Psychology of the Succubus
Why is suspicion of male sexuality growing?
If you’re a man it seems like you are constantly under attack for being misogynistic at best and a physical danger to women at worst. “Patriarchy” has almost become a buzz word for anything about society or men that we don’t like, and then, all of that is quickly blamed on any individual man, regardless of whatever he’s experienced in his own life. I want to be clear then, upfront, that I am extraordinarily exhausted with the hate against men. So please, as you watch this keep that in mind. I may seem very negative at times, but this is all leading to something that I think is really positive for men.
If you prefer youtube, please click this sentence.
Either way, we do need to get a little bit into the dirt because to understand how men could be viewed with such intense suspicion today, we first need to understand how “patriarchy” itself evolved and why women react so harshly against it, which is a journey that takes us into the mythological depths of the demonically seductive succubus and how she came to represent femininity.
That may seem like an odd perspective to take on this, but you have to understand that myths are the stories a culture uses to understand their reality. If we have a myth like the succubus, a demonic female, then that says something about how that culture views women. We need to look at how the succubus has evolved historically so that we can get a better understanding of how women have begun to stand against this mythological symbol. So, before the advent of patriarchy, before men became the sole head of the family and then of society, what myths did people have in regards to women?1
Goddess Gagged
This was the time of the Mother Goddess, where femininity was “revered as sacred, awe-inspiring, and fertile.”2 In these kinds of societies gender roles seemed to have still existed, but each role was given equal footing and some societies may have even been outright matriarchal, where a woman was at the head of the family.1 Point being, these were not societies where women were considered second class citizens ruled by men, and this was reflected in the exalted position of “woman” in their mythology.
What’s curious is what happened with the invention of the plough.2, 3, 4 We tend to think of the move from egalitarian societies to patriarchal societies as the move from hunter-gatherers to agricultural farmers. However, it seems more accurate to say that the move was from agriculture that used hand-held tools, to agriculture that used the plough. This new farming tool was heavy and so men, being stronger on average than women, came to dominate this new technology5. The consequence of this was that divisions of labour put men outside the house and women inside the house. Over time this meant that women were not only working inside the home, but were supposed to stay in the home.
How is this represented mythologically? The murder of the Mother Goddess. In fact, there seem to be several examples from history where a mythology takes a revered Goddess and then over time recasts her as some sort of demonic enemy.2, 6 This is sometimes matched by an Indigenous population of Goddess worshippers being conquered by a tribe of God worshippers. The conquerors rewrite the mythology to have the rival Goddess slain by the conquering heroic God. And, what makes a tribe more likely to win such a battle? Maybe, just maybe, the agricultural surplus provided by the more efficient plough that just so happens to, sometimes, harshly divide the status of men and women in a society.
This is what I mean when I say that myths are stories that help a culture explain and understand the reality they live in. As a society becomes more patriarchal they need to justify why men ought to be in positions of power whereas women are not. The mythologies that they were already using are changed and updated to reflect the change in their culture. I’ll be connecting all of this to how men are increasingly seen with suspicion, but again, if you want to understand how the status of men and women changed throughout history, look to the changes in mythology.
For example, if you’ve watched enough of Jordan Peterson you’ve probably heard him mention the Mesopotamian God, Marduk and his battle with the draconic Goddess Tiamat7. Already you can this same pattern, a Goddess is cast as the demon that must be conquered by the heroic God. In the myth, the old God, Apsu, who is also the lover of Tiamat, has grown corrupt and is then murdered. This enrages Tiamat and so she goes to war with the Gods. Marduk, the heroic God, slays her and is crowned the king of all the Gods.
Now, Peterson interprets this in the common ways that such myths are interpreted. Tiamat, as a feminine character, often represents the unknown chaos of nature. Apsu, the old God, represents tyrannical order, the old King who has become corrupt and oppressive. The fact that Apsu and Tiamat are lovers represents the way that masculine order keeps the feminine unknown controlled. You can see very clearly here how patriarchal this myth is. The feminine is controlled, conquered, and kept at bay by the masculine. When that masculine order is destroyed by the other Gods, Marduk must slay the feminine unknown and bring a new, revitalized, and benevolent masculine order to protect us all from the chaos of the world.
