Where have all the good men gone?
Yes, there is a conspicuous dearth of “good men” in RavenBlack City.
With pardons to Pete Seeger*…
Where have all the good men gone? / Long time passing / Where have all the good men gone / In RBC? / Where have all the good men gone? / Vampiresses picked them every one / When will they ever learn? / When will they ever learn?
“The good ones are either gay, married, or both,” Dea di Luna said. “Chivalry is dead and they’re too concerned with getting laid to pursue a real relationship and if they are interested in such, they’ve already got one.”
So basically women are s.o.l.?
“As far as I can tell, unless some of the good ones free up,” she said. “Or turn straight.”
Apparently one of the good ones freed up, as she has been seeing Lameth for just over a month now.
“That is still mostly true,” she said when asked about her assertion. “I just got really lucky.”
Even bound vampiresses acknowledge the lack of “good men.”
“I’m perplexed as well,” said Devil Miyu of where the “good men” are. “Perhaps [vampiresses] are not looking at the right place. Or maybe they should change their definition of what makes a man good.”
Some vampires say there is an inherent difference in their kin.
“The majority of men in the city from what I can tell are either too immature, or too bloodthirsty to care about love,” said gargamel, who has been bound to lady darkness for two years. “You will find the real good men out there are already taken, even married, and usually keep a low profile. Without wanting to sound like a jack, I’m afraid that is the sorry truth, yes. I believe the old 80′s saying goes: ‘you snooze, you lose’.”
Clans and other organizational structures also might account for the apparent dearth of men.
“I think if you look seriously at the demographics of many clans, they are predominantly female,” said nitenurse, Consul of the Republic of Ravenblack. “I can’t speak for all but realistically, there are simply not as many men in the city.”
Vampiresses increasingly are turning to fellow vampiresses for companionship.
For instance, nitenurse turned to her dear friend and clanmate LadyFae after the dissolution of her binding to VahnIcebane.
“Unfortunately, there are not a lot of good men in this city so I found a good woman,” she said with a shrug. “It was several weeks after my marriage dissolved that I realized that what I felt for her was not platonic and that I wanted more. I’m not sure that it was really ’cause’ and ‘effect’ but it happened that way for me.”
Not that nitenurse necessarily was looking for love.
“I really had not looked for companionship elsewhere. I wasn’t looking period,” she said. “It was totally subconscious. I found my partner, or she found me. A friendship became more.”
And now nitenurse and LadyFae are engaged.
“It is like a needle in a haystack to find a compatible partner. I found mine…but I broadened my horizons. It happens, but is it a trend? I hesitate to make generalities,” she said.
The complaint of “no good men” also exists among the gay population of RavenBlack City.
“I’ve complained about it more than once,” said Deylin, who has since bound to Vex. “It’s hard to find a good gay vampire.”
The key concerns he cited were the usual suspects, “loyalty, honesty, and faithfulness.”
Can men own up to their miscues in these areas?
Thylantis, a self-proclaimed confirmed bachelor, said that in his relationships with both men and women, he believed he was in love, yet “somehow managed to screw it up.”
That’s right–a man who admits it!
“I have come to the idea that I am just not the mating kind,” he continued. “It would be a waste really to pursue me.”
Thylantis said that he realizes that he risks “not just my own feelings but another’s as well. I suppose I dislike that most.”
gargamel, his former brother, said that turning one’s back on love is not the answer.
“He was only recently turned, last year I think it was, and he was like I was when I first arrived here: on the prowl. But now he has changed,” gargamel said. “He wants a good girl, a princess, to settle down with. He’s tired of playing the boy, he’s ready for the big step.”
Although Thylantis said that he is “not looking to get ‘laid’ right now,” he still called gargamel’s assessment “too kind. I haven’t been big on the dating scene for a while. Perhaps he has noticed that I am not playing the field now. I am not looking for anyone, and that is the truth; if it so happens [that] someone really catches my eyes I would set them on a pedestal.”
gargamel acknowledged rumors of Thylantis having played the field, but dismissed them.
“My point is though that he is one of the good men now as far as I can see and he’s available,” he said.
