October 24, 2018 • 24 mins
Ke$ha claimed to have sex with a ghost, and the pop star is not alone in the claim. So why do people believe that incubi, succubi and ghosts lurk in the bedroom. Is sleep paralysis to blame for people’s reports of ghost sex?
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to stuff. Mom
never told you. It's the season of ghost, witches and costumes. AK.
Halloween AK my personal favorite holiday. So we have some
(00:28):
classics on ghosts and whiches in costumes coming up for you.
This first one has quite the intriguing title, Can You
Have Sex with a Ghost? And No, it's not just
analysis of that scene from Ghost with Patrick Sazy and
Me Moore, which is a movie I've never watched, but
I know all about that scene. No, it's about succubi,
(00:48):
incubi and ghost. I got to play a succubist once
in a forty hour Film Festival short film and it
was the best. It was so fun. This episode also
looks sleep paralysis and how that might play into all
of this. As someone who has experienced sleep paralysis before,
it is terrifying. In fact, the first time I experienced
(01:11):
sleep paralysis, I thought leather Face from Texas Chainsaw Mask.
Her was above my bed, chains all overhead. And the
second time it was the woman. How I pictured the
witch from the Blair Witch Project. You never seen in
the movie, but how I pictured her hovering over my
bed and feeling this overwhelming, terrifying sensation that she wanted
(01:31):
to eat my heart. Perhaps I watched too many horror movies.
If after you listen to this episode you're looking for
a creepy documentary on sleep prows As. Speaking of scary movies,
there's one of Netflix that regularly comes up if you
type in scariest movies on Netflix, which I do at
least once a month anyway, and the spirit of the season,
we present to you this classic episode, can You Have
(01:53):
Sex with a Ghost? Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told
you from All Stop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast, and Happy Halloween. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline.
(02:13):
So it's ghost Day. It is um and so we
decided we would talk about ghosts. We tweeted a few
weeks ago that we needed to come up with a
Halloween topic, and I forget the verbatim tweet response, but
it was something along the lines of gender differences with ghosts.
(02:37):
So I started looking some stuff up and quickly came across,
uh a pop music story that probably a lot of
folks will have heard about, and it's about a certain
certain lady named Keshra You mean dollar Sign? Yes? Yes, yeah,
(03:01):
she she in an interview. Well, she called into Ryan
seacrest show, which I'm very credible, and she said that
she'd had sex with a ghost and that experience inspired
her song Supernatural. Yeah, and she explained it to Ryan Seacrest. Thus, Lee,
it's about experiences with a supernatural but in a sexy way.
(03:22):
I had a couple of experiences with a supernatural. I
don't know his name. He was a ghost. I'm very
open to it. That's a direct quote. I hope she
said it like that. Yeah, and it kind of you know,
you gotta give it to Kesha a k A dollars
side for coming out and and saying, hey, guess what
(03:45):
I wrote a song. It's about the time I had
sex with a ghost. Yeah, because that obviously happened, because
well it obviously happened because it happened to Anaticle Smith too,
who was another very credible source back in the day.
She she claimed that a ghost climbed up her leg
and had sex with her, and she was like, oh
my god, it was so scary. And then I was like, well,
you're not hurting me and it's kind of nice, so
(04:06):
let's just keep doing this. So, uh, you know, if
it seems kind of laughable. Oh, Kesha had sex with
a ghost? Ha. But one of the first um search
results I found was from our company affiliates over at
Discovery News that did a little bit of digging into
(04:26):
ghosts sex. And you know what, ghost sex this is
not just something that that you know, pop pop stars
claim here and there. This ghost sex has been going
on for quite a while. So we decided that since
it's Halloween and what better topic could there be for
(04:50):
stuff Mom never told you to talk about? Then well,
can you have sex with a ghost? Should you use
ghosts condos? Uh? You probably shouldn't have sex with the
ghost if you can help it. But the thing is
you can't help it. Nope, these spirits will have their
way with you. Yeah, a lot of times, like the
ghost sex is not consensual, but I don't want to
(05:14):
get I don't want to get ahead of myself because
then on the other on the other side of it,
you have people who are into ghost sex. Like I
would say Kesha would fall into this category because she
said that she she was really enjoying her ghost sex
and even wrote a song about it. Um and this
is referred to as spectrophilia. Yeah, well, basically yeah, it's
(05:37):
it's across cultures, the idea of this ghost that can
come attack you in the night sexually. Um. There are
Arabian jin's, the Greeks had the Stader's Hindu boots and Celtic.
I hope I pronounce it right, doucy. And then this
was my this is my favorite form of these spirits,
the sexy spirits that we found. Medieval Chinese and Japanese
(06:03):
female spirits would take the form of foxes, and they
were thought to visit, seduce, and later kill lonely bachelor's,
particularly scholars. So beware the fox in the night, I suppose,
as you're writing with your quill. Pigs. Um, But they're okay.
