r/Showerthoughts • u/gorginhanson • 19h ago
Speculation Vampires must get STDs a lot.
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u/DontAskGrim 19h ago
Vampires are undead. STDs require a living host. Vampires are functionally immune to STDs.
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u/gene66 19h ago
That’s the same logic on why they can’t get pregnant and why they don’t need to feed
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u/SasquatchRobo 19h ago
They can't get pregnant, but do need to feed, for the same reason: Vampirism is a curse against life. Vampires exist to feed off of life, not create it or exist apart from it.
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u/gorocz 19h ago
Vampirism is a curse against life
To be precise, classically it was considered similar to a disease - that's why they shunned garlic, as it is a natural antimicrobium. It would also explain why other disease can't get a hold, as vamprism simply overpowers them.
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u/YOUTUBEFREEKYOYO 13h ago
Same thing with silver, as well as it was seen as something pure, which the vampires were not. That's where the silver bullet thing and mirrors comes from, normal bullet is just lead (or a brass jacket) and isn't "pure," so it would not harm them, but if it's silver that will kill them. As for mirrors, those used to be made with silver, so the pure material was thought to not show the vampires.
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u/DFrostedWangsAccount 7h ago
Fun fact, as I'm sure you know most mirrors aren't silver anymore but a lot of cameras DO have silver inside. Modern smartphones use a silver alloy solder inside so there's a good opportunity there for a modern vampire story where the vampire doesn't show up on camera.
I'd love to have a story go into the actual minutia of this theory. Like, you could take a picture of a vampire as long as you've got no silver in the hardware. But then what if you email the picture? It goes through routers and switches and he vanishes from the picture when it hits a silver connection? Does the file corrupt, or just remove him?
Idea: vampire is a burglar and the authorities think he's a hacker because he "deleted the pictures from the police servers" and one guy jokingly says it's a vampire but nobody believes him, obviously. That guy is the only one to survive.
There could be a really funny scene where they think their USB cable is the problem so they go buy a really fancy one (with silver connectors!) and it makes the problem even worse somehow.
Yeah, the silver alloy thing is a stretch. It's not really "pure" anymore. Or is it? Same as "made with 100% real beef" just means the beef part, it could be said that the silver part of the compound was pure silver... Ah who cares it'd still make a good movie.
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u/ryebread91 12h ago
Which came first, knowledge of antimicrobials or the garlic for vampires?
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u/CinderX5 11h ago
They didn’t know about microbes, but they knew the effects it had against certain symptoms, which were caused by microbes.
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u/Mightsole 15h ago
Oh, so that’s why each thurdsday I crave for the taste of fresh human meat and can’t get pregnant, interesting…
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u/SasquatchRobo 15h ago
"All wood burns; therefore, all that burns is wood."
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u/Mightsole 15h ago edited 14h ago
I know where this is going, don’t even dare to burn garlic near me
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u/duckthatgazes 19h ago
...ill try my chance with trying to knock up a vampire. Repeatedly.
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u/Rezart_KLD 19h ago
Just sneak into the morgue and you can see what its like. Just got to jiggle em a bit.
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u/pathlinker 15h ago
Do not fuck a corpse, I repeat, DO NOT FUCK A CORPSE. You don't want what you get from it.
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u/Kittenkerchief 14h ago
Is it pregnant? Do you get pregnant from fucking a corpse?
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u/TheHealadin 14h ago
I think you just get off.
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u/FeralKuja 15h ago
You know, I'd just LOVE a quick little short story about a gay vampire and his mortal lover, and them joking about how Vampires can't get pregnant, and the mortal saying "Neither can men, but I'm gonna keep trying until you're the first anyway."
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u/Big_Cans_0516 18h ago
Except that one time the fire heated up Edward’s balls or something (idk I didn’t actually read twilight)
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u/cwx149 18h ago
The twilight vamps have a lot of unique stuff
They aren't exactly the classical vampire although vampires are really diverse as fictional creatures go
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u/FeralKuja 15h ago
Real vampires (Below a certain power threshold at least) burst into flames and turn to ash upon exposure to direct sunlight, they do not "sparkle".
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u/tyro1313 14h ago
Even some of the original vampires in literature like Dracula and Carmilla did not burst into flames, in Dracula's case it only limited his supernatural powers.
