I've been devising a questionnaire of my own. Thank you for posting this; most vampirology research seems to focus on folklore rather than on the self-identified vampires of today, and this is unfortunate. Modern vampires need to be studied.
>QUESTIONNAIRE
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>
>1. Are you a vampire ?
Yes, at least according to some definitions. The term is a bit contentious. Let's just say that I have as much right to call myself a vampire as I have to call myself a witch, and queer (which I am).
>2. How old are you ?
My birth date was 20 April, 1970. Reincarnations don't count, do they?
>- what is your life expectancy
The Nalewajek branch of my family lives very long indeed (80 to 100) while the Dorrance family tends to die young, of heart failure or stroke. I personally feel that I will die when it is my time to die, whenever that is. What is anybody's life expectancy? (I should mention that I indulge in certain behaviours considered "high risk," including blood drinking and storm chasing; these behaviours probably shorten my life expectancy considerably no matter how many safety precautions I follow.)
>- do you age
Yes, but I age very gracefully, so that people think I am much younger than I am. Either that, or something about me inspires flattery, and everybody seems to pick up on the fact that I love being carded or addressed as "young lady." (It tickles me pink. Really.)
>3. How old were you when you were changed into a vampire ?
I've been trying to figure that one out for a while. It's not an easy question to answer. I have always had nocturnal tendencies and an affinity for magic and so on, so I suppose the potential was there. My first craving for life force (and for blood, the stuff of life itself) manifested after an intimate encounter with my best friend and her boyfriend in 1991. (or was it 1992? I forget.) She was the first person I knew who called herself a vampire, to the best of my knowledge. No, wait, I'm forgetting Diane, who I had a brief affair with a year earlier; and when I met Diane I knew I was a vampire, so I had to have known beforehand...Mickey was the first one I exchanged blood with, though, and the strongest vampire I had (or have) ever met. And after the orgy I manifested photosensitivity, hunger, etc more strongly than ever.
Then again, I didn't go through physical changes (slowed metabolism, etc) until I had a near death experience in 1994, after I tried to kill myself with a very professional dose of poison which should REALLY have put my liver out of commission.
And I have been a vampire in many, many past lives before; I don't know which was the "first" time I lived life as a vampire. I suspect that if I could find out, it might answer some questions, including "what karmic lesson am I supposed to be learning from this, if any?"
Perhaps becoming a vampire, like becoming grown-up, is something which happens in stages, and is a never-ending process.
>4. What created you and how ?
See above answer. I'm darned if I know.
>5. Assuming this a being, are you still with it, do you still see it ?
If Mickey was responsible, we still keep in touch. I only see Diane at science fiction conventions. I suspect that my own genetic makeup might be partly responsible, something passed down through my mother's line, as she has many of the same health problems that I do.
>6. Have you ever created a vampire and why ?
Not to the best of my knowledge. I wouldn't mind; I have a strong maternal instinct and an even stronger pedagogical instinct. It would be nice to take a neophyte under my wing and nurture that person.
In a sense I might have created a vampire - I got pregnant in 1994, and had two months of anemia and morning sickness before I aborted the fetus (at the recommendation of a doctor).
>7. What is/was your relation with it ?
N/A (although I will admit that as far as my firstborn was concerned, I mourned its death for a long time)
>8. Have you killed human beeings ?
No. I hope I never do. Unless, of course, you count my firstborn - and in that case, I wish I hadn't.
>9. Do you drink the blood of your victims ?
Yes, although they are not victims (consenting adults ought to be called something other than "victim")
>10. How frequently ?
As frequently as I can!
>11. Is this your only food/drink ?
Heavens, no. I don't exactly have much of an appetite, but I love food. The quickest way to my heart is through my stomach.
>12. Do you choose your victims and how ?
My donors tend to be lovers; it's an intimate relationship and I've never drunk from anybody who wasn't romantically involved with me somehow. I suppose I could drink from a close friend but that's never come up.
Because of the myriad diseases out there that are spread via blood to blood contact (HIV being the most fragile; hepatitis, syphilis, and herpes are more worrisome) I ask potential donors to let me know the results of a blood test, if we haven't known each other for a long while (long enough to be aware of each other's sexual histories). If there are transmissable health problems, I won't drink blood.
There are other ways of getting life force, but none are as direct, and I happen to be extremely fond of blood. Life force can be taken during sex quite easily, and I tend to play succubus with my donors as well as drink their blood (they are my lovers, after all); therefore, any donor must be a person I find sexually attractive. Personally attractive, too; feeding to me is more than just physical subsitence, it's a communion of souls, and much more intimate in that sense than sex. I have to be compatible with my potential donors. Otherwise, the prospect of getting involved that way is too unpleasant.