At this point we can already see several issues that arise when it comes to the ways in which we conceptualize “femininity” in myths like this. The feminine is chaos, unknown, and dangerous? It is meant to be conquered by a masculinity that represents order and civilization? Elsewhere, masculinity is said to represent reason and the intellect, whereas femininity represents emotions and imagination. This doesn’t necessarily mean that these associations are bad, but it’s certainly telling when one is slain and controlled by the other. That’s a very specific relationship between them.
Mythology mirrors culture and we see throughout the development of Western patriarchy the conquering of the Goddess and the denigration of feminine emotion as base and corrupting next to the power of masculine reason and rationality. As the Greek playwright Euripides says, “woman is a more terrible thing than the violence of the raging sea.”2
If this is the way that we’ve mythologically and culturally framed women, is it so surprising that women would rage so powerfully against patriarchy? Additionally, what’s been highlighted here is the way in which these myths have taught men how to perceive women. You’ve already seen the succubus born out of the dead remains of the fertility Goddess, but now you’ll see how she is recast as the demonic seductress who invades the dreams of men to rob them of their life-force. If myths define how we understand reality, how might this myth of the succubus define how men see women?
Succubus Bound
Firstly, I think it’s important to state explicitly what exactly a mythological character is psychologically. These are referred to as archetypes, or symbols that maintain meaningful inspiration over time. These symbols activate a complex of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about the world. Then, these thoughts, feelings, and beliefs inform how we engage with, in this case, women. So let’s take a look at the archetype of the succubus and how it has influenced how men see women in a way that women have come to hate.
Right from the get-go we have a female demonic sexual entity, which speaks very clearly to the demonization of female sexuality. I don’t think that it’s news to anyone that sex has been demonized quite heavily by Western mythologies, and this definitely extends to the body in general. The succubus then, represents the demonization of female and male sexuality.
Now that may seem a bit strange…how does the female succubus represent male sexuality in any way? Think about it. In a sexually repressive culture, men are going to demonize their own sexuality. What happens when we demonize parts of ourselves? We use defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from the dangerous parts of ourselves8. In this case, we use projection, which is where we take an unacceptable feeling like sexuality and then project it out into the world. We’re basically saying this thing I feel is not coming from within me, but is instead coming from outside me, from the external world.
The succubus then, represents the way in which we as men have projected our own sexuality onto a demonic entity that controls us in our dreams. In this way, it is not necessarily the case that the succubus only represents female sexuality. It’s instead that the succubus represents the rejected male sexuality that you aren’t allowed to feel.
You have to understand that ancient people literally believed that the succubus existed. We’ve already discussed how patriarchal societies justified their subjugation of women by having a male deity slay the evil female deity. This evil female deity was the recast Goddess who was often already associated with fertility and sexuality. As the dominating religions of the West became increasingly sexually repressive, you can see how they would increasingly demonize the fertility Goddess and the sexuality that she represented. Another Greek, Aeschylus, frames the feminine as a “disgusting ‘wet biology’”.2
By the time we get to Christianity and its sometimes intense hatred of the human body, it would make perfect sense for these men to blame their perfectly normal and natural sexuality on the succubus. Men could absolve themselves of sin by blaming any sexual impulse on, again, a literal demonic entity. In a patriarchal society where men are given far more power than women, it only makes sense that they would now use their projected sexuality as an excuse to further subjugate women.
Remember, myths are the stories we use to help us understand the reality we live in. The myth of the succubus teaches men that their sexual impulses aren’t their own responsibility. As a man living in that time you have been taught that emotion is corrupt, sexuality is corrupt, and you will burn for eternity in Hell unless you can conquer these corruptions with reason and intellect. Women exist in the world and, if you’re a straight guy, they tend to be quite arousing. You can see how easy it becomes to blame women for these demonic sexual impulses and demand that they dress modestly.