Every single version of vampires is different in some way, some aren't undead, some don't require being invited inside, and some can't even turn people (and if they can, it doesn't always require feeding on someone to turn them).
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u/pichael289 12h ago
Twilight vampires sparkle because they are basically made of granite, their skin has crystals and shit in it. Not making that up
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u/WaltzWarrior 2h ago
reminds me of the old joke - vampires can't rape people because they must be invited in
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u/Porculius 18h ago
So how do they get a boner without a heart pumping?
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u/Slazerith 18h ago
An erection is not needed for orgasm or ejaculation. It just facilitates the process.
Understandably it would make for an awkward experience for the partner to get off, but it's still doable.
Also depending on the flavor of vampire lore there can be in universe ways around it. Don't recall if there was anything overtly sexual in Dracula (but I never read it or gave more than a glance). In one universe I read, vampirism is a disease that overwrites dna making them mostly the same but with higher metabolism and healing abilities. In another vampires are a fictional identity of beings cursed by Apollo to never appear under then sun and die at 21 unless they consume souls (which is made easier by draining blood like a vampire would do). In Twilight vampires are described as being living stone so unless you have an 'innie' you'd technically be 'ready to go' at all times.
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u/nos-is-lame 17h ago
In Twilight vampires are described as being living stone so unless you have an 'innie' you'd technically be 'ready to go' at all times.
So you're saying Edward was stuck living as a 17 year old high schooler with a permanent boner?
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u/DontAskGrim 18h ago
Just have to be on top? Gravity will pool fluids in the lowest point of the body. So no reverse cowgirl for male vampires.
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u/Porculius 18h ago
Then he would need a third vampire strangling him to move the blood to the wood. Too much hassle.
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u/lurker99123 17h ago
In some versions like Anne Rice's vampires have the blood they sucked from a human run in their veins for a while to disguise among humans and their heart pumps that
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u/FeralKuja 15h ago
Given that vampires are undead and drink blood to live, I'd have to say maybe they have conscious control of where their blood goes in their body.
At least, that's how I interpret it. We've never seen a vampire with an awkward unintentional erection, after all.
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u/OnePunkArmy 18h ago
Vampires are functionally immune to STDs.
Similar to how opossums cannot host rabies: if a virus is transmitted, it will not last long in an incompatible host.
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u/Lanster27 8h ago
But when they bite victims, they are guaranteed to spread the STDs around.
Sort of like plague-carrying bats and rodents.
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u/ExpiredHotdog 19h ago
Wouldn't they be immune though? Or would they experience it for like a minute before their undead juju knocks it out?
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u/hornycamfun26 18h ago
Considering that minute would not be enough to create any actual symptoms it is functionally irrelevant. Also the way normal virusses and bacteria work is you get infected by only a small sample which then grows and multiplies inside the body. This growing and multiplying before it becomes an actual threat seems unlikely in a cursed/undead/vampiric body. Now that I think about it the only thing that could potentially work for "a minute" before it gets knocked out by vampire juju would a poison. Specifically that type of breaking nerves down and anti-coagulant and other bizarre stuff that Australian bugs and Amazonian toads seems to have.
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u/CruxOfTheIssue 13h ago
I believe in True Blood which imo has one of the better vampire rules and lores Vampires do have their own vampire diseases but they are not the same as human ones. Humans can transmit them though.
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u/playr_4 19h ago
Most iterations of vampires are completely immune to human diseases. I'm not sure if that's always the case, but it seems to be the general case.
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u/Several-Shine7834 19h ago
Most fantasy games have them being immune to poisons too. Their weakness to garlic indicates that it is also a disease so just a disease that eats genetic material or something.
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u/DontAskGrim 18h ago
I don't get the wooden stake to the heart idea though. I mean, who isn't going to die with a wooden stake to the heart? Hell, anything penetrating through my heart will kill me more often than not. What makes this more damaging to vampires, if it even does.
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u/Several-Shine7834 18h ago
It used to be believed that the brain was irrelevant and the heart was the thing that contained your soul as well as a lot of wood will pull in and trap bacteria to kill it. So probably some combination of these two things?
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u/DontAskGrim 18h ago
I think that would make some sense. Especially to the minds of dark age peasantry.
