Christian Demonology - Sexuality

Sexuality

Further information: Sexuality in Christian demonology

Demons are generally considered sexless as they have no physical bodies, but different kinds are generally associated with one gender or another. Many theologians agreed that demons acted first as succubi to collect sperm from men and then as incubi to put it into a woman's vagina. But as many of them agreed also that demons' bodies were icy, they reached the conclusion that the frozen sperm taken first from a man could not have generative qualities. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas wrote that demons acted in this way but could fecundate women. Ulrich Molitor and Nicholas Remy disagreed that women could be impregnated; besides, Remy thought that a woman could never be fecundated by another being than a man. Heinrich Kramer (author of the Malleus Maleficarum) adopted again an intermediate position; he wrote that demons acted first as succubae and then as incubi, but added the possibility that incubi could receive semen from succubae, but he considered that this sperm could not fecundate women.

Peter of Paluda and Martin of Arles among others supported the idea that demons could take sperm from dead men and impregnate women. Some demonologists thought that demons could take semen from dying or recently deceased men, and thus dead men should be buried as soon as possible to avoid it.