(06:24):
So so they we we have all these different forms
of them, and very quickly this becomes a major concern
for the church, the Capital ce Church, the Christian Church. Yeah. Well,
originally it wasn't such a big deal if you had
a nighttime sexy time dream, because in the medieval period
(06:46):
a lot of theorists were arguing that nocturnal sexual encounters
were just dreams, no big deal. But that'll changed in
fourteen eighties six when the text Mallius Maleficarum a k a.
The Hammer of Witches was public. Yeah, we go from
saying like, hey, okay, you have a sex dream. Well
that's fine, it's just like a simple indulgence. You can't
(07:08):
help it. It just happened. And then this idea of
the of the ghosts coming back to have sex. It
was kind of comforting that even after death there was
a chance to have physical pleasure once again. But then
in four eighties six, all that is thrown out the window.
And it's it's kind of funny because at first, in
(07:31):
in the medieval period period, the theorists had it right
saying like, oh, these are just dreams, and the church
is like, no, no, no, these are legitimate demons and ghosts.
And the Malius Maleficarum has a section that explains that
sex with the unknown is inherently evil and a sign
(07:52):
that you are fraternizing with Satan. Yeah, and these city
spirits have a name, and you've probably heard them. I've
heard them. One is a terrible band uh Incubus and succubus. Yeah,
this is a quote from Malius Maleficarum. Here follows the
way whereby which is copulate with those devils known as incubi.
(08:13):
That's a good creepy voice for Halloween, I know, practicing
ultric a triatas. But yes, So the incubus was the
male ghost and the succubus was the female ghost. So
named because the incubus was on top and the succubus
would be underneath, and sometimes the incubus in the succubus
would be sort of be the same, the same entity,
(08:37):
but just going through different phases. For instance, John Klein,
who's a clinical psychologist and a professor at Yale, talks
about in certain medieval lore, the incubus would come along
impregnate a woman in a very Rosemary's Baby esque kind
of way, who would then give birth to a succubus
(08:59):
that would then attack a male victim, and once in
possession of that male victim sperm, the succubus would take
on a male form. That's becoming an incubus again. And
the circle of life you come, full demonic circle. Yeah, full,
full circle indeed. So Okay, what's going on? Are we really?
(09:31):
Are we really getting attacked by ghosts at night? Well? Yeah,
because this is not just something that that stays in
medieval times, and it's not just something that that popped
up with uh with Kesha. These nighttime ghostly um experiences
I'm putting experiences in big giant quotes right now are
still common. Yeah. Well it has a lot to do
(09:55):
with what your brain is doing when you're asleep, because
have you ever had a sleepy time experience that you
feel is just so vivid? You wake up and you're like,
oh my god, Brad Pitt and I are getting married,
or you know, you just feel like something's holding you down,
or you feel like you're falling, or you're twitching weird,
or you're having sex with a ghost or you're having
sex with a ghost. Well, this is all sleep paralysis stuff.
(10:20):
And I've had sleep paralysis before. I haven't it's usually
UM corresponding with narcilepsy and there's some other stuff going on.
I have never had an ecailepsy, but I have had
sleep paralysis, which is basically you um are awake more
than you should be during rem sleep when your muscles
are turned off, so you're kind of conscious, but you
cannot move. And so I've gotten this feeling before, like
(10:43):
there's someone in the room and they want me to
come do something, and my my brain process is like
hang on, hang on, I can't get up, and you
do start to feel kind of afraid, like Okay, well
someone's in the room and I need to get up
and move, but I can't. And so it's this whole
idea of sleep paralysis and hallucinations while you're in that
(11:03):
kind of twilight in between stage that have led to
a lot of superstitions and believing in spirits attacking you
in your sleep. Yeah, there's a name for this, uh,
the old Hag syndrome. Uh, this idea that it's an
old hag that comes and sits on your chest, which
is why you can't move. And folklorist David J. Hufford
(11:26):
did a bunch of research on this and he he
thought when he was doing this research that it would,
you know, he would find like a few people, but
it ballooned into this giant project because he found that
about fifteen percent of people this is written about in
his book The Terror That Comes in the nightcent of
(11:46):
people experience being assaulted in their sleep by an unknown
entity at some point in their lives, probably as a
result of sleep paralysis. And now Kristen mentioned the old
hag phenomenon. This is not necessary. Only the same time,
that's the same idea as having sex with with a
ghost or some entity in your sleep. The old hag phenomenon,
(12:08):
as it's known through North America and England, is more
like the feeling that something terrifying is pressing down on
you while you're sleeping. So it does kind of tie
into the idea of the incubus in that way, because
it's supposedly on top of you, trying to suffocate you
when you're sleep. Yeah, and since it is also Halloween, um,
I feel like it is necessary to point out too
(12:30):
that should you be ghost hunting tonight, uh, you should
abstain from having sex. Just go to sleep you might
encounter an old hag. Okay, but you really uh one
of the rules. I did not know this before doing
this research, but ghost hunters are encouraged to abstain from
(12:51):
sex after they go ghost hunting because they're at high
risk of having their genitals possessed. I'm not making this
up now, I edit to just um of having their
genitals possessed by the ghosts that they hunt. And this
is coming from an article written by Karen stoles now
over at the Commitical. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and Um.
