The Gothic Aesthetic

That was the point I was trying to make. Clothes don't make you goth, your 'being' does. The same goes for being a vampyre. You don't have to have fangs, a red-lined black cape, or any of the other trappings of 'vampires' to be a vamp. It's all in the attitude.
And to think, I was just getting ready to go out and buy all of those things ...darn! Oh well, guess I'll just have to go back to what I know best...just being and not appearing

Go ahead and buy them if they make you feel happy - isn't that what counts?

Personally, I've always found the Gothic look sexy. I have a bit of a Goth fetish, even though I abhor many aspects of the modern Goth scene (oh, it never used to be so catty!) I love skinny, pale men with long hair who wear silk shirts, waistcoats, dark trousers, and leather and velvet, maybe fake fangs - whose ribs I can feel, whose muscles are wiry and whose limbs move with catlike grace and sensuality; I adore pale fey women, tragic yet spirited romantic heroines who could have stepped out of a Keats poem or a Poe story. Why? Because to me, Gothic culture is about the mind. Many other ways of trying to look and act "sexy" seem to downplay intelligence - women try to look like bimbos, men try to look like Fabio. What a turn-off. Gothic clothing, and attitude, reflects old literature and philosophy and certain film, all of which seems to imply that one is familiar with culture and therefore has read a book at some point in time. Even the role players who try to look Gothic often appeal to me - yes, it's an obvious role playing look, but role playing is a large game of Let's Pretend, which exercises the imagination and other mental capacities. Intelligence to me is the ultimate turn-on. I love nerds. I am a nerd myself, and my urge is to interbreed. I used to get wet discussing philosophy - it was the exercise of intellect which aroused me. I sometimes still get turned on from intellectual excitement. For that matter, my first sexual fantasy was about telepathic communion; little sexual contact was involved. Of course I am going to find a certain look, and subculture, attractive if it has intellectual trappings. Gothic culture appeals to the brain as well as the gonads. And it's often beautiful when it's done right - whereas much of modern life seems to have lost touch with the aesthetic.

I'm not sure if my libidinal quirks stem from vampirism or just nerdity. It's hard to tell, sometimes.

I do hope I'm not alone.