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Journalism of Courage
They work as doctors and lawyers by day but lurk as vampires by night. While they may not wish to suck your blood,there are plenty of willing victims on tap,according to a top US scholar on a subculture that emulates the undead.
Idaho State University sociologist D J Williams,newly hired as a consultant for a proposed television documentary about self-identified vampires,said true modern acolytes of Dracula seek consensual blood-sharing relationships.
But it exploded in recent years with the best-selling Twilight series of novels by Stephenie Meyer and movie adaptations. The seductive vampire character Edward Cullen in the movie,played by actor Robert Pattinson,became a teen idol and made vampires cool.
Vampire mania has spawned an international subculture that strongly relates to traits associated with mythical vampires. They are believed to be seductive beings unafraid to explore the dark side of human nature that is usually masked for the sake of social acceptance.
Self-identified vampires realise humans are a mix of light and dark, said Williams. There is the socially desirable self that people show in public and then there is the shadow self that may not be as nice,not as optimistic. It varies from person to person,but generally vampires dont pretend its not there: they acknowledge it and try to manage it.
Williams said self-identified vampires seek others willing to allow them to suck blood from a small incision made high up on the chest by a scalpel. Quite often,they are in a relationship with a donor, he said. The arrangement is legal because it is struck between two consenting adults and aims to have no ill effect, said Williams.
The negative discourse out there about blood and the transmission of infectious diseases just drives them underground, said Williams,who advises vampire acquaintances to abide by safe blood-drinking practices like having donors tested for HIV.
And with US serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer,who killed 17 young men in a frenzy of necrophilia and cannibalism between 1978 and 1991,billing himself as a vampire,whats a law-abiding vampire to do? The vampire community would argue that Jeffrey Dahmer and others arent real vampires,theyre murderous criminals, Williams said.