(13:14):
She goes on to quote Marianna Chatelaine Moresby. He's talking
about this potential danger associated with ghost hunting. Quote, many
male ghost hunters are prone to such anal ghost intrusions
and possessions. So you wanna you wanna wait, you know yah,
(13:36):
don't immediately go infecting your partner with ghost well and
also speaking of this is going to be the weirdest
transition I've probably ever made on this podcast. But speaking
of anal probes. Also from this article the Skeptics Dictionary,
the author Robert Carroll talks about how he thinks that
(13:57):
alien abduction, these ideas, the more modern day ideas that
we have of of alien abductions, are modern day versions
of ghost sex because so often the purported victims will
claim sexual abuse and anal probing. So maybe alien abductions
(14:18):
are the twenty first century ghost sex. Yeah. Intriguing. Um.
The Skeptical Inquirer in March had an article about the
spectrophilia of which we speak and they made an interesting
point and I think this this ties along with the
(14:39):
Church's finger wagging of ghost sex. Uh. They write that
attributing sexual dreams or sexual thoughts to a supernatural force
is a guiltless absolution for those with moral objections. And
so maybe back in the day those priests were having
sexy time dreams and we're like, oh, I didn't know,
I didn't do anything. It was a demon, right. But however,
(15:00):
if you're a woman back in the day who thinks
that you had spirit sex, you might be a witch
and you might be burned for it. Now I should
point out to possibly new listeners out there, Uh, we
are not speaking this as offering this as scientific fact
that ghosts come around and have sex with people. There
(15:24):
are a lot of these articles even in um you know,
on on skeptic sites will say, hey, you know what,
there there has been no there's no proof that anyone
who's that that an incubus or a succubus actually exist.
And it is like we talked about attributed now to
sleep paralysis, because it turns out those medieval theorists. If
(15:45):
we had just listened to the medieval theorists who said,
yes on the one thing, that it's all in our
brains making dreams, um, then then that that's all it is.
We we would could have saved ourselves. Um. But then
wouldn't have all of this this folklore to talk about
for Halloween. Um and speaking of Halloween to James McLennan
(16:08):
and Emily Edwards Uh published an article in the journal
Southern Folklore in looking at whether or not um horror
movies and instances of ghost sex or assault in Halloween
horror movies might influence the number of reports anecdotal reports
of ghost sex, and they did not find a strong
(16:32):
connection between the two. Yeah. I mean there could be
some degree of suggestion, because people all the world over
experience this, you know, it's not just like a certain
group of people feel this intense sensation when they're sleeping.
But so maybe hearing this folklore, you might be like, yeah,
well maybe maybe something kind of paranormal happened, right, because
(16:53):
there was, um, what was it about sleep paralysis that
in Mexico there was one study finding the like of
the kids in the you know, this population that they
had surveyed knew this colloquial term for what we would
call old Hag syndrome. Yeah, and I think it was
something like a dead person holding you down. Yeah, Yeah,
(17:16):
it was something like that. Um. So, and it's and
that's kind of interesting to see, Like how how it
is such a cross cultural um thing. Well, yeah, when
something freaky happens to you and you feel like you're
sure of something, like okay, well I'm sure that was
a stronger feeling than I have in my normal dreams.
Like it's not just a normal dream where you're doing
whatever you're doing. It's like you you actually are feeling
(17:39):
something and maybe hallucinating at the same time because you're
in that twilight rim stage where you shouldn't be awake
because everything is supposed to be switched off. Maybe you
have evidence of arousal and you wake up and you're like, Okay,
something's been going on when I've been asleep because I
really felt something. Yeah. But I mean, if anything, though,
(17:59):
we can take come ft on the spookiest of days
that it is. It's just our brain playing tricks on us.
I don't know. Maybe Kesha does have some portal to
the afterlife, or maybe it's a fox in the night.
I love that their fox is attacking. Well I'm not
the attacking part, but foxes seeking out, uh scholarly Batchel laws,
(18:22):
so watch yourself. Yeah, oh man, I got a soft
spot for some folk lore gotta love it. Um. So uh,
now do we ask for ghost sex stories? Yes, have
you ever had sex with a ghost? You get sleep paralysis? Yeah,
the old hag syndrome. I'm sure there's got to be
people out there who have experienced that feeling of someone, um,
(18:42):
someone sitting on your chest or someone being in the room.
