Why doesn’t the notion that vampires are really kind of horrifying and scary stick? We’re in a period where vampires are cuddlier than ever; I was at drinks with someone this week who literally started banging on the table in vexation over the cuetification of bloodsuckers in Twilight. We’ve got chaste hunks in that series, decidedly unchaste vampire hunks in True Blood. We had redeemable individual vamps in Buffy and Angel. And yet what I think is notable is that during the time all of these interpretations have become so popular, we’ve had plenty of depictions of vampires that make them seem creepy as all hell. The Blade movies, anyone, where the vampires looked good and behaved badly? 30 Days of Night and Daybreakers, which erred on the zombie-vamp hybrid interpretation side of things? And we’ve got the remake Let Me In and the film adaptation of The Passage coming up, both of which are popular interpretations of the vampire myth that stay on the ugly-and-terrifying side of the debate, too—The Passage in particular presents vampires as zombie-like entities that operate in some ways like a hive mind.

And yet I feel those individual works will be successful, compelling, and still totally unsuccessful in ending our romantic fascination with vampires. I understand the popularity of the idea of some entity that is glamorous, and exceedingly dangerous, but makes an exception for a character that’s an avatar of us. And I get the death wish thing, too. But I also wonder if we like to believe that dangerousness can be beautiful because we like the idea that death, if it has to come for us in a violent and unexpected way, might come in a glamorous and sexual package so at least we feel good on the way out. I think it’s possible that vampirism is less an expression of suicidal ideation, and more of a compromise with our fears about things that go bump in the night. We love beautiful vampires, because the ugly ones are a bit too true to life.

Reading this profile of Katy Perry, I had a moment of regret that her faith doesn’t actually play a more prominent role in her public presentation and music. One of the things I find vexing about coverage of evangelical Christianity is that it consistently expresses shock that individual observant Christians can also be thoughtful and witty about sex and sexual presentation in ways that don’t involve extreme moralism about sexual expression and sexual contact outside of marriage. It’s a silly, and not exceptionally thoughtful stereotype to assume that evangelical Christians are inherently, and necessarily, prudes.

I think one of the reasons Perry’s presentation has been so commercially successful is that she gets at the fact that trying to come across as a bombshell is an inherently slightly silly enterprise. Unlike Dita Von Teese, who is an actual, honest-to-God pinup, Katy Perry is playing one, pretending just as much as the Vanity Fair Vanities Girls are. As annoying and as disrespectful to gay people as “I Kissed A Girl” is, the sentiment “just wanna try you on” in one of the lyrics speaks to some genuine, and I think not necessarily condemnable, sexual curiosity. There’s no reason that being an evangelical Christian, which Perry seems to be, precludes you from that kind of curiosity or play, and though I think most thinking, reasonable people both inside that faith and outside it understand that, I think it’s easy to forget. I’d like to see Perry drawing out the contradictions she lives in more, because they’re interesting, and useful to talk about, and I think it would be useful for people, whether they come from any faith or none at all, to recognize that the beliefs of people who adhere to any one set of practices come in a spectrum, and one that’s consistently expanding and contracting.