I've been wanting to talk abt the sex stuff in Sinners for quite some time and I'm finally sitting down to do it so this is going to be a post about the sex stuff in Sinners. This whole train of thought was spurred by a post I saw where someone interprets the prominence of cunnilingus (that's how you know this is a serious post; "the prominence of cunnilingus" God shut up, the pussy-eating) as being intended to show that the racialized women (namely Grace, Mary, and Pearline) as already "sexually liberated" in contrast to tropes of vampires and vampirism as symbols of sexual liberation (basically, these women don't need to be "saved" from their Black and Asian partners by a White guy, with regards to sex and sexuality). And this is not a retaliation to that reading I think it's fine, but I do think it's a little... generous to vampire fiction as a genre, and there's a LOT to say about the history of sexuality in vampire fiction that I wanted to talk about so. Vampire sex post yay
"Vampires as liberation in general and sexual liberation specifically" is certainly a motif that exists, but I'd argue it really only has for maybe 50 years; crucially, what modern audiences (particularly modern, horny-for-vampires audiences, lol) perceive as "sexual liberation for women" typically consists of behavior that would NOT be considered positive for women at the time a lot of vampire fiction was created (i.e., it is a sign a woman has been "corrupted," she is under the influence of evil, it is her "bad ending". It's considered a part of the horror). Vampires are metaphors for a lot of things, but the idea of a lurking beast that preys on virgins is often extremely central; therefore, vampires have been utilized not only as symbols of sexual liberation, but perhaps even more frequently as symbols of sexual violence. When discussing vampires (and other literary monsters) as sexually violent figures, it cannot go unsaid that this dovetails perfectly with the way vampires and other monsters are historically depicted as "other," as foreign, as "dark," as diseased or sickly, as associated with vermin, as shadowy elites shut up in their castles; the vampire is often racialized in a very distinct way, the Eastern European bloodsucker attempting to prey upon the Western European virgin, who is warded off by Christianity. Cannibalism in general and the drinking of blood specifically have very long and storied histories in how they're represented in European art and literature and in association with what people. I'm NOT saying vampire fiction is inherently an invocation of "blood libel" myths, but that is a deeply ingrained aspect of the trope that cannot pass by unremarked. The sickly, "foreign" Other creeping through windows to attack sleeping virgins is thus not just an allegory for sexual assault, but specifically an allegory of sexual assault upon Western European White women by immigrants, basically. Much like the huntsman, the vampire slayer is typically not distinguished with such characteristics, and he is aligned with the heroine not just in motivation but in ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, and overall appearance.
Sooooo to make it about Sinners: Sinners has a LOT to say regarding assimilation, immigration, racialization, ethnopolitics, and the general construction of "the Other." I have a post about the significance of Remmick's Southern accent, namely how it's an attempt to appear "familiar" (i.e. not "Other," not foreign) and serves a dual purpose in-universe as both a manipulation tactic and as a survival tactic (and how this ability was one afforded to the groups we in the U.S. now consider "ethnic White people" and not afforded to the groups we racialize as anything other than White). That already works to subvert the vampire as Other; the artificially folksy White liberal does not want to be othered, they want to be included in everything, let them inside, can't we all be family, etc. And you may be thinking, "ok that worked with the KKK couple but isn't he still othered by being White" - well yes! And the film serves commentary on that, how White people consider themselves the in-group by default and are offended by the prospect that they could be considered "other," and that STILL works to subvert vampire tropes, because Remmick is now not being othered for his ethnicity or perceived religion (as many vampire tropes do also overlap with stereotypes of Catholics, including many more modern vampire tropes)
That's where the sex part comes in: Remmick's interaction with Mary is obliquely sexualized, not just in the way most vampire "turning" is obliquely sexualized (although it is) but because, like, he's staring at her thighs. Ryan Coogler and MBJ talk about the drool being a sign of sexual arousal in vampires. She is a woman outside at night with a strange man, she tries to leave, he attacks her. It's not literally sexual assault but it is more overt in its allegory than even many other vampire "turning" scenes are. The fact that this happens to Mary is important because of how the optics play out. Mary is White-passing, Remmick immediately clocks Mary as White-passing, "how come she's allowed but I'm not" is not merely White Guy Entitlement Moment #10000 but specifically shows that he's already, probably subconsciously, forming coalitions with her in his head. To her, he's still to some degree Othered, but to him, she is the in-group. Think also about Mary's assimilation and "passing" being essentially sealed with her marriage to a White man, a marriage she claims she never wanted. Racialized women and ESPECIALLY mixed women are presumed to be "elevated" by sexual contact with White men (tying into archaic concepts of "blood quantum" and etc., you know this, I don't need to explain it, you're smart), which exists in direct contrast with how White women are "debased" by sexual contact with racialized or "ethnic" men, as in the classical vampire myth. This coalition-forming is again reinforced with "she said 'we'"; Mary's turning is dually the gendered violence of sexual assault and the racialized violence of forced assimilation. I also think about how Mary turning Stack is OVERTLY sexualized, and one could certainly argue (I could. I'm arguing) that Stack trying to turn Annie (on top of her, pinning her to the ground, spitting in her mouth, AND he's literally identical to her husband) and Remmick turning Pearline (pinning her to the wall, mouth to her neck, essentially using her as a prop to bait Sammie) are both obliquely sexualized as well. It displays a deep understanding of the purposes vampirism has historically served as an allegory that I think many people miss out on. Everything is extremely deliberate, everything matters. I love Sinners because I never feel like I'm "looking too deep into it".
In this way, Sinners is able to maintain the trope of a sexually threatening supernatural antagonist and be straightforwardly Gothic, AND to effectively subvert and deconstruct the trope and the way Gothic fiction historically interacts with race (and ethnicity and religion), which is very similar to how it handles religion, achieving a balance I think few films manage to achieve (but that's a post for another day). AND, importantly, it IS the freaky vampire fuck movie. Like four dudes talk about eating pussy and one of them does it on screen. It is both horrific and sexy and this is okay to acknowledge. A significant support beam of this analysis is that vampires drool when they're horny and we only know that bc the writer-director is a freak and that's awesome. You can say this about any other vampire movie, you can say it about Sinners. It does both and that's great