I also know people who have who have felt like
they have sensed ghosts around. There was oh man, uh
sort of on a on a side note, um, speaking
of ghost sex. We hear a lot about ghosts coming
to have sex with living humans, But last year there
(19:03):
was in a small town in Ohio, there was a
report of a woman who was upset because she kept
seeing two ghosts in her house having sex with each other.
And a para psychologist who was interviewed was like, what
we never hear. You know, ghosts never want to have
sex with other ghosts. Yeah, that was funny. There was
a lot a lot written about that in that article,
(19:25):
just about like, well maybe they knew each other, and
you know, ghosts are just imprints of energy, and so
maybe something really intense happened on your couch time ago,
and so the ghosts have found their way back. Oh,
ghosts you'll romantic or pervy, your choice. I don't know
(19:47):
about you, Caroline. I'm gonna go head out and find
as much fun sized candy as possible to eat should
be on sale. Yeah, and I'll probably have to take
a nap by three o'clock. Um. But now, oh yeah,
ghost stories, please send them our way. Yeah, we want
to know if you've encountered any ghosts, whether they're having
sex or not. Yeah. Mom, stuff at Discovery dot com
(20:10):
for all of your spookey letters and on to our letters.
(20:32):
So we've got a couple of emails here about our
episode on fem phobia. And this is coming from Katie.
My daughter already has some gender issues at four years old.
I have a little girl who likes plenty of quote
unquote boy things like catching snakes and bugs, digging in
the dirt, and climbing trees. But she also likes plenty
of quote unquote girl things, like playing dressed up and
(20:53):
playing with baby dolls. My approach has always been to
just let her be herself and not talk to her
too much about boy slash girls stuff. I have vowed
also to never call her a tomboy, because I think
that is a limiting label. I agree, she right now
is in a total pink obsession that was largely sparked
because some of the boys that are pre school told
her that because she has a bob and wore a purple,
(21:15):
sparkly shirt and also has a Batman logo on it,
all that's really cute, that she must be a boy
and that the only way to be a girl is
to wear pink. This of course disturbs me too, and
I've had plenty of discussions with her about how girls
can wear whatever color they want and about how my
favorite color is blue, but she insists on wearing mostly pink.
I tell her that as long as she truly likes pink,
(21:37):
it's just fine for her to wear it while also
trying to model a more open gender identity. I think
that's the thing that bothers me most about fem phobia.
It puts femininity in a box. I don't see a
whole lot of difference between a little preschool boy telling
my daughter she's not a girl enough because she wore
a Batman shirt and some blogger telling women they are
not woman enough because they're wearing pink and sparkles. We
(21:59):
are all women we are mostly born that way. I
don't need to show that I'm a woman by conforming
to your narrow definition of good enough woman. When we
get into a big argument about what being a woman means,
we make it harder for women to be free to
just be themselves whatever that is. No matter what narrow
definition you give to womanhood, some women are not going
to fit into it, So stop trying to define it
(22:20):
and just accept people for who they are. I agree,
as long as your costume is nice and warm. Yes. Um.
This one is from Jocelyn. Also on our Fimphobia episode,
she says that she encounters fimphobia almost every time she
gets to know someone new, especially a guy. So she says,
I'm twenty years old studying finance, a traditionally male dominated
(22:41):
field at Arizona State. I'm sweet and outgoing. I have
blonde hair and blue eyes. I love to shop, I
love to bake, and I wear high heels and a
skirt or dress almost every single day. On the surface,
I look extremely feminine. Because of this, men in the
finance industry and in my classes have treated me differently
when people find out that I'm intelligent. Graduating college a
year and a half early, got a full ride scholarship,
(23:03):
have been working full time for almost four years to
completely support myself. Have a fantasy football team, or anything
about me that is not ultra feminine like my outward
appearance suggested would be. People are shocked. The fact that
people are surprised by these things in comparison to my
outward appearance goes to show that femininity is related to weakness, vulnerability,
and has nothing to do with strength, power, initiative, independence,
(23:24):
and intelligence. Yes, it's true that women have almost equal
rights now and that women for the most part are
treated equally technically speaking, but when it comes when it
really comes down to it, you can see that feminine
women are still perceived as inferior by both men and
nonfeminine women. I don't understand this concept. I believe being
a feminist and being a woman embracing her woman nous
(23:44):
can come in so many different forms. I just so
happened to embrace my feminine appearance. I believe that regardless
of your appearance, that is, how you carry yourself and
what you do that are ultimately the factors that decide
whether or not you are a woman or a girl. Woman.
So thank you, Jocelyn, and good luck graduating early. You
go girl scholarship. That's impressive, and thanks everybody who's written
(24:06):
into mom Stuff at Discovery dot com. You can find
us on Facebook, where I totally encourage you to go
post your Halloween costume pictures, and you can tweet us
as well at mom Stuff Podcast, and you can follow
us on tumbler stuff mom Never Told You dot tumbler
dot com. And as if that is not enough, you
can go learn all about Halloween traditions over at our website,
(24:30):
It's how stuff works dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works
dot com
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to stuff. Mom
never told you. It's the season of ghost, witches and costumes. AK.