Or is he? Sources have linked Thylantis to a certain vampiress who shall remain anonymous–for now.
gargamel made a point of saying that one shouldn’t assume that all the married vampires are “good men”, nor that the nature of vampires doesn’t change. Vampires uncontrolled in their urges may, as Thylantis seems to have, come to find that they long for an exclusive companionship.
Conversely, vampires who deem themselves “good men” defend their very existence.
Seth Lomax suggested that “there are good men out there. They just either are taken or have been treated bad by others. Or the few that are single are in hiding, hiding ’til they find what is called…the right one.”
He suggested that the desire for a “good” companion goes both ways, as he has encountered women who “are noncommittal cheaters as well, tell you one thing and tell others something different and such.”
He said that the adage is true: love finds who aren’t trying too hard to find love.
“When you don’t have all sorts of options open, you may just find out that one you have been talking to for six months, a year or two even, might just be that one,” he said.
This hypothesis became a reality for nitenurse and Nara, and for Dea di Luna and Lameth.
“More like he found me,” Dea di Luna said. “I had no idea he liked me.”
That is, until she proclaimed her faux marriage to Vex–recently betrothed to Deylin–and Lameth admitted his feelings for her.
Seth Lomax, however, said that women shouldn’t stop looking entirely, though they “should not make it known. Keep looking and you will find the one you want.”
Thylantis said that he was waiting, “when I am more ready maybe. Or when they find me. It would seem I am holding my heart, my mind, and my love close to my chest for now. I am tired of the games.”
In a city where elders and ancients often serve as sires and models for immature childer, it is a wonder why they don’t encourage “good men”.
“Help them in what way? Teach them how to be good and responsible? Maybe [we should] from a woman’s point of view, but look at it this way: if we teach them to be like us, they would become as attractive as us, and such is the case where the student surpasses the teacher,” gargamel warned. “Do you really think we want to lose our loves to the temptations of those we taught how to be desirable?”
Furthermore, it is said that one can lead a vampire to blood but can’t make him drink.
“No, the majority of the young I would say do not want to be committed and faithful, simply because they are young. They want to experience as many women as possible while they are still young before they consider anything serious,” gargamel said. “I should know–I was there once myself. Maturity and desirability comes with age and experience.”
Devil Miyu, however, offered a different solution: “Why are you looking for good men when sometimes, what one really needs is a very dark, very wicked, mysterious man to bring out the devil in you?”
And so it seems that in the city of RavenBlack, the selection of single vampires is satisfactory at best, but “good men” are what you make of them.•
*((…and any player who has served in the armed forces. Thank you for your service. –Ashley))
As seen in the RavenBlack WakeUp.
Finding love in a city of lust
Yes, it is the nature of vampirekind to pursue lust.
To clarify: lust is an attribute inherent in vampires that drives thirst for blood as well as desire for sex.
Bloodlust and sexual lust cooperate, as one may spur the other: sexual encounters are heightened by bloodplay, and vampires use sex to seduce mortal victims in their hunt for blood. Further cementing the connection between blood and sex, fangs in and of themselves are phallic, and the act of sucking another’s blood is akin to conquest. Because of the role of blood in vampiric sustenance, there is power in both the giver and receiver of blood.
Blood, the vampiric unlifesource, is a requisite of existence; but since vampiric sex serves no reproductive value and is merely a manifestation of pleasure, is there a deeper, emotional basis for the pursuit of sexual fulfillment?
Vampirekind adheres to morés disparate from humankind as no universal set of practices exists for vampires to follow as there is for mortals. To humans, killing is a sin, whereas to vampires, killing is a way of unlife. Vampiric guidelines for the most part are self-determined and self-fulfilling, and vampires intrinsically need not ascribe to human concepts of morality.
So vampires may or may not diverge from human morals in the pursuit of satiation in the sexual dynamic as well.
“To the degree that human laws dictate human behavior, vampires insofar have no coherent laws other than ‘piss off no one who could destroy you,’” said King Lestat. “We strictly work toward our own survival and pleasure. We have an eternity to contemplate our own happiness; that happiness should definitely include the happiness of others, unless you really want to be alone and insane.”
