Unlike modern-day myths about vampires, in older myths, vampires were not thought to be nearly as sexy as we think of them today.
"A lot of stereotypical images of vampires (a noble person, sucking blood by a bite on the neck, hypnotic eyes, fascinating individual with a sexual appeal, etc.) are the results of Victorian novels and more modern movies," said Borrini.
Before then, the vampire had a lot less sex appeal, a version that Borrini described as "a corpse that is not completely dead and rises from the grave to spread death and diseases."
It is the poet Lord Byron who first started "shaping the idea of the vampire from a kind of rotting zombie, like a corpse to a sexy aristocrat," Wilson said.
Their lurid behavior and neck biting was then used as "a sort of metaphor for sex" in the books, per Borrini.
However, "the idea that 'vampirism' is contagious, so that someone that has been lured and caught or killed by a vampire can become a vampire themselves is present in both early traditions and Victorian novels," said Borrini.