Violence In True Blood

Kimberly Gauthier
10-12-2010
English I
Analytical Paper
TRUE BLOOD: Violence in sexuality

True Blood portrays violence in sexuality in a positive light by showing pleasurable yet violent sex scenes. The show portrays these violent acts as being a source of both pleasure and arousal for both participants. Although violence is a recurring theme throughout the entire show, it’s the violence that carries over into the “bedroom” scenes that seems so fascinating. The show has countless sex scenes and more often than not they involve violence, ranging from hair pulling to murdering humans for the purpose of having sex in their blood. True Blood may be showing just how far society has come towards being more open minded about what used to be
taboo forms of sexuality. In the very first sex scene of True Blood, it begins with what society might view as a typical encounter between two young people.
A woman is lying on a couch, seemingly uninterested, as a man performs oral sex on her, but he quickly discovers an odd mark on her thigh. The mark he soon realizes are the fang marks from a vampire. Although he seems disgusted at first, he soon becomes intrigued and wants to learn more about her sexual encounter with the dead man. She shows him a video she made of the pair together and he quickly becomes quite aroused. This leads to the show’s very first graphically violent sex scene. Jason hangs Mawdette from the ceiling with her hands tied up in chains, and then proceeds to have sexual intercourse very violently with her. Jason calls her several contemptuous names and then begins to choke her aggressively. Mawdette seems to also enjoy this behavior, as she has gone from uninterested to begging for more. This scene shows what most would consider to be a brutal act, but yet both participants were shown to find it extremely sexually
gratifying. In the second episode of True Blood the show starts off with a horrendously violent scene, not directly involving sex. A couple is beating the young female main character nearly to death, but they seem to be really enjoying it. In the midst of beating the female to death, the female partner begins to make out with her boyfriend, both covered in blood. They both seem extremely aroused by the gruesome violence that they have both just participated in. True Blood portrays violence as being a means for arousal in this scene. Although this is clearly not as main stream as previous scenes, the show still showed it to be not completely out of the ordinary as there would be many more similar scenes throughout the following 3 seasons. This may have been an extreme example of what the show’s creators thought to be an emerging popular concept. Many other shows/movies in recent years have shown violence in mild forms to be a source of both arousal and sexual pleasure. Jason and his girlfriend Dawn provide two scenes in episodes two and four that are wonderful examples of mainstream violence in sexuality.
In both scenes the foreplay is extremely rough containing everything from hair pulling to full on masked assault. In one scene Dawn slaps Jason in the face violently and he begs for more. The sex is also tempestuous, with bodies being slammed against walls and arms being pinned to the bed. Dawn even comments that the best sex she has ever had was the destructive sex with the vampire male. The scenes portray two ordinary people finding tremendous pleasure from both being violent, and being violated. The scenes were both graphic and highly violent, but yet seemed commonplace in the lives of the average characters. Many aspects of what True Blood demonstrated in these scenes are now mainstream ideas that can be seen in many shows and movies. The once taboo idea of violence and sexuality is now thought of by many as another form of sexual
pleasure. Many people would agree that Rolling Stone has been a symbol of the times in our society for many decades. In September of 2010 their cover featured three main characters from True Blood, Eric, Bill, and Sookie. The three were completely nude and in an intensely erotic position. In past times this alone would be provocative and taboo, but this particular cover photo took it one step farther. The threesome was photographed nude and covered in blood. The caption read, “True Blood- Their Hot, Their Sexy, Their Undead”. The fact that this made it onto the cover of a magazine that is thought to cover current trends speaks volumes about how mainstream these ideas portrayed in HBO’s hit show have become. True Blood has what many describe as a cult like following of millions of viewers. It is undeniable that this show and its racy violence will continue into the future, and inevitable more shows like it will emerge. This is a sign that the times have changed and sexuality has become a much more complex subject with intricacies, constantly evolving, that not everyone will find acceptable.