The only way she can understand Carmilla’s desire is by believing that she might be a man, which shows the extent to which female sexuality was repressed. When Carmilla first arrives, Laura, confused by her guest’s displays of affection, wonders if perhaps Carmilla is a male suitor in disguise.
While she is with Carmilla, Laura is allowed to exist within a world that is not entirely controlled by men, which causes her to respond both physically and emotionally to Carmilla’s temptation. Laura’s simultaneous attraction to and fear of Carmilla relates to the fact that Carmilla is free from the control of men. While Laura has conflicting emotions for Carmilla, she can’t deny that she is fascinated by Carmilla and wishes to be close to her, feeling an intense physical response to Carmilla that certainly indicates an attraction. Carmilla’s behavior resembles that of a passionate lover, though she never outright says that she sees Laura as anything more than a friend. Years later, Carmilla engages in similar behavior, crawling into bed with Laura and treating Laura like her possession. Laura dreams of a young woman who crawls into bed with her, who “caressed” her, an act that soothed rather than frightened her.
Laura’s first encounter with Carmilla, which occurs twelve years before the main plot, sets this relationship up. This asks the reader to see an intimate connection between vampirism and sexuality. Le Fanu emphasizes the sexual nature of Carmilla’s attraction to Laura even more than the vampire’s violent nature, as it is her “looks” that “won” Laura over. Despite that Carmilla frames female sexuality as negative, the mere fact that Le Fanu acknowledges the existence of female sexuality is a divergence from the traditional gender roles of the time period, which often prevented women from demonstrating any sort of sexual desire. The disguised vampire Carmilla’s longing for Laura is primarily sexual, and her craving for the blood of young women suggests that female sexual desire-particularly homosexual desire-is inherently threatening. Le Fanu was one of the first writers to depict a female vampire, and he consistently associates vampirism with eroticism. Carmilla, a tale of a female vampire who preys on young women, centers on the anxieties associated with female sexuality.
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