The filmmakers Alexandra Roxo and Natalia Leite, creators of the comedy, new-agey web series Be Here Nowish, launch High Sex, a new column for Slutever where they discuss sex and spirituality… while high on mushrooms, obviously. This time, the topic under discussion is “vampire lovers”—aka the type of lover who sucks out your life force. We’ve all had one.
Hi! We are two filmmakers who make a web series called Be Here Nowish. In the show our characters, Nina and Sam, move from NYC to LA in search of some modern spiritual enlightenment and new relationships. They try couples colonics, threesomes as mediation, tantric sex, urine therapy and a lot more. (Karley plays “Aurora” in the show, a bi-sexual and bi-coastal babe who knows all about the energetic benefits of sticking crystals in vaginas.) The show is inspired by our lives and own adventures in our sexuality and spirituality. And for those of you who saw season 1, we’re happy to announce that season two premiers in mid November :)
For this new Slutever column, we decided to share some of our own very personal experiences and lessons surrounding the intersection of spirituality & sexuality/relationships, which we explore in our show. And because we feel that using psychedelic plants can be an incredible form of healing and a way to access deep levels of our psyche, we though a great way to share our stories was to take a bunch of magic mushrooms together and then just have a conversion. Because why not?
Listen, we aren’t experts. Everything shared here is just our experience. (Oh, and all names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people we have loved and fucked. And if you’re reading this and are one of those people….well, we love you and thanks for being a part of the journey.)
Vampire Lovers
Vampire lovers is the term we’ve given for lovers that come flying into your world and suddenly suck out your life force and the next thing you know you feel like a fucking zombie and have no idea what has happened and your friends are calling in for an intervention. But these vampires are not really blood drinking creatures (although sometimes they might want to do that, too). They are more like psychic suckers, energy drawers, and seductive manipulators who can milk your energy, your psyche, throw you off balance and take away your power. In the metaphysical world these people are called “energy vampires” or “emotional vampires.” This is an archetype that we all can embody, but some people have just learned to master it, using it as a form of manipulation and self preservation.
Okay, so we all know in theory that we should stay away from people that make us feel helpless or weak. But it’s also SO SO sexy to allow ourselves to be completely overtaken by someone. We romanticize it, imagining Brad Pitt biting our necks and kinda wishing we were Kristen Stewart in Twilight, even if we are aware of the dangers of completely losing ourselves in a person. We’ve both had our fair share of experience dealing with people like this in our love lives and found ways to cope with it, which we will share in this post.
SO WE ATE A BUNCH OF SHROOMS AND…
Natalia: Why don’t we start by talking about meeting vampires on Tinder. You know, like one night stands, transferring energy and the implications of that spiritually.
Alexandra: I had a post-breakup wild Tinder phase that I like to call my “Slutty Spring.”
N: Oh, I know.
A: It was super fun, but you also have to really work on protecting your psyche because you are exchanging energy with people so fast in those situations. And then you’re like “Wait, what? I’m tied up in a stranger’s bed again?!”
N: Right. Because the minute that you open up and surrender sexually to them your energies are melding and exchanging, whether you like it or not.
A: If they’re holding a lot of darkness you might get in a bad mood the next day and be super grumpy, wondering “Why do I feel so depressed?” or “Why do I feel so anxious?” and you might have picked that psychic gunk up from the random person that you had sex with.
N: True. So how do you protect yourself from that and create that boundary?
A: Well, for instance, I had a date with this guy and we had really good conversation at dinner, and then I went back to his house. I was getting bored and wondering where things were going, but I kept thinking “In theory this guy’s great: he’s a lawyer and he’s attractive, but he’s also weird, in a good way.” When we were kissing he was like “I could totally see myself with a girl like you, you’re totally the type of girl I would fall in love with” and that started weirding me out. And then his penis wouldn’t work so he just wanted to go down on me forever and that felt a little too intimate for a first date, so I said no. I didn’t want some stranger that I’d literally known for two hours to just go down on me. The actual penetrative sex would be less intimate because there’s a barrier of rubber. I guess that’s like using someone’s dick as a dildo, and it’s not about the connection necessarily.
N: That’s really sad!
A: It depends how you look at it and what you want, you know? Anyway, so I lost my phone in the lawyer’s house and I was trying to leave and trying to call Uber but I couldn’t find my phone. But I slipped on the rug and hit my neck on a shelf, and at that point I was like energetically THIS IS WRONG. My intuition and everything was like “Get out! Leave!” Not because I thought he was going to be a psycho killer or anything—it was just an energetic thing. He texted me the next day but the energy of the exchange from when we started hooking up to me hurting myself was just all signs pointing to NO. It took me a minute to shrug off that icky energy. I felt kind of gross. And he ended up texting me like 100 times over a period of three months and I had to block him. So I guess he was crazy.
