To many, a vampire is someone who lives in the shadows, who brings about death and misfortune, and who feeds on the innocent and unwilling. To me, a vampire is someone who yearns deeply for lifeblood, but is denied by social-political factors and societal standards.
In a world where the superstitions never existed, where blood, energy, and eros were all allowed to be fed on freely with consenting parties, would it not be common to see a vampire? I think so.. I think the average, real-life vampire is subjugated not by race, species, gender, or sexuality but by mere act of existing as a vampire despite how hard the humans want us gone. They get garlic, they get stakes, and then blind us with the Sun, telling the media that we die like that - that we are sick like that - that we do not exist if you kill us first.
That vampires are monsters.
When a vampire, truthfully, yearns for the thing that keeps them from withdrawal and physical weakness. I am an eros vampire, I need eros - the literal chemical reaction to being aroused or in love - and I need to feed on it. Eros, to me, is a chemical that is then sensed by an eros vampire, which triggers their need to feed. Eros are the flight of stairs to the next floor, the building block that has to exist in some place or time in order to fulfill an action.
Aroused? Those feelings release eros throughout the body that then fuels someone to masturbate. And an eros vampire can feel how warm eros is, they can see it wafting off you, they can smell it and can sense it in your body and tone. It is a literal pheromone to us.
But we are not always allowed eros.
We are denied eros on a daily basis. We are denied being in love, some societies require marriage before sex. We are denied sexual gratification, these kinks and sexualities are deemed blasphemy by the Church. We are denied our lifeblood because we must now prove we are adults online to data collectors. the eros vampire is starving in a world where sexuality, expression, adult businesses, and our freedom of love is being taken away across the world. Blocking sites where a vamp can enjoy themselves, getting rid of spaces like gay bars and queer meets where eros vamps can stay and find donors and lovers.
We are starving, getting lovesick, and are falling into limerance because we are all so unsure of our place here.
The only place I can run to now, is a place in the arms of my queerplatonic partner. Me and him do not date, we are not romantically involved - but we physically attract. When I listen to him speak, and he stammers when he realizes that I can hear his heartbeat, feel his warmth, taste the eros off the back of his neck from across the table - realizing I am a vampire - knowing that I am feeding in public just by looking deeply into his brown eyes.. he feels at ease. He knows he is safe with me.
To me, the existence of eros is to produce one thing: an action. Whether that action be sex, feeding, masturbation, hypnosis, or something just like comfort in the moment.. eros exists as not just a sexual energy but as a psychoactive symptom to experiencing bliss and tranquility in the presence of passion and the need to feel love. You are no longer in your right mind when eros drips off your chin, you are lost emotionally by the stun of your own instinct - which is to feel love. There is no exclusion for aromantic folk either, as I am a/autoromantic. I do not feel romantic or sexual attraction to anyone but myself, but I engage in it as an eros vampire in order to feed from others so that I may fulfill their desires on my own accord - so that I may bring about that psychoactive symptom from my very eyes.
Feeding from an aromantic donor does not mean there is no eros, it means that eros cannot be naturally produced and is not in abundance. Eros does not flow because there is no interest for eros to flow and for an aromantic donor to allow an eros vampire to feed, it must mean that there is an agreement that the donor wants it drained from their body entirely. They do not wish to have it flow, nor have it inside them, instead.. it's used non-sexually as a treat to the one they are donating to.
It is the most intimate of gifts. Trading a part of you to satisfy another through consent and acknowledgment. "I give you this if you agree to get rid of it all from me. I do not experience it, I do not need it, but you do." A contract written between two, hunger and its belly.
I would not be writing this if I was not well-fed either. My partner takes care of my feeding, weekly mostly. If not, I am in limerance, I grow physically and mentally weak, and my body starts to react to the energy of others around me in jealousy or through annoyance. I'd hate it when couples show PDA if I am not fed properly. I'd hate it when I see joy in another over their lover when my priorities are not met. Our entire relationship is based on the transaction, the growth, and the experience of donating to an eros vampire while also wanting to be fulfilled by hir love. Luckily, he does his donating frequently and thanks me for it. On days where I am skipping a meal, I might even cheat and autoerosify myself and feed through my own pent up eros. And while not hard to fix behavior wise, it is extremely difficult to fall out of the loop of doing it when you are just.. "this close" to being full. You will never be full feeding on your own eros, and the only way you can feed properly is by the eros of another and the eros of your own combined to fill you. All vampires are half-filled cups of water, they need water from another source to complete them, and while autofeeding is not an evil practice - it is not enough to suffice - saying this as an erosiyan who autoerosifies out of need and self-love.
The misconceptions of vampires living in shadows and sticking to night life is one of the bigger truths, as while we are not afraid or killed by the Sun, our very need for these lifebloods make it hard for us to stay in places where light shows our true nature. I am not a morning person, and I am not happy when others watch me from corners and think I bring trouble, and I am not someone who goes out the clubs unless its nerdy - I still make time to mind my own and exist in the human-centric world as a functioning adult vampire. There is no escape from it unless we free the idea that vampires are monsters from their heads. They believe that since we are vampires, and erosiyans at that, that we want to be preyed upon and harassed. That we want to be plucked like vixens and sexed up into dolls and bots - that our bodies are theirs to touch because of what nature we bring. We bring out the eros in others to feed, not to engage with strangers who would shout slurs at us if we were anything but pretty, skinny, white people.
I understand now. Instead of fangs and Victorian dresses, erosiyans have black-starry eyes and a sense of modern fashion for a reason. Leeching with our midnight eyes and finding it in us to fit into a world where it's dress to impress. One thing I have learned from my awakening is that we are, down to the bone, morphing ourselves to find eros in the air. But we must not feed from strangers who are not aware, we must hold and appear to them as our true selves through a color - a sigil.
Crimson as our color, A bundle of arrows as the sigil, and our blackened eyes as a physical statment: you cannot rid of us.
