One of the seldom visited complex topics of vampirism, is the aspect of pedophilia that is associated with a centuries old creature and a fifteen year old teenager. Is the relationship pedophilic? There are a few different perspectives and aspects of pedophilia’s hypothetical existence in vampire pop-culture; whether it’s there or not may be subjective, –it depends on how you feel, basically. Pedophilia is defined as “a sexual attraction to children “, and to most, that pretty much excludes the vampire, –after all, most vampires in pop-culture go after women over twelve. And sorry, guys, but Bella is at the age of consent in most states, and in some cultures, she’s marrying age.
Let’s skip over the Twilight fascination, –at the most, Edward Cullen, is a statutory rapist, and those lines get pretty blurry when immortals are concerned. The issue with drawing the line here, is whether or not the status of childhood is subjective to the individual vampire, –after all, if you were 300 years old, would you not consider a 20-year-old a child? It sounds ridiculous, crazy, insane!, –to think that anything could be subjective to a creature of fiction, but when you consider that it is the adult mind that conceives of the fictional creature, then you’re talking about something else entirely. The question then becomes….
Are we subconsciously attracted to the idea of pedophilia? Are we hiding that attraction by burying it in a fictional landscape? Think about it before you start screaming, and check out the VILF article. Are we attracted more to the character, or the actor? The character, easily, is the more attractive of the two; the mystique, history, and background combine to make the character the pinnacle of sexual attraction. And how many of those characters are hundreds of years older? Remember, we’re talking about the -character-, not the actor. Would that character consider you a child, if childhood can be subjectively defined by differences in age, experience, and knowledge? After all, that’s the basis for most cases of statutory rape, when the participants are both willing, but the age difference is too great to be denied.
Statutory rape is defined as sexual intercourse with a person who has not reached the age of consent, even if both parties participate willingly. This law applies solely to human beings, –so is it okay to ignore the idea these same laws represent, when we’re talking about vampire and human romance? After all, we’re the ones making it up! We can’t say, that these things don’t matter because they’re not real. It’s coming from a human mind. The same rule applies to the outrage experienced by feminists who see sexism and blatant female oppression in Twilight novels, –though this writer doesn’t agree, she cannot deny that the ideas and opinions aren’t valid. because the concepts come from the human mind. Thoughts, opinions, and the places they go might not be tangible, but they’re real enough.
Before we close out here, I’ll give you something a little more obvious to think about, on the subject. In the Kathryn Bigelow’s film Near Dark, released in 1987, there’s a plot similar to that of the lost boys. Young guy Caleb is transformed, then encouraged to assimilate to the vampire lifestyle by a group of roaming, rough-neck vampires. One of the group of drifter vampires is Homer, a child vampire and one of the major characters, though this writer suspects he escaped any heavy analysis in the film and media because of the taboo topic he represents. Homer plans to kidnap Caleb’s sister, Sarah, a girl of maybe 8 – 9 years old, and make her his mate… Does the tragic character Homer’s subplot smack of pedophilia? Readers, it doesn’t smack, it upper cuts, back-hands, and roundhouse-kicks, of pedophilia.
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Good points. :) I always thought it was creepy when vampires that had only been a vampire for a few decades hooked up with young mortals, like a vampire that was a total of 70 years old hooking up with a 18 year old mortal, or whatever. But then a vampire that is 400 years old doesn’t seem weird to me lol. Strange.
Lol, same with me. I wouldn’t date a vampire who was in his seveties. That would be weird. I wonder why a vampire whose lived centuries seeems better to date to some people….
When it comes to vampires, it is always pedophilia because they’re just so old. I’ve never really liked stories in which vampires pick a young ‘mate’, I go more for when they like an older ‘mate’. It is a little freaky when they pick them so young, I mean, what can they offer to such an old vampire?
I’ve always brought up the question; “Would you rather someone who is 90 but looks 17 date someone that looked the same age as they look, or would you rather they dated the 90 year old that matched their actual age?”
If a vampire is 100+ there’s not much of a difference between someone in their high teens and someone in their twenties, thirties, or forties. They’d still be 50+ years older.