Bite Me: Abjection, Eroticism and the Breaking of Skin in True Blood

Abstract

Through the relationship between vampires and humans on the television show True Blood, the abject image of biting skin and sucking blood becomes highly eroticized and romanticized. True Blood takes the image of the vampire, once considered a monster, and makes it something desirable. True Blood turns a violent act of penetrating and breaking the skin into an erotic one in which the ‘victim’ willingly allows these skin borders to be broken down, blurring self and other, abject and erotic.

The blurring of abject and erotic in True Blood signifies the empowerment of women in choosing what could appear to be a victimizing role. True Blood’s language of choice and differentiation of choice vs. force emphasizes that violent sexuality and erotic abjection can be a strong indicator of a woman’s power and liberation, and I therefore argue that True Blood can be read as an empowering representation of female sexuality.