>13. Do you have scruples ?
That's a matter of opinion. I am glad that you chose to say "scruples" rather than "morals," because I have an ethical code which flies in the face of conventional morality. (You might already have guessed this from my responses.)
>14. What effects produce the lack of blood ? What effects produce feeding >blood ?
I'm not sure I understand the question; could you rephrase that?
>15. Can you describe yourself. In particular, what characteristics >are essentially different from humans :
Not a good way to put it. I am human. I'm just a very weird human. Now we're getting into "definition of human," aren't we? If I am a genetic sport (which I strongly suspect I am) does that make me less human than the average homo sapiens sapiens?
>- appearence
Nothing too obvious. I do have yellow/amber eyes, which aren't very common. (I've heard that the colour is called "tiger eyes.")
>- physical
My ribs stick out more than usual, and I have an extra set of ribs (which I have been told is normal for women, although most don't flare out at the bottom the way mine do). My clavicle is very deepset. My feet are tiny in proportion to the rest of my body - I'm 5'10", 125 lbs, and my feet are only a size 7 1/2, normal for women five inches or so shorter than I. My pubic bone is apparently extraordinarily curved, the vaginal opening sits much lower than average according to my male lovers, and the labia are very pronounced, hanging out rather than curving in. I'm flat as pancakes and only grew into a 32A when I was on the Pill. I'm not pointing this out to be overly personal, but you did ask what was different, and I've been told that this is in fact quite different from normal. I also had a strange puberty, which caused me much distress while growing up - I developed hair and pheromonal sweat (which smelled more acrid than other girls, including well developed ones) at age 11, but didn't start menstruating until I was fifteen; and it was highly irregular for years. My breasts did not bud out until I was thirteen. I was always interested in romance, but was sexually naive and had little interest in sex. My vampire tendencies manifested in my early adulthood (age 20 or so), about the same time that I got a final spurt of puberty (I grew two inches, gained small breasts, acquired two wisdom teeth, and hips, and regular periods). Interesting, what?
>- mental
That's up for debate. What defines "mental" - psychological or other? I'm not sure where to begin. IQ of over 150; bisexual sadomasochistic polyamorous sex drive; scored INTJ on one Myers-Briggs test and INFP on another; considered by most people to be a flaming eccentric; wrote a novel in high school, and revised all 650 pages of it; favourite activities are historical re-enactment, role playing games (yes, that includes Vampire - it lets me get away with being a vampire in public, after all), science fiction conventions, and watching severe thunderstorms and tornados whenever I can find them (real maladaptive, eh?)...Need I go on?
>- psychical
I have a strong talent for magic, especially anything involving sex or blood. I have also always had a talent for hypnosis, which made me get all sorts of slumber party invitations in lower school when ordinarily the other girls treated me like scum. I used to be strongly empathic, but this has faded from lack of use or possibly a hardening of my too-often-broken heart; as has my natural talent for prophecy and psychometry. The psychometry should be easy to get back, it's not that difficult when I feel impressions from everything around me. I have healing ability on everybody but myself, and have told that I'm strong as far as healers go; my healing is actually stronger than my witchcraft, I think. I suspect it's tied in with my hypnotic ability. Mesmerism, as practiced by William Mesmer and Rasputin, involved the laying on of hands to effect healing (it involved other things, too, of course).
>16. Do you have some particular skills/powers ?
I write very well, and am good with words; this includes a talent for fast talk/bullshit. I'm good with children. I can cook well. I know the basics of hypnosis and mesmerism and seem to have a natural power for it. I've accidentally summoned storms in the past. I can disappear in a crowd and be ignored when I don't feel like talking to anybody. I type 50 wpm hunt and peck, with two fingers (55 wpm when doing e-mail). I sing on-key and have a clear voice (if not a powerful one). I can telemarket. I can change into a bat (just kidding; wanted to see if you were paying attention, there).
>17. Are you attractive of repulsive for humans ?
Both. I tend to have a strong effect on people; whether they like me instantly or hate me depends on personality. They're certainly never neutral about me.
>18. Can you pass unnoticed in a group of humans ?
Of course, unless everybody knows me.
>19. Can you live in the daytime ? Can you bear the light of the sun. >Direct/indirect (reflection or filtered) light of the sun ?
I can walk around in the sun, but because of my chronic migraines, I suffer from photosensitivity - I have to wear glasses that turn dark in bright light. I also get overheated very easily in summer.
>20. Do you have a job/occupation ? Can you tell us which one ?
I'm a starving graduate student at Oxford University, and I pick up work whenever I can get it when I am home in America. Right now I'm a front gate attendant at the Ohio Renaissance Festival.
