Summary: Vampires, Vamps and Va Va Voom | Deb Watson <a name="deb-watson" id="deb-watson"><strong>Consuming Passions: Vampires, Hunger and Sexuality</strong></a> The figure of the praying mantis, the monstrously sexual female who consumes her male mate at the height of the mating ritual, has underpinned constructions of female sexuality for centuries. Related to this has been a male fear of female consumption that implicitly links the act of eating to the sexually devouring woman. Susan Bordo demonstrates how the resultant repression and ideological control of female hunger promotes disordered a body image and leads to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. The vampiric drinking of blood, particularly by the female, has traditionally been rendered highly sexual, and although her victim is not <em>necessarily</em> male, the female vampire’s eating is a form of literal, sexualised consumption, reproducing the figure of the hungering, desiring woman as sexually voracious man-eater. I will also consider the representations of female hunger and sexuality in the <em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em> television series, Keri Arthur’s “Riley Jensen” novels and Gerry Bartlett’s <em>Real Vampires</em> series, and demonstrate that <em>Buffy</em> and Riley Jensen perpetuate anxieties about female desire, and undermine the empowering narratives they offer. Arthur’s series also portrays a female sexuality which is always consenting to sex and thus contributes to the rape myths which prevent victims from obtaining convictions in court. By contrast, Bartlett’s series grapples body image issues head-on and in fact undermines some of the anxieties about weight which lead to eating disorders and avoids portraying a monstrous female sexuality. Thus it is Bartlett’s heroine, the insecure vampire who overcomes her fears to save the day who ultimately offers the most positive narrative. Deb Watson is working on her PhD on football culture and sexual assault at Monash University. She recently published in <em>The Australian Feminist Law Journal</em> and presented a paper on the male footballer’s body at Cardiff University.