You can look back at this now and scoff at the ridiculous beliefs of the mythic mind, but what you can’t do is pretend like you aren’t just as subject to projection, especially given the fact that male sexuality is increasingly seen with suspicion. Have you ever heard anyone, ever, say anything even remotely negative about male sexuality? He’s a player, he’s creepy, men can’t stop thinking about sex, there is no such thing as a platonic male friend…
If you are taught to demonize your own sexuality as inherently manipulative or negative, then you are at risk of projecting that sexuality out into the world. And, where exactly do you project this sexuality? Onto the succubus and her demonic seductive powers. In this way you free yourself from the responsibility over your sexuality. She was asking for it, did you see what she was wearing, she’s a tease, what did she think would happen if she invited him over. These are all statements that have been made when a toxic man loses control over his sexuality and each is a projection to defend himself from his own sexual powerlessness.
As Dr. Peterson himself states explicitly:7
“The [Goddess], in her negative guise, is … planned rape and painful slaughter… She is aggression, without the inhibition of fear and guilt; sexuality in the absence of responsibility, dominance without compassion, greed without empathy.”
The Goddess is planned rape? What is this if not a man projecting the sexuality he refuses to take responsibility for and then demonizing femininity for it?
Even though we no longer believe in the succubus the fact of the matter is that these myths still exist in our culture and tell us how to understand reality. One of the most valuable lessons that I’ve learned from Dr. Vervaeke is that even when the mythic language is gone, the remnants of these myths are still defining how we think today.9
The fact that these are myths of a Goddess that was murdered in order to be controlled by a masculine authority is reflected in the cultural shift from egalitarian power to patriarchal power. As the plough removed women from the public sphere, femininity was sidelined and the succubus was born mythologically from the rotting remains of the slain Goddess. The point is that patriarchal power came to dominate because the structure of society itself put “feminine” modes of being at a disadvantage and privileged “masculine” modes of being – rationality, social hierarchy, and unilateral power over others.
A Succubine Dominance
If we want to make sense of the pendulum swing toward male-hate, unilateral power is one of the most important puzzle pieces. The philosopher Bernard Loomer defines unilateral power as the power to manipulate others for one’s own desires.10 The implication here is that if you can be influenced by other people then you have less power. The most powerful person then, is the one who can influence the most, and be influenced the least.
And how is unilateral power represented mythologically? By an unchanging, ever-present, all-powerful…God. The Christian God is the ultimate representation of unilateral power over others and an inability to be influenced by anything else. And, what do we know about the Christian God? He is the ultimate arbiter of good and evil. Embedded within the Christian mythology is a morality that justifies having the most unilateral power over others11. Does it surprise you that Christianity was used to justify the Divine Right of Kings and their absolute authority to rule unilaterally?
To be clear though, unilateral power is not just about authority figures. It also defines very deeply how you believe you ought to be. If you believe that it is moral to be more powerful, then that means you feel justified in having greater influence over others. This means that your sense of self-worth is tied to how much you can influence others. You view yourself as weak and pathetic if you cannot control others or if you do not have greater power over others.
If you disagree then just look at how we measure our worth as men. We create hierarchies where we judge each other’s worth in athletic ability, intelligence, wealth, or in the number of women we’re conquered. We believe that we have to be the best at something or we are, essentially, worthless. In this way, we turn our own progress as a person into a zero-sum game. This means that the more you win the more someone else is losing, and that’s just the “natural way of things”. If you want more on that trap you can check out my essay, “The Conformist Cage of the Nice Guy”. But, either way, with this definition of power, we live with a moral imperative to ascend the hierarchy or else we’re not worthy of anyone’s love, least of all our own.
Think about the consequences of that in the arena of romance. If your worthiness for love is dependent on having more power, then you are forced into having greater power over your partner in order to deserve that partner’s love. Even in what should be your most loving relationships people become mere vehicles for your own purposes and your own desire for power.