Halloween AK my personal favorite holiday. So we have some
(00:28):
classics on ghosts and whiches in costumes coming up for you.
This first one has quite the intriguing title, Can You
Have Sex with a Ghost? And No, it's not just
analysis of that scene from Ghost with Patrick Sazy and
Me Moore, which is a movie I've never watched, but
I know all about that scene. No, it's about succubi,
(00:48):
incubi and ghost. I got to play a succubist once
in a forty hour Film Festival short film and it
was the best. It was so fun. This episode also
looks sleep paralysis and how that might play into all
of this. As someone who has experienced sleep paralysis before,
it is terrifying. In fact, the first time I experienced
(01:11):
sleep paralysis, I thought leather Face from Texas Chainsaw Mask.
Her was above my bed, chains all overhead. And the
second time it was the woman. How I pictured the
witch from the Blair Witch Project. You never seen in
the movie, but how I pictured her hovering over my
bed and feeling this overwhelming, terrifying sensation that she wanted
(01:31):
to eat my heart. Perhaps I watched too many horror movies.
If after you listen to this episode you're looking for
a creepy documentary on sleep prows As. Speaking of scary movies,
there's one of Netflix that regularly comes up if you
type in scariest movies on Netflix, which I do at
least once a month anyway, and the spirit of the season,
we present to you this classic episode, can You Have
(01:53):
Sex with a Ghost? Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told
you from All Stop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast, and Happy Halloween. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline.
(02:13):
So it's ghost Day. It is um and so we
decided we would talk about ghosts. We tweeted a few
weeks ago that we needed to come up with a
Halloween topic, and I forget the verbatim tweet response, but
it was something along the lines of gender differences with ghosts.
(02:37):
So I started looking some stuff up and quickly came across,
uh a pop music story that probably a lot of
folks will have heard about, and it's about a certain
certain lady named Keshra You mean dollar Sign? Yes? Yes, yeah,
(03:01):
she she in an interview. Well, she called into Ryan
seacrest show, which I'm very credible, and she said that
she'd had sex with a ghost and that experience inspired
her song Supernatural. Yeah, and she explained it to Ryan Seacrest. Thus, Lee,
it's about experiences with a supernatural but in a sexy way.
(03:22):
I had a couple of experiences with a supernatural. I
don't know his name. He was a ghost. I'm very
open to it. That's a direct quote. I hope she
said it like that. Yeah, and it kind of you know,
you gotta give it to Kesha a k A dollars
side for coming out and and saying, hey, guess what
(03:45):
I wrote a song. It's about the time I had
sex with a ghost. Yeah, because that obviously happened, because
well it obviously happened because it happened to Anaticle Smith too,
who was another very credible source back in the day.
She she claimed that a ghost climbed up her leg
and had sex with her, and she was like, oh
my god, it was so scary. And then I was like, well,
you're not hurting me and it's kind of nice, so
(04:06):
let's just keep doing this. So, uh, you know, if
it seems kind of laughable. Oh, Kesha had sex with
a ghost? Ha. But one of the first um search
results I found was from our company affiliates over at
Discovery News that did a little bit of digging into
(04:26):
ghosts sex. And you know what, ghost sex this is
not just something that that you know, pop pop stars
claim here and there. This ghost sex has been going
on for quite a while. So we decided that since
it's Halloween and what better topic could there be for
(04:50):
stuff Mom never told you to talk about? Then well,
can you have sex with a ghost? Should you use
ghosts condos? Uh? You probably shouldn't have sex with the
ghost if you can help it. But the thing is
you can't help it. Nope, these spirits will have their
way with you. Yeah, a lot of times, like the
ghost sex is not consensual, but I don't want to
(05:14):
get I don't want to get ahead of myself because
then on the other on the other side of it,
you have people who are into ghost sex. Like I
would say Kesha would fall into this category because she
said that she she was really enjoying her ghost sex
and even wrote a song about it. Um and this
is referred to as spectrophilia. Yeah, well, basically yeah, it's
(05:37):
it's across cultures, the idea of this ghost that can
come attack you in the night sexually. Um. There are
Arabian jin's, the Greeks had the Stader's Hindu boots and Celtic.
I hope I pronounce it right, doucy. And then this
was my this is my favorite form of these spirits,
the sexy spirits that we found. Medieval Chinese and Japanese
(06:03):
female spirits would take the form of foxes, and they
were thought to visit, seduce, and later kill lonely bachelor's,
particularly scholars. So beware the fox in the night, I suppose,
as you're writing with your quill. Pigs. Um, But they're okay.
