The Philippine Lore is filled with so many strange and bizarre creatures. One of them are babies that were born but died unbaptized. They are called Tiyanaks. They are shape shifters that take the form of innocent infants crying in the middle of nowhere and when an unsuspecting victim goes to it to bring it to his or her home; it then attacks unexpectedly. They are literally the bloodthirsty spawns of hell. Tales about these beings are often told to all generations however encounters with the said creatures are only common in the countryside.

The Sigbin is a mythological creature believed by the people on the Philippines. It is a monstrous animal-like creature. It looks like a goat with very large ears and a long tail used as a whip. Its legs and arms are long are long and its stands with a curved back and its head hanging low. It is believed that it walks backwards and smells really bad. The smell of it can cause a person to vomit. It is also believed to have abilities to travel really fast in different places.

 Aswangs in the Philippine Lore can be many things. It could refer to any paranormal creature that devours the flesh, if not, the innards or the blood of the living. They are like shape shifters as they vary in form. Anything that qualifies in both categories can be considered as Aswangs. They can look like regular humans but transform into malevolent creatures once the hunger or the thirst to kill prevails.

 When we were in college, I stayed in an old boarding house near our university. One night, my board mates and I woke up in the middle of the night because of howling dogs in the middle of our street. The howling was really loud, and almost all of the dogs in the neighborhood were participating. The landlady of the boarding house also woke up. She found us sitting in the living room and waiting for the commotion outside to be over. When we looked outside the window, the dogs were frantically running in different directions, while some were just sitting and howling.

Hollywood takes the blame for making us all into rabid (or secret) fang bangers- those that are so willing to go the distance for the Bite that all of the technicalities fly out the window without a thought. But, hasn’t the vampire always had a touch of sexual innuendo in its origins?

 Vampires have been around, in some form, with the dawning of man. From the Egyptians to the Greeks and Romans to modern times, the vampire has been viewed as more than just an undead corpse, rotting and creeping, seeking only to mindlessly feed its unquenchable thirst. How it happened that something so fearful, something so loathsome and devoid of human emotion could become the fodder for sexual excitation is actually quite simple.

 Morals Shape the View of the Vampire

It is a widely understood truth that every culture has a superior view of their morals over the others of their time, especially those that they have conquered. It stands to reason that the way that certain things were handled would change as well. For instance, the vampire, whose legend changed to reflect the changing morality. In the Victorian era, the vampire legend was adapted and changed to reflect the needs of that time. The topic of sexual intercourse was not one that was meant to be broached, especially not in polite society, so scary tales were used instead. The act of the vampire’s fangs piercing the flesh of a victim stood in for the sex act.

 If you looked at the most popular vampire stories of the day, you could see that the blood and predatory nature was usually viewed as an afterthought rather than the main objective. In reality, a vampire would have little use for this dance of wooing and courting to gain his domain over an intended victim. If you were a vicious creature with an insatiable hunger and super human strength, would you really be so polite to accomplish your goals?

 How Would You Classify the Vampire?

 Is the typical vampire, if there were such a thing as a “typical” vampire, homosexual, heterosexual or asexual in nature? In nearly every myth and story, the vampire, especially the male uses intimidation to overpower another man to victimize but may be more subtle, even seductive when he seeks to feed from a female. Female vampires are almost always painted in an even more seductive light, openly sexual with both sexes, always appearing to be in a state of sexual arousal.

 Many, but not all of the Hollywood vampire offerings are suggestive of the bisexual, but that might not be quite right. Sexuality is based on attraction for physical and intimate love, an emotional response based on physical need. The vampire, as an undead being, would have no need for attraction nor for any of the baser emotions of a human. Perhaps imbuing them with these attributes was a way to take some of their power away from them. Without naming names, some of Hollywood’s most celebrated  vampire versions brought to the silver screen are perhaps more sexualized in one direction or another not because of the vampire that they portray but because of the actor that they are.