Masochistic Men and Female Vampires: A New Approach to Rape Fantasy

Rape fantasy, in the sense of being raped, in men might seem a faulty designation. On the other hand, there is historical evidence in literary tradition where a lover takes a masochistic role, which lies at the heart of the fantasy of being raped, and suffers for the love of the lady, as in courtly love tradition. Romance literature may be considered as one of the earliest examples of literary works written in this tradition where the masochistic lover is exalted. Very similar to the Romance literature of Medieval Age, Gothic literature and literary works that consist of gothic elements provide examples of incidents which are read as the manifestation of the kind of rape fantasy in which men take passive role rather than an active one. Among the many texts with elements of vampirism written in the Romantic and Victorian periods, for the purpose of this study, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Christabel, John Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci and Lamia, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Henry Rider Haggard's She are chosen as the focus to reveal how they use the vampire as literary trope to convey rape fantasy in men.