The Succubus is the female sex-demon of medieval European demonology: a fiend in the form of a beautiful, alluring woman that comes to men in the night, seducing them in their dreams and drawing out their seed and their vitality, leaving them weakened and ensnared — the female counterpart of the [incubus], and a being bound up with erotic dreams, nocturnal emission, and the dread of demonic temptation. It is the seductive night-demon, the female drainer of sleepers.
The Demon in the Form of a Woman
The Succubus (from Latin succuba, “one who lies beneath”) is the female sexual demon of Christian and medieval European demonology — a fiend that takes the shape of a beautiful, desirable woman and visits sleeping men by night to seduce them and have congress with them in their dreams. Where the [incubus] presses and forces, the succubus tempts and allures: she is the demon of the erotic dream, the irresistible nocturnal seductress, given form to explain the experience of sexual dreams, nocturnal emission, and the torment of lust in the night.
The Seduction and the Draining
The succubus drains her victims. Through her nightly seductions she draws out a man’s vital essence — his semen, his strength, his health — leaving him weakened, exhausted, sickly, and increasingly enthralled, unable to free himself from her visits, wasting away as she feeds on his vitality (in this resembling the vampire and the life-draining night-demons). The medieval demonologists taught that the same shapeshifting demon could act as a succubus to take a man’s seed, and then transform into an [incubus] to deliver that seed to a woman and beget demon-fathered offspring — for demons, being spirits, could not generate of themselves and so worked this dark relay.
The Temptation and the Witch-Hunt
The succubus was a creature of grave concern to the medieval and early-modern Church — a demon of temptation that preyed especially on the chaste (monks and hermits were classic targets, assailed by succubi sent to break their vows), and a being treated at length in the witch-hunting literature. She embodied the demonisation of female sexuality and the dread of lust as a doorway to damnation. Beautiful and deadly, she lured the soul through the flesh. From this demonology the succubus has become, like the incubus, a stock figure of horror and fantasy — the seductive, soul-draining she-demon. In the Succubus, medieval Europe gave form to the seductive night-demon — the beautiful female fiend that comes to men in their dreams to seduce and drain them, counterpart of the incubus and the demonic face of lust and the erotic dream.