Oh. My. Word. Have you seen this upcoming Rolling Stone cover for September? That magazine drives me nuts because of the way it portrays young women (often teen) pop stars–almost without exception–either naked, or almost naked, while (almost) never asking male pop stars to do the same. But this latest cover, which features three of the central characters of HBO’s smash hit series, ‘True Blood,’ has equal opportunity nakedness: two men (the vampires Eric and Bill) and one woman (Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse), all three of them without a stitch on them.

Except for the blood spattered all over their bodies.
Ew! This season has had more than its share of complete and utter gross out moments (take last Sunday’s episode, where vampire Russell finds Talbot, his long time vampire lover, a pile of blood and gust–and I mean literally a pile–and basically rolls around in the mess in his grief), so it’s not a complete surprise to see the photograph. But still. I can’t say I find it sexy to see blood covering Eric, Sookie, and Bill, and from what creator Alan Ball has to say about his show, apparently vampires are the essence of sexy. Regarding the Rolling Stone cover, he has said the following:
“To me, vampires are sex,” creator Alan Ball tells the magazine for its Sept. 2 issue. He also takes an obvious swipe at The Twilight Saga saying, “I don’t get a vampire story about abstinence. I’m 53. I don’t care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed.” The [Rolling Stone] issue explores not only the show’s explicit use of sex throughout episodes, but also sex as the central idea behind the appeal of vampires.”
I’m curious to read the article and see how far Ball takes his critique of Twilight, but I can tell you this much: I will make sure that issue is face down on my kitchen table. I don’t need to look at that much gore in the morning.