Beyond this irony, think about the implications of a definition of power where you are weak if you can be influenced by others. You are forced to be completely self-sufficient and any form of dependence on others is viewed as weakness. Love is one of the most beautiful experiences a human can have and yet our definition of power creates a motive to separate ourselves from others. You alienate yourself as a sign of just how truly powerful you are – you are the rugged, individualist who doesn’t need anybody else.
With all of that being said, this isn’t an argument against power because power itself is not the problem. Power is only the problem – all of this stuff is only a problem – when we define it as unilateral power. In the next essay we’ll be discussing how you can integrate, or heal from, the negative effects of the succubus, and so there I’ll be addressing an alternative definition of power. However if you’d like to start that journey today, I highly recommend you check out my free assignments here.
Either way, with this alternative definition you can still become more powerful. Funny enough it remains a sort of moral imperative to become more powerful, but the implications are far more positive than manipulative and violating of others.
Returning then to the succubus, you can already see how our conception of love and sex is defined by unilateral power. When we find love we are incentivized to constrain the freedom of our partner because the more freedom they have the less control we have over them. Our self-worth as an individual is dependent on us being in control. The succubus is the myth of competition in romance, of treating it as a zero-sum game where a woman loses by giving up her sex and a man wins by conquering the woman and taking her sex from her. We’ll be covering that specific phenomenon in a later essay.
Regardless, the succubus, as a representation of the conquered feminine Goddess, reinforces the moral code that a man must have power over a woman. We view our repressed and projected sexuality as something to be conquered unilaterally through the conquering of women. If our self-worth has been tied to unilateral power, then that means we often use shame as a means of enforcing that unilateral power.
We feel ashamed when we are bested by others and we feel ashamed when a woman rejects us. The way we overcome this shame is by exercising our unilateral power in some other area or over some other woman. For the worst of men, they exercise that unilateral power by taking what they wanted from the woman who had the audacity to reject them. We cannot tolerate the power that women have over us through our own rejected and projected sexuality. Our own shame at our own sexual powerlessness causes us to demonize female sexuality as a thing to be conquered and controlled.
Again, this has already been represented mythologically by the succubus. She is a seductive demon who haunts our dreams. She should be slain as Marduk slayed Tiamat. The succubus is not merely a denial of our perfectly acceptable male sexuality, but defines our demonization of femininity itself. If unilateral power is about being self-sufficient and independent, then we shame ourselves for any dependency, for any emotional vulnerability that puts us as at the will of someone else. We associate femininity with emotional connection which by definition violates the rules of unilateral power. If anyone else can affect you in any way, you are weak.
The succubus represents the denied feminine aspects of a man that have been demonized as “not masculine enough, not powerful enough”, and so when we feel shame at our own lack of power, we dump that shame into the succubus just like we dump our sexual responsibility into the succubus. Myths define how we understand the world, the succubus defines how we understand women, and thus, we dump all of this shame into femininity itself – don’t be a pussy, don’t be a bitch, don’t be a sissy. All phrases meant to disparage weakness in men by comparing them to femininity.
The archetype of the succubus represents a complex of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. It is not just the individual elements of that complex, but how each of the elements relate to the other elements, reinforcing and amplifying their effects. We then project that complex out into the world.
For example, deny your sexuality and blame it on the way women dress, worship at the altar of unilateral power for the masculine urge to risk everything and conquer the feminine unknown, but then use unilateral power to deny yourself emotional connection with other human beings, and then finally come full circle by pursuing sexual conquest as the only acceptable way for a man to get that emotional connection. This is nothing, if not the domination of the succubus over men, which means it is the domination of men over themselves.
The Suspicion of Masculinity
Throughout this essay we’ve seen how the mythology of the succubus has evolved historically to represent how men viewed women. However, at this point, you might be wondering…I’ve spent a lot of time talking about men from a very negative perspective. Wasn’t this supposed to be about how men are now being viewed negatively, with suspicion and blame? Yes 100%, but we first needed to see what exactly it was that women were reacting against.
