Carmilla: Sapphic Love or Predatory?

I have found it difficult to put everything I want to say about Carmilla, by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, into words.

While I enjoyed the book, and I do think it is representative of queerness because it includes Carmilla, a lesbian character, I do not think it is the romantic sapphic story that so many people claim it is. The book was not written by a friend to the queer community, and the relationship itself that is upheld by people today is not even healthy by non-monstrous standards.

Carmilla was written by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and was published in 1872, predating Dracula by over a decade. Le Fanu himself, although now seen as the author of one of the first queer romances, was not a raging ally of the queer or feminist communities. During the 19th century, in which Carmilla was written, queer love and sex was a wildly taboo topic. The book does explore themes of Sapphic love and attraction, but it does so through the lens of horror and disgust.

I think to understand my own take on Carmilla, I should explain first where my views come from.

 Lesbian relationships have long been fetishized and stereotyped. It is often implied by many that a lesbian relationship does not hold the same importance or tangibility of a “true”( or, hetero) relationship. Straight girls are notorious for making out with their lesbian friends as a test of their own sexuality, or doing the same with their own hetero friends because “it isn’t serious” as it would be with someone of the opposite sex. While something can be said about kissing one’s friends not being inherently sexual, it is still an interesting dynamic that I feel does show a standard that female/female partnerships are not as serious as others. Men do not often foster this same physical intimacy with other men unless it is with homosexual intent. While all genders have faced hatred for their sexual orientation, I find it interesting that throughout history a lesbian relationship has always been more readily accepted by society via the lens of erotica.

I, myself, can speak from experience to this topic. There was a point in my life that I identified as a lesbian, although I now identify as queer, and during that time in my life I witnessed and was the subject of plenty of homophobic comments and ideas. I was told I was simply afraid of men, that being with a woman was easier, that I was confusing platonic feelings for romance. There was even a moment that I referred to myself in conversation as a lesbian, and I was met with reactions of disgust and utterances that the word itself is “nasty” and has “vulgar connotations”. On the opposite side of that, I received many leering comments from men interested in the sexual aspects of my sapphic relationship. People asked me, unprompted, how girls have sex, how it compares to being with a man, and even more inappropriate comments about my private sex life. Sapphic relationships and even their titles are often sexualized by the public, and I feel that the harmful narrative surrounding these relationships is prevalent and supported in Carmilla.

My main concern with the book as well as its reputation is the concept of consent. Lesbianism tends to often be misunderstood as something purely sexual and unserious, which extends to/stems from a lack of respect toward women and their emotions/personhood. Women are looked down upon, discriminated against, and scoffed at, especially if they come forward about a man committing a wrongdoing. Because women are seen as less serious, more emotional, and altogether less important in our society, the subject of consent in sapphic intimacy is a difficult one to broach even to this day. Laura, Carmilla’s prey and object of desire, actively pushes back against the other woman’s romantic advances. She loves her, and treats her as she would a friend, but when Carmilla becomes lustful or hints at deeper feelings she is shut down immediately by Laura.  Laura does not consent to be Carmilla’s romantic partner. She never does, throughout the whole book, and in fact she mentions many times that she finds the way Carmilla comes onto her to be strange. But because they are women, their actions are seen as girlish and silly. Carmilla’s kisses and touches, even though Laura is uncomfortable with them, are accepted by the modern readers as loving, doting, or sexy. But why do we so readily accept lesbian intimacy even when it is unwanted? Are we, the modern readers, so starved for queer representation that we will turn to revering a story of non-consensual advances written by a bigot as female love? I, personally, feel there must be better stories to look to as the pinnacle of queer horror. (And if not, let’s get to writing some!)

While the two women do have an extremely close friendship that often has homoerotic undertones, they never explicitly have sexual intercourse, or even anything that seems remotely close to it. There are often mentions of kisses and embraces, but in the wording of the story it comes across, at least to me, as though every romantic or lustful advance is issued by Carmilla, never Laura.

In addition to this, Laura rebukes Carmilla’s declarations of affection most times. On page 71, Carmilla dotes on Laura, saying,

“You must come with me, loving me, to death: or else hate me and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature” (Carmilla, Pg. 71).

Laura replies to the vampiress’s intensely romantic words with, “Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild nonsense again” (Carmilla, Pg. 72).

Laura’s response here is typical of her reactions to Carmilla’s love-bombing.

Laura specifically mentions throughout the book that they have a very strong bond, and she finds Carmilla to be beautiful. Sometimes her inner monolog is easy to interpret as romantic yearning, but with the knowledge I have laid out, when I read this book through this lens, it is hard not to believe these moments to be a lapse in Laura’s own identity. Carmilla is a vampire, but it is also implied that she has a certain beauty and physical attraction that is irresistible to anyone, and this is also a power that many vampires throughout history have possessed. I think Laura may have a preference toward women, don’t get me wrong, but I do not think she personally would choose to be with Carmilla in that way. She expresses her sisterly feelings toward the vampiress and never strays from the narrative that Carmilla’s advances make her uncomfortable. I think that when we see Laura consider a more intimate relationship or moment it is clouded by Carmilla’s presence and inherent seductive pull as a vampiress.

Carmilla, who is the most forthcoming character about her lesbian desires, is a monster. She is a blood-sucking, evil monster that, in the end, is defeated. Laura is not clear about her sexual desires. She hides from Carmilla’s advances, but she does at times appear enamored with the vampiress. However, her relation to Carmilla inherently endangers Laura. Simply being in the presence of a vampire is dangerous, and when writing characters that explore the then-taboo of same-sex attraction, to assign inherent evil to a character that openly expresses sapphic desires harms the societal perception of queer people during the time. When Laura is in Carmilla’s presence, there is already an air of fear for the reader, because we know that she is a vampire. We, the modern reader, know that this character is evil, and has intent to kill. When Le Fanu wrote Carmilla to be gay, he was making her scarier in the only way he knew how. When the people of his time read this book, they were not only afraid of her fangs. They were afraid and disgusted by her liking for women.

We see sex intermingled with the horror genre often, and much of the reasoning behind this can be assigned to religious and socio-political standards of the time period. Female nudity and pre-marital sex have often been catalysts of horror films. To represent an idea or community in a positive light, it is somewhat backwards to write the representation itself as monstrous.

 Le Fanu wrote Carmilla as a seductive sapphic monster, and he killed her for it. He did not support the romance that could have been between the two women of his story, and he certainly did not intend for the book to become a cult classic amongst queer people of today.

While there is not necessarily anything wrong with reclaiming a piece of literature that was originally meant to harm a community, I still think it is worth discussion whether this book deserves that sort of slot in praised queer literature. The “romance” between the women in Carmilla is short, shallow, and never rooted in anything more than a sort of sinister obsession. Laura often seems uncomfortable with Carmilla’s romantic tendencies, and treats her as she would a close friend. In the end, Carmilla does not get the girl, and she does not deserve to. And Laura moves on, seemingly easily, although she does mention that Carmilla’s face sometimes haunts her. But, really, wouldn’t a close call with a vampire haunt anybody?

To be clear: I absolutely do not fault anyone who loves this book! I actually enjoyed it quite a lot; the writing is beautiful and descriptive, the vibes are dark and Gothic, and I do love a good vampire story. I just don’t think it should be held on a pedestal as a pure and beautiful sapphic romance.

I found out after reading the book that there is a film series based on it, and maybe, just maybe, I will have more to say once I watch those…so stay tuned! ;)