(06:24):
So so they we we have all these different forms
of them, and very quickly this becomes a major concern
for the church, the Capital ce Church, the Christian Church. Yeah. Well,
originally it wasn't such a big deal if you had
a nighttime sexy time dream, because in the medieval period
(06:46):
a lot of theorists were arguing that nocturnal sexual encounters
were just dreams, no big deal. But that'll changed in
fourteen eighties six when the text Mallius Maleficarum a k a.
The Hammer of Witches was public. Yeah, we go from
saying like, hey, okay, you have a sex dream. Well
that's fine, it's just like a simple indulgence. You can't
(07:08):
help it. It just happened. And then this idea of
the of the ghosts coming back to have sex. It
was kind of comforting that even after death there was
a chance to have physical pleasure once again. But then
in four eighties six, all that is thrown out the window.
And it's it's kind of funny because at first, in
(07:31):
in the medieval period period, the theorists had it right
saying like, oh, these are just dreams, and the church
is like, no, no, no, these are legitimate demons and ghosts.
And the Malius Maleficarum has a section that explains that
sex with the unknown is inherently evil and a sign
(07:52):
that you are fraternizing with Satan. Yeah, and these city
spirits have a name, and you've probably heard them. I've
heard them. One is a terrible band uh Incubus and succubus. Yeah,
this is a quote from Malius Maleficarum. Here follows the
way whereby which is copulate with those devils known as incubi.
(08:13):
That's a good creepy voice for Halloween, I know, practicing
ultric a triatas. But yes, So the incubus was the
male ghost and the succubus was the female ghost. So
named because the incubus was on top and the succubus
would be underneath, and sometimes the incubus in the succubus
would be sort of be the same, the same entity,
(08:37):
but just going through different phases. For instance, John Klein,
who's a clinical psychologist and a professor at Yale, talks
about in certain medieval lore, the incubus would come along
impregnate a woman in a very Rosemary's Baby esque kind
of way, who would then give birth to a succubus
(08:59):
that would then attack a male victim, and once in
possession of that male victim sperm, the succubus would take
on a male form. That's becoming an incubus again. And
the circle of life you come, full demonic circle. Yeah, full,
full circle indeed. So Okay, what's going on? Are we really?
(09:31):
Are we really getting attacked by ghosts at night? Well? Yeah,
because this is not just something that that stays in
medieval times, and it's not just something that that popped
up with uh with Kesha. These nighttime ghostly um experiences
I'm putting experiences in big giant quotes right now are
still common. Yeah. Well it has a lot to do
(09:55):
with what your brain is doing when you're asleep, because
have you ever had a sleepy time experience that you
feel is just so vivid? You wake up and you're like,
oh my god, Brad Pitt and I are getting married,
or you know, you just feel like something's holding you down,
or you feel like you're falling, or you're twitching weird,
or you're having sex with a ghost or you're having
sex with a ghost. Well, this is all sleep paralysis stuff.
(10:20):
And I've had sleep paralysis before. I haven't it's usually
UM corresponding with narcilepsy and there's some other stuff going on.
I have never had an ecailepsy, but I have had
sleep paralysis, which is basically you um are awake more
than you should be during rem sleep when your muscles
are turned off, so you're kind of conscious, but you
cannot move. And so I've gotten this feeling before, like
(10:43):
there's someone in the room and they want me to
come do something, and my my brain process is like
hang on, hang on, I can't get up, and you
do start to feel kind of afraid, like Okay, well
someone's in the room and I need to get up
and move, but I can't. And so it's this whole
idea of sleep paralysis and hallucinations while you're in that
(11:03):
kind of twilight in between stage that have led to
a lot of superstitions and believing in spirits attacking you
in your sleep. Yeah, there's a name for this, uh,
the old Hag syndrome. Uh, this idea that it's an
old hag that comes and sits on your chest, which
is why you can't move. And folklorist David J. Hufford
(11:26):
did a bunch of research on this and he he
thought when he was doing this research that it would,
you know, he would find like a few people, but
it ballooned into this giant project because he found that
about fifteen percent of people this is written about in
his book The Terror That Comes in the nightcent of
(11:46):
people experience being assaulted in their sleep by an unknown
entity at some point in their lives, probably as a
result of sleep paralysis. And now Kristen mentioned the old
hag phenomenon. This is not necessary. Only the same time,
that's the same idea as having sex with with a
ghost or some entity in your sleep. The old hag phenomenon,
(12:08):
as it's known through North America and England, is more
like the feeling that something terrifying is pressing down on
you while you're sleeping. So it does kind of tie
into the idea of the incubus in that way, because
it's supposedly on top of you, trying to suffocate you
when you're sleep. Yeah, and since it is also Halloween, um,
I feel like it is necessary to point out too
(12:30):
that should you be ghost hunting tonight, uh, you should
abstain from having sex. Just go to sleep you might
encounter an old hag. Okay, but you really uh one
of the rules. I did not know this before doing
this research, but ghost hunters are encouraged to abstain from
(12:51):
sex after they go ghost hunting because they're at high
risk of having their genitals possessed. I'm not making this
up now, I edit to just um of having their
genitals possessed by the ghosts that they hunt. And this
is coming from an article written by Karen stoles now
over at the Commitical. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and Um.