My question to you is – how many men do you think clicked away from this essay? How many men chose to stop watching because they decided this was just another anti-male rant? Like I said at the beginning, I am exhausted by all of the man-hate that exists today. It was very difficult for me to write this because I knew it was alienating some men for that very reason. And yet, for those of you who’ve made it this far, is it really so shocking why women would be reacting in such harsh ways today?
The succubus is a myth that has not merely defined how men think of women, but how men and society have treated women. If it was difficult to hear about the succubus and how she painted men in such a bad light, just imagine thousands of years of subjugation to the will of the succubus. The fact that women are reacting with such hostility today is a natural and understandable consequence of that.
As men who want to improve conditions for ourselves, for other men, and for society, we must come to terms with the succubus. If myths are the stories we use to understand ourselves, the world, and how we ought to engage with the world, then we need to rewrite the myth of the succubus. This is not merely to liberate women, but is also meant to liberate men.
The succubus causes men to view women in negative ways because of the ways in which it causes men to view themselves in negative ways. If you thought the succubus has painted men in a bad light then recognize that this is reflected in how men and society have been taught to view men, and this is the vision of men that so many women are reacting so harshly against. As men we’ve been born into a myth that has taken the best parts of ourselves and cast the rest in villainous roles that make it all too easy to blame us for the crimes we have not committed. We need a better vision of masculinity that actually honours the very real positivity of masculinity.
While there are many archetypes for positive masculinity that I want to discuss, I think the first archetype we must heal and integrate is the succubus. This is because the succubus is what Joseph Campbell called a threshold guardian, which is an obstacle in the Hero’s Journey toward true individuality12. As a representative of the dangers of the unknown, the succubus represents the unknown that exists beyond the current masculine conformity. Dr. Peterson says it well:7
“the unknown must be encountered, voluntarily, … for new behavioral patterns to be constructed … [a dead god] is tantamount to a denial of the hero.”
The old definition of masculinity is a long dead god, and it’s time for us revivify masculinity by a confrontation with the feminine unknown. That is where we’ll turn in the next essay when we discuss the Divine Feminine and the role she plays in the co-creation of a possible new definition for your masculinity.
Either way, that is enough for today. Thank you so much for your time and attention. Please hit the like button and subscribe for more essays and conversations that go very deeply into masculinity, psychological development, and the cultivation of a meaningful personal mythology. Thanks again, and all the best to you on whatever journey you find yourself on.
If you’d like more the recommended reading order is at the bottom of this essay.
References:
1 – Graeber, D., & Wengrow, D. (2021). The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. Signal.
2 – Ayers, M. Y. (2011). Masculine Shame: From Succubus to the Eternal Feminine (1st edition). Routledge.
3 – Wilber, K. (2001). Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Second Edition (2nd Rev ed. edition). Shambhala.
4 – Alesina, A., Giuliano, P., & Nunn, N. (2011). On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough. Retrieved September 4, 2024 from https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/alesina/files/ontheoriginsofgenderroleswomenandtheplough.pdf
5 – Giuriato et al. (2024) Sex differences in neuromuscular and biological determinants of isometric maximal force. Retrieved September 4, 2024, from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apha.14118
6 – Merlin, S. (1978) When God Was A Woman. Mariner Books.
7 – Peterson, J. B. (1999). Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1st edition). Routledge.
8 – Cramer, P. (2011). The Development of Defense Mechanisms: Theory, Research, and Assessment (Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1991 edition). Springer/Sci-Tech/Trade.
9 – Vervaeke, J. (n.d.). Awakening from the Meaning Crisis—YouTube. Retrieved August 2, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ
10 – Loomer, B. (1976). Two Conceptions of Power. Process Studies, 6(1), 5–32. https://doi.org/10.5840/process19766126
11 – Mesle, C.R. (2009) Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead. Templeton Press.
12 – Campbell, J. (2008). The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2 edition). New World Library.