Women long for extraordinary romance rather than the normal : Seductive truth about vampires.

Psychotherapists say Women long for extraordinary romance rather than the normal : Seductive truth about vampires.


Young, blood-thirsty but difficult to resist.  Psychotherapists say Women long for extraordinary romance rather than the normal one they might have in their real life. We find out why women love to sink their teeth into vampire romances...

Supriya Deladia doesn’t believe in happily ever after. The 14-year-old, “who will never read a Mills & Boon”, thinks it stupid to want to grow old with someone.
   She’s not cold, just is looking for a different sort of romance. “With someone supernatural, ageless and immortal, someone who makes you feel extraordinary,” says Deladia. Someone like Edward, the dashing young vampire in her favourite book, Twilight.

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   The vampire-romance novel by Stephenie Meyer is the first in a four-part series and has already sold more than 17 million copies worldwide. Originally published in 2005, it introduces 17-year-old Isabella ‘Bella’ Swan who falls in love with vampire Edward Cullen. Twilight’s recently released movie adaptation is also raking in millions at the box office.
   Vampires, it seems, never go out of fashion. From myth and legend to romantic novels, television and Hollywood, popular culture can’t seem to get enough. From television’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel to movies such as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles and Blade, men with fangs continue to fascinate women.
   “The appeal of vampires is similar to Peter Pan’s. Once you are a vampire, you are immortalised at the age at which you become one. You never have to grow up,” says Sanjay Chatterjee, 54, media professional and avid reader of vampire stories. Once upon a time, vampires were seen as be hygiene-challenged bloodsuckers. “But this is the age of women and a new genre of fiction, with handsome, romantic, bad boys of the night has emerged. It is dangerous but civilised,” says Chatterjee.

So what draws women to vampire stories? It’s m o s t ly women because female sexual repression is a thing of the past, says Kate Foster, a professor of women’s studies and literature based in Australia, “stories about romantic vampires re-introduce sexual anticipation and the suspension of any type of consummation”. Foster may have a point. In Twilight, Edward sneaks into Bella’s room every night — only to hold her hand.

Vampire Love

   “He is a vampire, yes, but a gentleman at that. Women of all ages love that,” says interior designer Anushka Mohan, recalling the battle with her 14-year old daughter over who got to read the Twilight novels first.
   Lynda Hilburn, psychotherapist and author of two new paranormal urban fantasy novels, says she noticed that her female patients spontaneously began to share their dreams about dark, fanged strangers. They told tales of nocturnal journeys into forbidden worlds, where they encountered — and became intimate with — vampires.
   “Women are attracted to the unknown. The man who is not normal — who needs our blood to survive. There is no deeper intimacy than that. Many women long for an extraordinary romance rather than the normal one they might have in their real lives,” she says.
   The vampire archetype is both appealing and horrifying. And when he comes with washboard abs, what’s not to love about him?