Ah yes, the original vampire lesbian destroying a young girl’s virtue myth made real here. Carmilla is the story of Laura, a young woman whose father takes in a young woman. She and the daughter become the best of friends and through her allure, their connection, and maybe some amount of glamoring, there’s a clear indication that the daughter has fallen in love with the young woman. Great! An early lesbian romance novel.
Oh yeah, Carmilla is definitely a vampire and is slowly preying upon the girl by draining her life force. I assume through oral sex, but maybe just heavy necking.
I have to imagine it must be strange to find some lesbian characters as a reader in the 1870s and maybe even be excited by being seen, only to be completely read as murderous and monstrous in the same text. It’s not the first or last time this has happened, but I am wondering why this one persists.
Oh well. It’s sad because this is a voluptuous kind of story and rapturous in its detail and tone, so it’s extra frustrating to be reinforcing this narrative. I do like the more modern stories in which the monstrous alluring supernatural beings are not simply the bringers of death, but instead offer up an alternative to heteronormative that is both frightening and alluring, and this kind of has some of that going on here. But more so we have the straight up murdering or would-be murdering happening. It’s a smiliar kind of fear when a book offers up an alternative capitalism that seems to work; we have to smash it then, obviously. Sorry Carmilla.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Carmilla-Sheridan-Fanu/dp/1496078276/ref=sr_1_9?crid=13MROOU7TFLNN&keywords=carmilla+sheridan+le+fanu&qid=1571996676&s=audible&sprefix=carmilla%2Caudible%2C130&sr=1-9-catcorr)