>21. Do you live alone ?
No. In England I have a housemate as it's too expensive to live alone; in America I live with my fiance (soon to be husband; we get married on 2 January, 1999).
>22. Are your friends/companions vampires ?
I don't know many vampires, and the few that I do know I mostly met on e-mail.
>23. Do you live in a big city ?
Not really. Cincinnati has half a million people in it, more or less; Oxford has maybe one hundred fifty thousand at most. However, aside from the year and a half I spent in Wooster, Ohio, I've never lived in a small town. Wooster isn't even that small; although it's hardly a "don't sneeze or you'll miss it" speck on the map, it's obscure enough to count as a small cow-town I guess. It's in Amish country and has 30,000 people in it. But there's a college, two community colleges, a bus system, and shopping.
I'm certainly not used to the countryside, I have to say that. I've never lived anywhere larger than Cleveland, OH, but I'm definitely a city girl.
>24. Can you locate your country ? region ? town ?
Better than MOST Americans can. Sheesh. I can't believe that there are large numbers of Americans who can't locate the Indian ocean, or who think that NYC is the capital of the United States. This country has a disturbingly high rate of functional illiteracy.
>25. Since when do the vampires exist ?
Let me know when you find the answer, I'm very curious about that.
>26. Can you estimate the global population of vampires in the world ?
I wouldn't be surprised if we were maybe one in a thousand at most, one in a million at least. It's probably somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.
>27. Do the vampires regulate their population ? How ?
I personally use both birth control pills and condoms.
>28. Do the vampires have laws ? Can you cite some of them ? How did you
>learn them ? What is the penalty for their infrigment ? Are there
>universal laws applicable to all vampires ?
I make my own moral laws. As for other laws, I follow the ones that make sense. The British Spanner laws (which make any love act that leaves marks a felony for both partners) are absurd, so I don't follow them.
>29. Do you know vampires which hide their nature and are known to the
>public ? What is their occupation ?
Mickey is a writer; she doesn't really hide herself. One of my online friends is a computer programmer. I think this is something all of us hide if we want to be part of normal society. Not many employers are willing to hire the sort of wacko who believes s/he is a vampire, after all - certainly nobody who pays above minimum wage.
>30. Do you think that a vampire has habilities to be in politics, govern
>humans, at a nation scale, region of town ? What kind of government would
>be natural for such person ?
I'm a liberal left-wing Republican whose favourite government forms are constitutional monarchy and the Roman Republic (although anarchy might be nice in a small group); I'd love to run for office but I'd have about as much chance of getting elected to anything as Lyndon Larouche.
>31. Same question applied to a vampire society (size of a clan, kind of
>government ?)
Oh please. That is sooooo White Wolf. :) (Mind you, White Wolf has had a hell of an impact on the public perception of vampires, hence the mythology of the vampire, hence the collective unconscious, hence the vampire - who knows what we'll see in a generation or two if this keeps up?)
>32. Do you have a religion ? Do you believe in God, in the Devil, in
>anything else ?
I am a Unitarian with vaguely Christian leanings. Meaning that I worship Jesus and wish I could emulate him better, but aside from that, have little use for the actual religion of Christianity. I find Hinduism and Buddhism fascinating as philosophies. I used to be a Wiccan but eventually dropped out. I attend Episcopalian/Anglican church services because it's a very liberal church, and also has the best hymns. To me, God is everywhere, and in everything and everyone and every spirituality - therefore, what sort of worship you prefer (if any) is more a matter of personal taste.
>33. What do you like the most in beeing a vampire ?
The force of life surrounds me; it's intoxicating. I get lost in the beauty of the world very easily. Life is so precious, all of it.
Oh, and I also like wearing gloomy black clothing :)
>34. What do you hate the most ?
Vampirism is an addiction; when I can't feed I get withdrawl symptoms. I hate feeling helpless. I'm too much of a control freak.
>35. Do you regret your human condition ? Why (either yes or no) ?
I sometimes wish I were not human, because to be human is to be weak (ever read _Lord of the Flies_?) However, there are six billion of us who are in the same awkward state; I imagine I can live with it.
>36. Why did you answer these questions ?
Because you asked them. I too study vampires, in a search for the truth of my existence and perhaps the beginning of an explanation; answers are important. And you will need as many answers as possible if you are to get a proper gathering of data.
>37. Why did you subscribe to this list ?
It was about vampires. I'm on a lot of vampire lists, including the one I moderate (real-vampires@onelist.com, a support group for vampires and their donors and allies; current subscription rate to that one is 111 people). Most don't see any traffic; I'm glad that illuminati gets some traffic.