The dangers of being uninformed in the Vampyre Community

Over the years, especially as of lately, there are people who have been joining Vampyre communities after knowing about the existence for less than 24hrs and claim they are a donor or a black swan without truly understanding what this may entail.

Identity has been and always will be a matter of importance to each individual, it is what make you, you. The way in which identity has been shaped has been significantly altered through the connection of social media. You learn quite a bit through the various platforms. Labels for trends are forever multiplying and even taking an old trend and altering its name and intent.

Social media has shown people they too can have an interesting life if they adopt the lifestyle. But what could this mean for Informed consent? Romanization of a practice? And the VC for a whole. That is what we will be diving into in this blog.

The main non vamp identities within the VC

Before we go any further I will be be giving a general definition of these identities.

• Questioning, or what we call in Project V “The Inquisition” this is someone who isn’t quite sure where they may stand in the VC, they could be a donor, a black swan, a vampyre, and rarely a combination of the three.

• Black Swan, formerly defined as an intimate connection between a vampyre and non vampyre. Todays day it means an alley or supporter of vampyres.

• Donor, similar to black swan they support vampyres in other ways by providing their life force whether it’s through blood or energy. A donorship is purely unique to each and every dynamic. You can have one donor, maybe even multiple.

So where’s the concern?

When people come into VC spaces and claim to be a donor when they have very little knowledge of vampyres or the VC, this can cause a domino effect within the community. This domino effect is something that is not talked about as often as it should.

Romanticization:

When people hear about the idea of being a donor they often see the romanticization aspect of it that is prevalent in vampire media. The idea is appealing to many but they don’t exactly know the emotional and physical impact it has on all parties.

There are some days that I believe a healthy amount of healthy romaticaztion is perfectly fine as long as the parties are informed and perfectly fine with this. But that does not appear to be happening as often as I would like to. This tend to run into unsolicited kink territory. People assume the Vampyre is dominant and will want to own their donor. Maybe for some sure, but the way people go about finding this out is very unethical. I have had random people come into my inbox without introducing themselves and immediately ask for me to drain the life out of them and own them. Like what happen to “Hi my name is_____ my favorite color is-“ I have even had people try to figure out what I look like to fulfill their fantasies.

Misleading the community:

Not only there are informed consent concerns that will get to later. But these people who claim to be a donor are giving vamps the impression that they are experienced and even have knowledge over the VC. Due to this lack of knowledge there is a disconnect, and even medical situations can arise. Due to vampyres either seeing this happen or have had people claim to be experienced donors there is an underlying distrust for donors. I don’t believe it’s because someone is a new owner but it’s because they lied about having experience or has broken established boundaries that has caused this.

The importance of informed consent

Uninformed consent might as well not be consent at all. It’s like signing a contract without reading each and every detail. I truly will never understand why someone will immediately agree to something such as being a black swan or even worse a donor without not knowing a single thing even if it’s led by seeking companionship of sorts.

Donors believe me when I say, there has been past incidences in the where donors have been manipulated and taken advantage of. By doing your extensive research before hand you can not only minimize falling hands into an unethical Vampyre but you yourself will not have a hand in being unethical and manipulative.

What can the VC do about this?

A good start is by making resources for donors and their donorships, Uplifting their voices, and calling out unethical behavior when we see it. This is why I have been making a huge donorship section over the course of multiple website updates. It is also why I have staff who identify as donors as well. So they are able to represent donors.