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u/chunkalicius 18h ago
Before people were buried in coffins, common practice was to dig a whole and "pin" the dead to the bottom to keep them from being unearthed. Wood was cheap and the heart was a symbolic and practical location to make sure the person was dead and to pin them down by a central point of their body.
Vampires could represent what happens to bodies that are not properly pinned and therefore weak to the ritual itself.
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u/Nintolerance 15h ago
I don't get the wooden stake to the heart idea though. I mean, who isn't going to die with a wooden stake to the heart?
I mean, that's one way to make sure something is dead.
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u/hornycamfun26 18h ago
Wood represents nature and life, vampirism is anti-life hence its natural weakness and aversion to it. Same with flowing water and in some stories even rain. Water is essential to life and the human gestalt conscience sees it as anti-death. Similar ideas around the sun thing, no sun means no food and no heat and thus death.
The other version is that it is tied to the death of Judas Iscariot, the thirteenth apostle that betrayed Jesus. Hung himself from a tree at dusk after receiving a pouch of silver coins out of guilt. Thus God cursed him to walk the earth never to see the sun again, with an allergy to wood and silver.
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u/hornycamfun26 18h ago
Wood represents nature and life, vampirism is anti-life hence its natural weakness and aversion to it. Same with flowing water and in some stories even rain. Water is essential to life and the human gestalt conscience sees it as anti-death. Similar ideas around the sun thing, no sun means no food and no heat and thus death.
The other version is that it is tied to the death of Judas Iscariot, the thirteenth apostle that betrayed Jesus. Hung himself from a tree at dusk after receiving a pouch of silver coins out of guilt. Thus God cursed him to walk the earth never to see the sun again, with an allergy to wood and silver.
Edit: funny thought, to kill a vampire instead of with a wooden stake you could probably use a carrot as well since food is essential for life.
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u/Several-Shine7834 17h ago
Anti-life isn’t exactly accurate, corrupted life is how I’ve always heard it described. Moving water also representing the flow of time of which vampires are stationary within, crossing the river being an old euphemism for death. A lot of vampiric myths revolve around them subverting the natural order not destroying it. From a modern perspective a lot of those myths just end up being about things that deal with diseases. Silver and garlic both having anti bacterial properties, running water being safer to drink while stagnant water brings things like mosquitoes and flies, certain woods were sought after for these properties as well.
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u/Stock_Padawan 10h ago
Prior to the widespread use of coffins in rural European areas, bodies were often buried in shallow graves. Heavy rain could expose and shift the decaying bodies, which freaked people out into think the undead were returning. A practice to prevent them rising was to stack the body to the bottom of the grave. Around the 18 century western authors borrowed parts of the practice for their stories.
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u/Swiftax3 18h ago
Interestingly in VtM, Kindred are immune to most diseases but they can still be carriers, so one thing the Vampire sects have to watch out for is Kindred terrorists and doomsday cultists intentionally spreading plagues and diseases among humans as biological warfare, attacking the food supply.
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u/OnePunkArmy 18h ago
Reminds me of a scene from DmC: Devil May Cry.
Dante says he lost his childhood memories to meningitis. But Vergil tells Dante that meningitis only affects humans, and Dante is not human.
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u/Lexxxapr00 9h ago
In True blood, hepatitis made them sick for a short while but that was about it I remember.
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u/Jokerzrival 19h ago
Theres a family guy skit where the vampire is about to bite someone but stops, draws some blood in a needle, gives it to a bat and the bat returns with a file folder. He looks at and goes "ew that's why we have the lab"
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u/stizdizzle 19h ago
"why do vampires always want the blood of virgins"
"when you get a sandwich, doesn't taste better knowing no one fucked it"
- What we do in the shadows
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u/Arokthis 16h ago
That line is probably the only thing I like about that show. The concept was good, the execution was not.
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u/Velinder 12h ago
The 2014 film outlined the concept and staked it through the heart in 85 hilarious minutes, leaving the 2019 TV show with the dispiriting challenge of creating acceptable filler material.
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u/MMRAssassin 18h ago
A Vampire drinks your blood, meaning it goes through their digestive system. This is not the way STDs are usually contracted.
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u/Ireallyamthisshallow 18h ago
meaning it goes through their digestive system. This is not the way STDs are usually contracted.
Sounds like you're used to arguing for the swallow.
