us might find it difficult to remember our first exposure to it, but what most of us can recall is how it made us feel. For some it was terror and others it was titillation. The lure of its darkness, forbidden romance and sexual liberation was captivating. Then for a small few of us it was something more. It revealed our true reflection. Not just as a Vampire, but as Queer.

From Lord Ruthven, Camilla, Dracula to Lestat and Louis to name but a few, the Vampire has always held an expression of cultures sexual anxieties around Queerness. The vampire can be charming, alluring and even likeable, but will always be seen as abnormal and other. The vampire tale often moves societies boundaries around heteronormativity and binary expressions of gender and sexuality.

In many stories of the Vampire it feeds and reproduces by the elongation and penetration of its fangs and exchanging fluids. The mouth becomes a sex organ. The vampires’ allure could cast its spell on any unsuspecting person regardless of their gender. When we combine this with the often-characterized elements of the vampire being both beautiful and dangerous, this is where we see the queerness of the vampire revealed. This was a corruption of morality and played into the fear of losing control to pleasure where even the most heterosexual of men could fall victim. He could be penetrated and possibly even be “turned”.

Coming out of the closet is one thing, but coming out of the coffin as well brings its own challenges.

Especially for us in the LGBTQ+ community who are often still fighting to prove that we are not the monster that some parts of society tries to project us as. To come out of the coffin fully as a Gay Vampire you are faced even more so with the taboo questions of blood and the lingering shadows of fear campaigns that were rife during the emergence of HIV and AIDS. I was a kid in the late 80’s when “Homosexual acts” were still illegal in Australia (officially decriminalized in 1994) and the fear mongering and hateful untruths about the LGBTQ+ community were still being spread as “fact” (and still are in some places) on news programs and at dinner tables every day. I knew all too well what it felt like to be the monster hidden in plain sight. I was fortunate enough to work out for myself at a young age that we are not monsters… but some of us are Vampyres.

Not all Vampyres come out of the coffin and very few will ever come out to more than just a handful of those closest and dear to them. As a Vampyre there is a lot you have to explore and unpack along the way to owning the identity for yourself. This is often a very personal, and for some a deeply spiritual process. As with many esoteric subcultures we also need to be aware of the ego blinding our truth, shadow projections of ourselves and the lure of shared delusion so we don’t get lost down the hole of Life-styler fantasy and role-play; or at least are fully aware of it when doing so. This very process has caused much debate and tensions in the Vampyre community both on line and in real life when discussing identifiers and labels such as Life-styler, Sanguine, Psychic/Psi, Emotional, Human Living Vampire, etc, but this is a just a small part of a much larger discussion that I am not intending on going into just yet. At the end of the day, sometimes it is just easier and safer to have most people see me as a Gay Goth than trying to educate someone on all aspects of my Vampyre self.

I had clearly been drawn to the Vampire and felt it resonate and call to me deeply since I was a child. It was my go-to costume for every Halloween or dress up party, I watched any vampire movie or tv show with even a glimpse of a vampire in it and I collected books on vampires in fiction and folklore. It would later become clear that this was less about an escapist fantasy and more about seeing my reflection. Then in the mid 90’s I stumbled across books and websites discussing something that I thought I was unique to me and I was the only one. This was something called the ‘Human Living Vampire’. It was through this that I would dive into the world of on-line forums and newsgroups dedicated to others who understood what I felt. Through this I began to find a community. This was early days for online networking on this scale and long before the birth of social media. The Online Vampire Community (OVC) was still new and I saw it go through many of its early growing pains as people struggled to agree on ides and individual interpretations. Yes, it was rife with trolls, confused role-players, delusional teenagers, predators, and some rather large egos. That aside there were nuggets of great information and some wonderful people who wanted to share their experience, and express themselves with others who actually understood.

