Are Vampires Gay?

So Vampires. They're everywhere right now, one can probably only guess as to why. But what exactly is so exciting about them?

Vampires in folklore rarely drank human blood. They were mainly creatures feared by farmers living on the outskirts of settlements. In essence, it was a lot like the chupacabra or Jersey Devil. It killed livestock, drained them dry of blood without leaving a drop anywhere. There was not originally a weakness to sun light, though they did tend to their actions at night probably due to the horrifying blackness that comes with night in a world before streetlights. Nor was there originally a weakness to holy powers or the cross, considering that Vampire tales reach as far back as ancient Mesopotamia, some 3000 years prior to the coming of Christ.

Various tales grew over time, mixing with legends and occasional piece of fiction until the Vampire had changed into something almost completely different.

Le Fanu's Carmilla emphasized a sexual appetite (lesbian and erotic) for the vampire alongside it's thirst for blood. Stoker's Dracula, a much more popular and well-known novel, further emphasizes. But while the reality of these novels may have been sexual, they were still psychological. The horror in the story was almost more towards the things humans were capable of as opposed to the monster lurking in the night.

Eventually, along came writers such as Anne Rice and, still later, Laurell K. Hamilton, for whom the psychological aspects that made Dracula an honest and notable work of fiction meant nothing. Vampire stories, for some reason, became romance-novel trash more interested in matters of sexual perversion and the "seedy underbelly" of society where one's fantasies could become reality. Apparently, places where fantasies can become reality is enough to propel certain so-called "books" into immense fame, but that's a discussion for another time, perhaps.

The next step has, perhaps, been taken, as vampire stories become increasingly adolescent romantic fantasy, the writing trashier, and the story content less remarkable.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, have Vampires become gay (literally gay)? Were vampires as short, goat-killing monsters more or less interesting? Does Dracula denote a high point in vampire-inspired fiction? Does Twilight denote a low point? Are vampire novels now entirely pubescent female masturbatory romance or are they for everyone? Were Vampires ever interesting at all?

You tell me.