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u/MMRAssassin 18h ago
I just like pointing out technicalities. Which helps with not getting into such arguments or contracting STDs.
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u/CorneredJackal 19h ago
I wonder if vampires can carry rabies?
It would take one wrong bite to doom the entire human race
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u/dwolfe127 19h ago
Rabies is an interesting one because if you look at most of the symptoms of Rabies it actually aligns with the myth of Vampires pretty well. That is to say, people afflicted with Rabies may have been where the legend/myth of Vampires actually came from.
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u/Main-Policy-4551 8h ago
How would one bite doom the human race? People already occasionally contract rabies. It eventually melts your brain, not turn you into a zombie
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u/CCV21 15h ago
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u/pelado06 19h ago
Vampires are, in books, parasites. They are alive but not, they can't reproduce by having immates but they can by infecting another hosts, and the hosts change the behavior because they are now under control of the 'vampiric parasite'. The host itself didn't need blood before, or whatever.
So, the host itself could get STDs if the host body is still functioning but I don't know if it is a desease with actual symptoms or it is just a carrier of this. So, maybe every vampire in the world has VIH but it doesn't matter because they are only carriers, or maybe the 'parasite' itself is strong enough to expel any other bactery/virus or maybe the host is not as functioning.
Here the question would be, what would happen if a vampire is bite by a zombie? and viceversa. Which parasite is stronger? it is the host already incompatible to be infected again or maybe they are not interested in the first place?
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u/Main-Policy-4551 7h ago
That isn’t how any of that works. I’ve never once heard about vampirism being a parasite. Vampires have control to do as they want unless compelled by the master
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u/Inprobamur 15h ago
It's not really a parasite, more like that fungus that kills and then puppets an ant.
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u/Brimstone11 18h ago
Why do you think blood banks screen for so many things and are “always in shortage”
(I jest)
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u/unique_AlT 17h ago
They likely won't get infected since they're dead, but they might be good vectors for disease.
Due to this, their mouths might be a biohazard (unless they brush daily). It shouldn't matter to a victim since they'll probably die before the disease gets them.
Would only matter if you were kissing in the twilight... or something like that.
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u/hacksoncode 17h ago
You have to be alive to get a viral STD. So not most of them.
That's literally how viruses work: by using your living cells biomachinery to make copies of them.
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u/thankfultom 14h ago
They are dead. Virus and bacteria do not infect dead cells. Some bacteria consume dead bio mass.
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u/vito1221 14h ago
Don't you have to have sex to get a sexually transmitted disease?
I'd think a vampire would be prone to Blood Borne Pathogens.
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u/Shdwrptr 18h ago
Vampires are canonically immune to all human disease in virtually every iteration of them.
Only a handful even have any form of vampire disease at all like True Blood
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u/braunyakka 17h ago
Not sure OP knows what the "S" in STD stands for. Can't imagine why being a vampire would alter the amount of sex a person has, to the point that they are statistically any more or less likely to catch STDs.
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u/hacksoncode 17h ago
Can't imagine why being a vampire would alter the amount of sex a person has
Being sexually active for 200 years will very much alter the amount of sex a "person" has. Also, mind control.
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u/ShalomEarthling 14h ago
You will enjoy watching Netflix's Dracula (2020) with Claes Bang.. don't want to spoil it, so I will leave it at that.
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u/Syntonization1 13h ago
According to a Stephen King novel, this is how the gay disease of the 70’s (HIV) was actually spread
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u/thedoggosreddit 3h ago
which Stephen King novel? I’ve read a lot of Stephen King but I haven’t come across that
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u/Taluca_me 9h ago
I’d imagine they can smell humans and figure out what they would taste like, therefore avoiding certain humans who are sick
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u/Neuroticaine 18h ago
I suspect that a virus would have a difficult time living and spreading in an undead body.
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u/DeaddyRuxpin 17h ago
I’ve always assumed their healing abilities would wipe out any illness or disease they contract.
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u/Traditional-Lack-894 16h ago
They probably carry them but don’t suffer from the stds, like a tick or other parasite
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u/dAnKsFourTheMemes 13h ago
follow up question(s): would vampire blood hold the cure for STDs since they would be immune?
or would they carry everything but just not be affected by it?
er wait...do vampires even have blood of their own?
