From Incubus to Vibrator

From Incubus to Vibrator:
The Threat of a Woman's Pleasure

You stretch your arms high above your head, yawn, and flop backwards. The bed sinks gently below your weight.

It's been a long, long day.

Sighing, you run your fingers through your hair and stretch again. Now would be the perfect moment for a lover to appear. A lover who shows up in the night and is gone by morning. A lover with perfect looks and a magical penis. A lover who doesn't speak unless it is to seduce you further. A kiss-and-never-tell lover.

You need an incubus.

In early times, people actively believed in male demon lovers called incubi. These otherworldly lovers would take on the form of handsome young men and seduce women during the night.

The Christian Church labeled the incubi as consorts of witches. However, nuns were also troubled by these night lovers and would wake in the morning to find a wetness between their legs. Being the brides of Christ, some of the nuns claimed that they had spent the night with Christ. The men of the Church claimed that it was actually incubi that seduced these nuns and the priests would perform an exorcism to rid the nuns of their nightly pleasure.

The incubus originated in ancient pagan Greece. Followers of the Greek temples would undergo a ritual of incubation to seek help from the gods on personal and family matters. The priests of the temples would give the women spiritual guidance and prophetic insights into the future. Often this ritual of incubation would end in consensual sex between the priest and follower. The Christian Church demonized these ancient priests and their practices into what we know of the incubi today: sex-driven tricksters in league with the devil.

Barbara G. Walker, in The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, quotes Christian Renaissance philosopher Pico della Mirandolo as saying that incubi were known by "the extraordinary largeness of their members." The penis of the incubus was also said to be able to vibrate during sexual intercourse.

How could an ordinary man compete with a large, vibrating penis?

The fathers of the Christian Church were terrified of the incubus and the idea of women receiving sexual pleasure. During the Middle Ages, women were burned as witches for having confessed under torture to sex with an incubus. Men felt they had to protect women from night demons, and Christian priests performed exorcisms to remove these superior lovers from the lives of average, poor, and otherwise deprived women.

Today, the incubus has nearly disappeared from women's lives, and religious extremists of the world have moved on to identify a new demon of the night: the vibrator.

Christian extremists believe that all pleasure must be given to their god. Masturbation is a form of self-pleasure and takes away from God what they believe is rightly His.

The dangers of vibrator use, according to extremists, are amusing. For instance, did you know that you can become addicted to vibrator use? And that by using a vibrator, or simply masturbating, you are having premarital sex or, if you are already married, committing adultery?

Furthermore, it is believed by some that if a woman thrusts her pelvis during masturbation, she is gender-confused and masturbating in front of a mirror will turn a woman into a lesbian.

Vibrators can be bought in all shapes, sizes, colors, and speeds. There are women who have had their first orgasm while using a vibrator, and couples use them to enhance their sexual activities. Vibrator use is a form of safe, healthy sex that should be encouraged, not shunned.

So why do a small handful men feel so threatened by a vibrator that they use obscenity laws to hinder vibrator sales and use?

Because a vibrator can be made larger than the average man, it gives a woman the freedom to sexually express herself in the privacy of her own bedroom, and it's available precisely when a woman needs it.