N: Yeah, and then it’s good to know what to do to cleanse yourself from that energetically. I guess this doesn’t apply to one night stands but there’s a few things I’ve learned to do after a bad relationship to release that person’s grip or cleanse myself from their energy. Like after I broke up with an ex, who was a total vampire—her energy was so intense. I remember after we broke up I would just like go to the bathroom and every time I took a shit I would think about her leaving my body, like in my poop. And it really worked! I associated her with shit and so that made the connection suddenly funny and non-emotional and meaningless. It quickly released the emotional grip she had on me.
A: Lol, that’s amazing.
N: We learned that in a psychic defense class we took together in LA. I think it’s good to figure out how to cleanse yourself from a bad sexual experience because it can really throw you off.
A: And it throws off your confidence and it throws off your game! People can totally vacuumed out my good vibes.
N: I felt like I was like a carcass after my vampire-relationship. When I met her I was in this place where I was so alive—I was traveling alone and feeling so free and confident. I was hooking up with a fucking hot model and I was just totally on my game. And then I came back from a long trip and met this vampire. The first sign of a vampire is…
A: They divulge too much too soon! They tell you their sob story straight off the bat.
N: Straight off the bat. First date we’re sitting at a bar and she’s already telling me about how she doesn’t get along with her family and whatever health condition she was dealing with.
A: Health conditions, financial burdens.
N: They just want you to get closer and they want to do that by telling you that they’re a victim and make you feel sorry for them.
A: Forced intimacy quickly. And then the next thing that they do is they tell you that YOU’RE THE ONE really quickly. I dated someone like that. We were walking down the street and she looked at me and said “What if you’re the one?” But I know she says that to many girls.
N: At what stage?
A: We had maybe been on three dates. And I fell for it.
N: Because they want to charm you. They want to be charming but also be in the space of “Woe is me. Poor me. I’m just this harmless thing.” They want to tell you first they are innocent, which is false. This girl I dated was immediately doing things to me that I had found out that she had done in multiple relationships in the past. And telling me that she had never felt like this before and that she was going to marry me. I was really freaked out at first and didn’t buy it. But then she would be like “Why are you not trusting love?” She would make it seem like there was something wrong with me because I wasn’t open to receiving this “deep everlasting love.” She eventually convinced me to give in and surrender to her. Then finally I’m like “Ok, here’s my heart.” And that’s when she bit me.
A: That’s the dark manipulation side of the energy vampire. It’s a formula. And they can hook some really amazing people
N: And they totally make you feel really insecure, too. And they make you question everything.
AR: Sometimes also this type of person doesn’t bring out the best you… When I dated the vampire I was “cute” and “sexy” and kind of sweet, but not fun. I remember I showed a friend a video of me at the beach with that person and she said “Why are you acting all shy like that? It’s really weird, I’ve never seen you like that.”
N: She wanted you to be like a “baby girl” type of thing?
A: Yeah She would ask “Have you been a good girl?” And I “hadn’t” because I had slept with someone twice and I was thinking “No, you can’t tame me! You’re not just going to put a little chain around my ankle because you said ‘You’re the one.’ I’m not that stupid.” We had only been dating for like three weeks! But she said already said I love you…
N: Yeah, with me it happened really fast, too. And what made me believe her was that she was right away telling everyone that I was her girlfriend and introducing me to all her friends and people she worked with. I do think in that moment they really do believe it. Otherwise they’re complete psychopaths. I don’t think they are intentionally trying to be bad or hurtful.
A: It took me a while to get my “vampire lover ex” out of my life. She would call me in the middle of the night. Then she would text and say “Let’s be friends,” and I bought it like a dummy and we tried to be friends. But then out of nowhere she would text “I want to have a family with you.” It got creepy. I just had to block her completely. But now, two years later I saw her and she was kind. People change and time heals.
NL: Yeah, after it ended it took me a second to find myself and feel strong again. Taking some time away to be alone, or changing your scenery can be important. Now if I saw her I know I wouldn’t feel anything cause I’m so far away from that. But for a while I was scared of bumping into her and that she could tip me over just by looking at me, and not because I loved her or wanted to be with her, but just because she had that power.
You can watch Be Here Nowish on www.beherenowish.com. Season two premiers mid November :)