Another vital phrase in relation to sexuality is in the beginning of Chapter 8 in which Mina relates (another of Stoker's many )Lucy's situation to Victorian society's views towards 'New Women' who are seen to be a threat to the fabric of society with their wild ideas threatening to spread to general society. 'New Women' are also related to with four out of the five female characters in the play being vampires who are similar to 'New Women' in that they both have the capabilities to harm men with their seduction, with Lucy being most guilty as she tries her futile seductive techniques on Arthur Holmwood who in turn destroys the idea of 'New Women' with the powerful hammering of a stake through her heart as a phallic symbol while “his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it.” gives a clear and very frank sexual reference to intercourse and Lucy's deflowerign.
Later on in the novel, Stoker still keeps by his focus on sexuality within Victorian society with a very insightful view on how Victorians regard each sex. Van Helsing when speaking of Mina says “Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man’s brain – a brain that a man should have were he much gifted – and woman’s heart.” This is of course intended to be a great compliment towards Mina by highlighting the two highest qualities of both sexes that embody the Victorians stereotypical attitude towards the two sexes. In modern times, it would be far less of a compliment as it was back then and shows how Stoker attempts to reflect the context of the novel as accurately as possible.
Most criticism of Dracula sees the novel in terms of suppressed sexual instincts coming to the surface. The novel draws an implied analogy between vampirism and sex. The Count can only go where he is first invited, meaning that his female victims desire him to penetrate them. This act of penetration draws blood, like the ‘deflowering’ of a virgin bride. After the act, the woman looks unnaturally flushed and healthy, though after repeated penetration, she becomes drained of blood and anemic. The exchange of bodily fluids (blood in the case of vampiric attacks) is another similarity with sex. Once corrupted by the Count’s attentions, the women (Lucy is an example) is transformed from pure and virtuous creature to a lascivious, bestial predator who is driven to lure men to their destruction. The Count, by draining the blood of women and indirectly of the men who are loved (and fed upon) by them, has power over both women and men. Symbolically, the Count’s sexual prowess threatens the ‘respectable’ relationship that Victorian society so valued, based on the sexual purity of women and the protective role of men.
Because the prejudices of his time barred him from writing frankly about intercourse, Stoker suggests graphic sexual acts through the predatory habits of his vampires. The means by which Dracula feeds, for instance, echo the mechanics of sex: he waits to be beckoned into his victim’s bedroom, then he pierces her body in a way that makes her bleed. In the mind of the typical Victorian male, this act has the same effect as a real sexual encounter—it transforms the woman from a repository of purity and innocence into an uncontrollably lascivious creature who inspires “wicked, burning desire” in men. We witness such a transformation in Lucy Westenra <javascript:ScrollingPopup('http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dracula/terms/char_5.html', 'a7af4e0b9f', '500', '500')>, who becomes a dangerous figure of sexual predation bent on destroying men with her wanton lust. Because of her immoral mission, the men realize that Lucy must be destroyed.
In this sense, Stoker’s novel betrays a deep-seated fear of women who go beyond the sexual boundaries Victorian society has proscribed for them. If women are not hopelessly innocent virgins, like Lucy before Dracula gets hold of her, or married, like Mina <javascript:ScrollingPopup('http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dracula/terms/char_4.html', '8886cdd481', '500', '500')>, they are whores who threaten to demolish men’s reason and, by extension, their power. The fact that such temptresses are destroyed without exception in Dracula testifies to the level of anxiety Victorian men felt regarding women’s sexuality.
For another, there was, well, sex-never overt, always hidden, but silently shouting its head off in Dracula, Victorian taboos (seduction, rape, gang rape, group sex, necrophilia, pedophilia, incest, adultery, oral sex, menstruation, venereal disease, and voyeurism)."
1. “I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The fair girl went on her knees, and bent over me, fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed to fasten on my throat… I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstacy and waited – waited with beating heart.” (Chapter 3)
This is the most-discussed episode in the novel. At Count Dracula’s castle, Jonathan Harker has a vision or dream (he is unsure which) in which he is seduced by three vampire women. The vampiric tradition of blood-sucking is symbolic of the exchange of bodily fluids during sex. For Stoker, writing in the sexually repressed Victorian age, vampirism is a convenient metaphor for sex and the closest he could get to writing about sex in a ‘respectable’ novel. The seduction incident is remarkable for the reversal of traditional gender roles: Harker is a passive victim, peeping out under his eyelashes like a coy young girl, while the vampire women are sexually aggressive predators. In Victorian Britain, a sexually aggressive woman was seen as a threat to the very fabric of society, so Stoker’s characterisation of such women as death-dealing vampires is apt. Harker’s longing for, and yet revulsion to the women illustrates the deeply ambiguous attitude of Victorian society towards the female sexual appetite.