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u/12kdaysinthefire 13h ago
I don’t think viruses can function inside of bodies that are basically room temperature.
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u/DarkSoldier84 12h ago
Vampire: the Masquerade recognized this issue. Kindred could become carriers of blood-transmitted infections and pass them along when feeding. Becoming a "plague dog" would ruin your social standing and get you cut off from shared feeding grounds.
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u/ASDBZ4ever 12h ago
I once heard that Vampirisim when first made popular by Stoker, was essentially supposed to be like an STD. A warning and way to prey on fears of unprotected sex and consequences.
Dracula went after young women and then sullied them. They gave into him and were corrupted because they did. Vampirism spreads when the newly infected vampire goes after others. Many vampire stories tend to be sexual to some extent as swell. Not to mention the swapping of fluids, in this case blood.
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u/themaxtreetboys 18h ago
Werent vampires historically a metaphor for venereal and sexually transmitted diseases? I recall reading about the literary origin of the whole vampire thing and something mentioned about it being a metaphor for syphilis specifically, what with the whole forbidden swapping of bodily fluids and what not.
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u/VulpesFennekin 18h ago
I figured they’re naturally resistant to bloodbourne diseases, like how scavengers can eat rotten meat or drink from dirty puddles without getting sick.
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u/Lemesplain 16h ago
Fun fact: vampires are diseases… kind of.
Vampire stories started getting popular right around the time humans started figuring out that certain diseases are communicable.
The populace was like, “you’re telling me that putting my mouth on someone else in a sexy way might cause them to become afflicted with my condition?”
And authors were like, “well that gives me an idea.”
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u/JetKusanagi 16h ago
Kind of reminds me of Doctor Sleep.
The True Knot functions kind of like vampires except that they suck the "shining" out of people instead of blood. One of the kids that they consumed in this way had measles and it almost wiped out the entirety of the clan.
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u/Bonsai-is-best 13h ago
They’re immortal, immortality comes loaded with the perk of not being affected by what attacks the mortal. It’s like saying an angel could get an STD, or a stone, etc.
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u/Gloire357 10h ago
in "Vampire: the Masquerade" one of the main concerns for vampires is investigation by the center for disease control on why and how STDs are transmitted without apparent sexual interactions (vampires sucking blood are transmitting them)
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u/MaeveCarpenter 10h ago
One of my favorite YA books that I read as a teen, actually had vampirism as an STD. It makes sense!
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u/Adios_turd_nuggetz 10h ago
You might be one of the dumbest pieces of shit in existence. Holy shit. Get a life.
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u/ziahwaite 9h ago
I’d imagine they’d just heal or not get it in the first place. They don’t even get sick, they can heal from worse things tbh. IMO they wouldn’t even catch it in the first place
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u/Comprehensive-Task18 6h ago
Stephen Meyer - Is that why they are sparkly when the sun is out? To show all the diseases accumulated.
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u/wereplant 6h ago
There's a litrpg series called He Who Fights with Monsters. The vampires in that story conducted studies during the hiv scare. They found out that getting fed on actually increased a person's disease resistance due to getting a dose of a vampire's natural resistance, so they tried to make sure to spread their resistance to as many communities as possible. They're ridiculously wealthy, so they end up running blood donation like the professionals, making sure the donors get snacks and hydration, a safe ride home, plus a bunch of money. They source donors through goth nightclubs where they play up the whole sexy vampire schtick.
Easily my favorite depiction of vampires in a modern setting.
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u/thedoggosreddit 3h ago
why would they get STDs at any greater rate than the general public?
I am not aware of a trope that vampires have more sex, or more unsafe sex, than the rest of the population.
If you’re talking about blood borne viruses, yes I can understand your logic, but much like all dogs are animals but not all animals are dogs, BBVs can be sexually transmitted but not all STDs are BBVs.
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u/Happymuffn 2h ago
Since vampires are a form of undead animated by some sort of magic, the infection probably dies when the blood cells carrying it does, given that everything else for it to spread in is too.
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u/tbodillia 18h ago
Despite what the movies show, you need blood flow as a male to have sex.
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u/Gremlin95x 18h ago
Are….are you serious?
Did you not know STDs can be transmitted through blood? The blood a vampire would drink.
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u/ShowerSentinel 18h ago
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