(13:14):
She goes on to quote Marianna Chatelaine Moresby. He's talking
about this potential danger associated with ghost hunting. Quote, many
male ghost hunters are prone to such anal ghost intrusions
and possessions. So you wanna you wanna wait, you know yah,
(13:36):
don't immediately go infecting your partner with ghost well and
also speaking of this is going to be the weirdest
transition I've probably ever made on this podcast. But speaking
of anal probes. Also from this article the Skeptics Dictionary,
the author Robert Carroll talks about how he thinks that
(13:57):
alien abduction, these ideas, the more modern day ideas that
we have of of alien abductions, are modern day versions
of ghost sex because so often the purported victims will
claim sexual abuse and anal probing. So maybe alien abductions
(14:18):
are the twenty first century ghost sex. Yeah. Intriguing. Um.
The Skeptical Inquirer in March had an article about the
spectrophilia of which we speak and they made an interesting
point and I think this this ties along with the
(14:39):
Church's finger wagging of ghost sex. Uh. They write that
attributing sexual dreams or sexual thoughts to a supernatural force
is a guiltless absolution for those with moral objections. And
so maybe back in the day those priests were having
sexy time dreams and we're like, oh, I didn't know,
I didn't do anything. It was a demon, right. But however,
(15:00):
if you're a woman back in the day who thinks
that you had spirit sex, you might be a witch
and you might be burned for it. Now I should
point out to possibly new listeners out there, Uh, we
are not speaking this as offering this as scientific fact
that ghosts come around and have sex with people. There
(15:24):
are a lot of these articles even in um you know,
on on skeptic sites will say, hey, you know what,
there there has been no there's no proof that anyone
who's that that an incubus or a succubus actually exist.
And it is like we talked about attributed now to
sleep paralysis, because it turns out those medieval theorists. If
(15:45):
we had just listened to the medieval theorists who said,
yes on the one thing, that it's all in our
brains making dreams, um, then then that that's all it is.
We we would could have saved ourselves. Um. But then
wouldn't have all of this this folklore to talk about
for Halloween. Um and speaking of Halloween to James McLennan
(16:08):
and Emily Edwards Uh published an article in the journal
Southern Folklore in looking at whether or not um horror
movies and instances of ghost sex or assault in Halloween
horror movies might influence the number of reports anecdotal reports
of ghost sex, and they did not find a strong
(16:32):
connection between the two. Yeah. I mean there could be
some degree of suggestion, because people all the world over
experience this, you know, it's not just like a certain
group of people feel this intense sensation when they're sleeping.
But so maybe hearing this folklore, you might be like, yeah,
well maybe maybe something kind of paranormal happened, right, because
(16:53):
there was, um, what was it about sleep paralysis that
in Mexico there was one study finding the like of
the kids in the you know, this population that they
had surveyed knew this colloquial term for what we would
call old Hag syndrome. Yeah, and I think it was
something like a dead person holding you down. Yeah, Yeah,
(17:16):
it was something like that. Um. So, and it's and
that's kind of interesting to see, Like how how it
is such a cross cultural um thing. Well, yeah, when
something freaky happens to you and you feel like you're
sure of something, like okay, well I'm sure that was
a stronger feeling than I have in my normal dreams.
Like it's not just a normal dream where you're doing
whatever you're doing. It's like you you actually are feeling
(17:39):
something and maybe hallucinating at the same time because you're
in that twilight rim stage where you shouldn't be awake
because everything is supposed to be switched off. Maybe you
have evidence of arousal and you wake up and you're like, Okay,
something's been going on when I've been asleep because I
really felt something. Yeah. But I mean, if anything, though,
(17:59):
we can take come ft on the spookiest of days
that it is. It's just our brain playing tricks on us.
I don't know. Maybe Kesha does have some portal to
the afterlife, or maybe it's a fox in the night.
I love that their fox is attacking. Well I'm not
the attacking part, but foxes seeking out, uh scholarly Batchel laws,
(18:22):
so watch yourself. Yeah, oh man, I got a soft
spot for some folk lore gotta love it. Um. So uh,
now do we ask for ghost sex stories? Yes, have
you ever had sex with a ghost? You get sleep paralysis? Yeah,
the old hag syndrome. I'm sure there's got to be
people out there who have experienced that feeling of someone, um,
(18:42):
someone sitting on your chest or someone being in the room.
I also know people who have who have felt like
they have sensed ghosts around. There was oh man, uh
sort of on a on a side note, um, speaking
of ghost sex. We hear a lot about ghosts coming
to have sex with living humans, But last year there
(19:03):
was in a small town in Ohio, there was a
report of a woman who was upset because she kept
seeing two ghosts in her house having sex with each other.