By the end of the 90’s I had managed (after a lot of failed attempts) to find a dentist who was willing to implant permanent fangs for me. I knew I wanted them as a way to express myself fully and be a true representation of who I am, but was also scared that it might affect future job prospects or even worse… my ability to give great head! Fortunately, I discovered both of these fears were unwarranted. Back then I found a few Australians in the OVC, but only a handful in person, but out of them very few who I found were authentic or anything more than lifestylers or role-players. By the early 00’s I found much of the OVC had turned into flame wars and a shit show. A lot of what was playing out in the Vampyre scene in the USA had a knock-on effect online. There were a lot of tensions, and fractioning in the community. With this I decided to step back and watch from the shadows. I withdrew from the online and in person community and also from my own personal exploration and connection to my Vampyre self.  Slowly I turned my focus more exploring other spiritual and magical practices and traditions. Over the years of magical exploration, study, and initiations in ecstatic witchcraft I started to travel the world and took part in rituals and workshops and inevitably I was led back to what was there all along. More and more I would see my true soul reflection. Vampyre.

How do you identify as a Vampyre?

For me this has been a journey of discovery, and the language I use has evolved to become more nuanced over the years just as our community has. Also, there are crossovers in the categories used as I would technically fit with in most of them, so I will often say Human Living Vampyre with Lifestyler tendencies. For those of us who see our Vampyre nature as being part of our soul being and not just an archetype/character model used magically (as is often the case in LHP, Satanic, and Occult approaches to Vampyre practices), then we do also use the term Innate Vampyre. This term has become more closely aligned with how I see myself and how I identify my experience as Vampyre.

Do you recall your first exposure to Queer Vampire representation in the media?

 Despite the adoption of the Hays Code (or possibly even because of) we have seen some incredibly creative examples of Queer coding and queer baiting in early cinema and this technique is still strongly seen in film and television today especially in the Vampire genre. Whether it was the powerful seductive looks of Gloria Holden as Dracula’s Daughter, the sexual tension between David and Michael or Ed being taken into the arms of Jerry Dandridge in an ally way, I find we all have those moments that made us smile knowing that we are possibly the only ones in the room to hear what they are saying just to us. Growing up I remember wishing I could have taken the place of “Evil” Ed in the original Fright Night when Jerry Dandridge reached out his hand with a promise that he would help him be free of the teasing and the torment and then wrapping his coat around him as he fed off of him. Also, the Lost Boys was a total sexual awakening for many of my generation. I defiantly had the biggest crush on Dwayne played by Billy Wirth, but the real sexual tension was between the character of Michael and David. When Michal started to show his Vampire nature toward the end of the movie, I was all in!

Do you have a Vampyre Coven?

Not a Coven in the same way we think of in the Witchcraft community, but I am the head of a Vampyre house. There are some in the house who are magical practitioners and some who are not magically inclined. The House of Agrios opened its doors October 2023 and is intended to be a place of community and connection. It is a place for Vampyres to learn and share ideas and be part of a shared community. There are House Elders who are members who have been part of the VC for a period of time and are aligned with the values of the House and willing to bring skills, support, and guidance to the House. It is an emerging Vampyre House and as such it will develop and evolve along with its members and community. The Vampyre community and culture in Australia is largely made up of independent and solo Vampyres. The House of Agrios does not ask or expect any of its members to give up this independence, but rather be a space that celebrates and supports our individuality and unique perspectives and experience. While it is not exclusively a Queer house, we do have a number of LGBTQ+ members.

Is the Vampyre community LGBTQ+ Friendly?

For me I have always felt welcome as an open and out Gay man in Vampyre community. I’d hope it’s because it’s a community of people who know what it feels like to be othered or misrepresented. Much like most alternate and fringe communities, many of us have worked hard to find spaces to be authentic and express ourselves, and in that we tend to be more open. There are parts of the world where there is less Queer acceptance and that is often to do with influences of ignorance, divisive propaganda and bigotry feeding through from the broader community it is coming from. It’s not all bats and rainbows and there is still work to be done. As a (mostly) white, cis gendered male, I know I get a lot of passes in spaces that others don’t. I am well aware that the experience is different for many Transgender and openly Queer members of our community, and I will continue to fight for spaces for their voices to be heard and they can feel safe by my side. We are a community who know what it takes to fight bigotry, and will unmask thinly veiled agendas that seek to corrupt and destroy our safe spaces. Despite the ignorant barking of a few, the Vampyre community has always been a LGBTQ+ inclusive space and is inherently Queer by its very nature.