By this logic, it would seem that vampires crave more than someone to shack up with for the day–not only physicality, but also emotional intimacy, or love. In this way, some contend being faithful to one individual is not indicative of weakness or “settling.”
“Indeed not, I’ve spent nearly three centuries looking for the one worth being faithful to, and I’m not prepared to ‘settle’ either,” King Lestat concurred. “Unlife would be a complete bore if it weren’t for the promise of a certain someone there at the end of the night.”
This isn’t the standard for all vampires, however.
whitelightfell believes that loyalty does not work “in the humanistic way vampires in this city tend to long for.”
whitelightfell explained that he and his partner of almost four years, relsav, have an understanding that supersedes conventions of faithfulness.
“relsav is my partner–my eternal bond, my love, my reason–as I am hers,” he said. “Yet we’ve both been able to satiate the carnal [side] of our beings, just as we would bloodlust. We both hunt with sex as a lure, as a weapon, for example. She is my end-all, be-all; however, if I were to take another woman, it would be nothing more than just the act, and she would know and embrace that.”
Vampiric prowess transcends the human male’s–and female’s–sexual limitation. (If any of you disagree, you might want to send your lover on over to the Immolators Guilds, if you catch my drift…)
Yet the act of sex isn’t the most important aspect of sexuality for vampires. A criticism by mortal women of male partners is their inordinate focus on the genitals, whereas vampirekind values the very act of seduction.
“Sex is…sex, and it doesn’t vary much–with most–but the seduction can be something that varies constantly therefore proving more fruitful and satisfying,” said Altania.
Like male humans, vampires possess a “need for a chase,” King Lestat said. He cautioned that “if it becomes too easy, the mind tends to wander to what else there is.”
The potential for wandering emotions–not just wandering eyes–appears to defy the very concept of love and loyalty in a relationship.
“When you are in a relationship with someone, you have to be faithful, out of respect for your partner. And when you think that person isn’t the one, break it off with them and continue to search for the ‘one,’” Liz Summers advised. “You shouldn’t start looking for anyone else while you are still in a relationship. That looks too much like you are keeping a safeguard in case it doesn’t work out and you don’t find someone ‘better.’ And that is not fair to your partner. He or she needs to know where you are.”
However, as King Lestat pointed out, “the chase never has to end really, even after the couple is together.”
Nor is the chase exclusively male territory anymore. Vampiric sexuality blurs conservative mortal gender roles in that both vampires and vampiresses participate in aggressive behavior, whereas aggression is usually perceived as a “masculine” trait. Although many human males shun “feminism,” vampires seem to appreciate vampiresses’ forward approach.
“Oh, I think in this city the females are far more active in the pursuit,” whitelightfell said. “Personally, I’m not looking to be pursued. However it does happen. Do I find it enjoyable? Certainly, sometimes.”
Such expressions of predatory sexuality are displayed most prominently in the various slave auctions. Aside from those sideshows in the sexual circus whose goal is to enjoy new experiences, most participation is prurient. Most slaves want to serve and be dominated, most buyers want to command and be obeyed. Finding love is not an apparent priority for many.
“It’s a sexually charged popularity contest,” said Altania, who has used the auction as platform for meeting a mate. “The reason I looked at the auction like that is that there are many vampires who aren’t as public as those who are on all the newspapers and such who could possibly be single, and the Auction gets them out for a small amount of time; and in that time it is possible to get to know them and for something to possibly evolve from a friendship, whether that communication leads to purchasing me as a slave or not.
“I obviously failed at that,” she added, laughing. Though, to be fair, the auctions have spawned some relationships…
“For some, sex equals love. Others have no problem having sex without any deeper meaning,” Liz Summers explained. “When I’m in a relationship, it is very important, and it is what makes the physical act so much more intimate. When I’m not in a relationship and am not looking for one, there is no deeper meaning, and I like it that way.”
And so it seems that in the city of RavenBlack, bloodlust and sexual lust are instinctual, but the emotional bond–love–is what you make of it.•
As seen in the RavenBlack WakeUp.