And a para psychologist who was interviewed was like, what
we never hear. You know, ghosts never want to have
sex with other ghosts. Yeah, that was funny. There was
a lot a lot written about that in that article,
(19:25):
just about like, well maybe they knew each other, and
you know, ghosts are just imprints of energy, and so
maybe something really intense happened on your couch time ago,
and so the ghosts have found their way back. Oh,
ghosts you'll romantic or pervy, your choice. I don't know
(19:47):
about you, Caroline. I'm gonna go head out and find
as much fun sized candy as possible to eat should
be on sale. Yeah, and I'll probably have to take
a nap by three o'clock. Um. But now, oh yeah,
ghost stories, please send them our way. Yeah, we want
to know if you've encountered any ghosts, whether they're having
sex or not. Yeah. Mom, stuff at Discovery dot com
(20:10):
for all of your spookey letters and on to our letters.
(20:32):
So we've got a couple of emails here about our
episode on fem phobia. And this is coming from Katie.
My daughter already has some gender issues at four years old.
I have a little girl who likes plenty of quote
unquote boy things like catching snakes and bugs, digging in
the dirt, and climbing trees. But she also likes plenty
of quote unquote girl things, like playing dressed up and
(20:53):
playing with baby dolls. My approach has always been to
just let her be herself and not talk to her
too much about boy slash girls stuff. I have vowed
also to never call her a tomboy, because I think
that is a limiting label. I agree, she right now
is in a total pink obsession that was largely sparked
because some of the boys that are pre school told
her that because she has a bob and wore a purple,
(21:15):
sparkly shirt and also has a Batman logo on it,
all that's really cute, that she must be a boy
and that the only way to be a girl is
to wear pink. This of course disturbs me too, and
I've had plenty of discussions with her about how girls
can wear whatever color they want and about how my
favorite color is blue, but she insists on wearing mostly pink.
I tell her that as long as she truly likes pink,
(21:37):
it's just fine for her to wear it while also
trying to model a more open gender identity. I think
that's the thing that bothers me most about fem phobia.
It puts femininity in a box. I don't see a
whole lot of difference between a little preschool boy telling
my daughter she's not a girl enough because she wore
a Batman shirt and some blogger telling women they are
not woman enough because they're wearing pink and sparkles. We
(21:59):
are all women we are mostly born that way. I
don't need to show that I'm a woman by conforming
to your narrow definition of good enough woman. When we
get into a big argument about what being a woman means,
we make it harder for women to be free to
just be themselves whatever that is. No matter what narrow
definition you give to womanhood, some women are not going
to fit into it, So stop trying to define it
(22:20):
and just accept people for who they are. I agree,
as long as your costume is nice and warm. Yes. Um.
This one is from Jocelyn. Also on our Fimphobia episode,
she says that she encounters fimphobia almost every time she
gets to know someone new, especially a guy. So she says,
I'm twenty years old studying finance, a traditionally male dominated
(22:41):
field at Arizona State. I'm sweet and outgoing. I have
blonde hair and blue eyes. I love to shop, I
love to bake, and I wear high heels and a
skirt or dress almost every single day. On the surface,
I look extremely feminine. Because of this, men in the
finance industry and in my classes have treated me differently
when people find out that I'm intelligent. Graduating college a
year and a half early, got a full ride scholarship,
(23:03):
have been working full time for almost four years to
completely support myself. Have a fantasy football team, or anything
about me that is not ultra feminine like my outward
appearance suggested would be. People are shocked. The fact that
people are surprised by these things in comparison to my
outward appearance goes to show that femininity is related to weakness, vulnerability,
and has nothing to do with strength, power, initiative, independence,
(23:24):
and intelligence. Yes, it's true that women have almost equal
rights now and that women for the most part are
treated equally technically speaking, but when it comes when it
really comes down to it, you can see that feminine
women are still perceived as inferior by both men and
nonfeminine women. I don't understand this concept. I believe being
a feminist and being a woman embracing her woman nous
(23:44):
can come in so many different forms. I just so
happened to embrace my feminine appearance. I believe that regardless
of your appearance, that is, how you carry yourself and
what you do that are ultimately the factors that decide
whether or not you are a woman or a girl. Woman.
So thank you, Jocelyn, and good luck graduating early. You
go girl scholarship. That's impressive, and thanks everybody who's written
(24:06):
into mom Stuff at Discovery dot com. You can find
us on Facebook, where I totally encourage you to go
post your Halloween costume pictures, and you can tweet us
as well at mom Stuff Podcast, and you can follow
us on tumbler stuff mom Never Told You dot tumbler
dot com. And as if that is not enough, you
can go learn all about Halloween traditions over at our website,
(24:30):
It's how stuff works dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works
dot com
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