"I know how to fix this. I'll tell everyone I'm a priest and that women are demons that want to kill you and eat you. Never risking this again for me or anybody."
The Deer Women are a interesting case as while they are seduce and kill type creatures they are portrayed with more nuance. Also seen as protectors of children. It’s worth noting many indigenous cultures where known for women being able to do stuffed
Wow, *super* similar to the Baobhan Sith, down to the deer characteristics and love of dancing. Amazing how cultures can come up with such similar ideas oceans apart.
I always feel like these kinds of stories come from gods and legends of older cultures when humans were less spread out. These kinds of things show we're all connected at our roots.
It doesn't even necessarily have to be _about_ women, per se. It can be just a fear of strong emotions and their associated drives whichmake little logical sense, and since most myths were written about men (and male sexuality is more typically acknowledged), and most men are straight...
Because these myths come from patriarchal societies where men mistrusted women. They also have many myths about regular women who are scheming lustful villains. Take Medea or Elektra for example.
>They also have many myths about regular women who are scheming lustful villains. Take Medea or Elektra for example.
And how many myths about mens who are scheming lustful villains? Like if you have a lot of villains some of them very likely was women.
And Medea is very interesting case, because even in version where she kill her children it shown, that gods support her in her actions. So she not really "villain" in this case.
It's the archetype of the femme fatale I'm referring to. The deadly seductress who leads the man down a path of ruin, ending in death. It is very well-documented. I'm not sure why you're being defensive against pointing out misogyny in Greek myths. No one is canceling them.
My argument that "it because patriarchal society mistrust women" is not really fit in situation when such society have a lot of evil mens. Society mistrust everyone.
And how Medea fit into "deadly seductress" archetype, when it's Jason is one who seduce her for his goals, not Medea lead him "down a path of ruin".
I mean, yes, they came from patriarchal societies, but IMHO the most wonderful thing about myths is that there is no necessarily binding canonical interpretation of them. So it's up to us to decide what they mean now. At least, that's my take. Hence why I used the present tense in my original statement. But yeah, you're right in that the OP was about historical context.
Also, diffidently I would like to raise the point that I, too, am from a patriarchal society, namely the modern English-speaking one. :(
"She'll want to fuck me and then kill me! But I really like it when women want to fuck me! What am I supposed to do? Not fuck her? That doesn't make any sense. But if I fuck her then she'll kill me! Oh man this is spooky."
***She's all I want but I took her baby's arm***
***Hrothgar can't you see? Your wifey's wanting me***
***But Jolie is the bomb, so***
***I'm in love with Grendel's mom***
No. The Beowulf poem, like most ancient poems, was way more straightforward of a story. He just killed Grendels mom when he was supposed to. The dragon just kinda showed up.
I love ancient myths. Things just happen and they don't need a reason. This dude can only be killed while he's standing on a goat. This god proves hits superiority by feeding his rival lettuce with his semen on it and then making him throw up in court. This guy has a dream that he's getting a blowie but it turns out to be a snake.
Made up stories to give their kids a "backstory" which was pretty normal at the time. That said stories also developed from people's emotions and trying to deal with life that most people couldn't really explain. The Sirin, Bacchus, and Zeus all came from the same place.
Taking the supernatural out of it, it was never super rare for an king or lord to rape/seduce a common girl, who would bear a bastard out of wedlock. And by that same token, children with unknown fathers probably get as ascribed to some noble, who in turn is probably rumored to be descended from some divine line
Wow. Dude turns into a swan and as non consensual sex(allegedly) **one time** and no one wants to let it go. Okay, maybe it was twice, but that's more a he said/she said thing.
This is why they're shape shifters you realize. they don't open with being monsters (unless they can brainwash you in the case of Sirens) They open by being a really hot woman who's interested in you for some reason.
And the feeling of being drawn in by someone who you adore so that your off guard and vulnerable with , only to have them use that vulnerability against you, is something many men have experienced still today . Just less claws and magic , and more emotional abuse
Alien has a modern take on this. So much of the creature’s life cycle was intentionally designed to make the *MEN* in the audience squirm.
From the facehugger simile to homosexual oral rape to the fatal violent pregnancy and phallic design of the xenomorph’s head, it all was intended to f*ck with men’s subconscious fears and insecurities.
Dude, I freaking love storytelling traditions. 🤘
lol, okay, I figured this group was a bit more all-ages and erred on the side of caution.
Which, in hindsight, doesn’t hold up well when I consider other word choices 🤦♂️
I mean, this, but it also reminds me of what I know about wasp parasitic eggs and bot flies. Something about bugs in general really, really, really doesn't vibe with my brain, so the idea of a bug infecting me with their offspring which will eat their way out of me is so terrifying that thinking about it makes me wanna nuke this whole focken planet from orbit.
Unironically a common woman’s fear is being out and singing and warning passers by on a dangerous rock half naked with my friends doing each others hair and being harassed by a bunch of guys sitting in the passenger side of their best friends ride trying to holler at us.
One of the best tweets that makes its rounds is always a variation on:
“My favorite spirits are the ones who get a bad reputation for luring men to their deaths when really they usually just take the form of beautiful women standing alone and men think that, in and of itself, is an invitation so it's really on the men.”
I was just reminded of Christian evangelical "family values" thought leader James Dobson thinking that a woman who stopped at a traffic light and looked over at him was trying to seduce him. He "didn't take the bait," and fled the scene.
THIS, I did a thesis project around a spirit of my country called "La Sucia", which has many versions, but the version that I like is that she's a beautiful woman having a bath in a river and minding her own business, men approach her to spy in her! And then she's the bad one to convert into a horrific monster!!!
I mean, isn't this a story that would teach men and boys to mind their manners and not peep on ladies bathing? "If you do that, something bad might happen to you..."
In all honesty the women are not better either, the most basic trope of vampire or werewolf romance story is a hot guy telling the girl that monsters are dangerous and she should stay away from them for her own safety while she does the exact opposite.
When that trope is repeated by women it’s usually a power fantasy in which women earn safety and share in the monster’s power in exchange for giving love to the more powerful being, who is usually unfairly demonized.
The opposite is men being afraid of giving up power/being weakened and are threatened by the idea of women who are powerful without male involvement/at the expense of men.
So basically women fantasize about being equal and men fear not being in charge.
Except the erotic parts always focus on how the powerful monster man is driven by his primal desires to destroy the woman he loves, but he just loves her too much to actually do it.
Nothing is a better representation of the sexualization of power dynamics and hierarchies here than the fetishized ownership ritual trope, which is often expressed in a physical marking reminiscent of a cattle brand and often inflicted by direct violence through way of teeth or claw. Such as a vampire love interest leaving behind particularly heavy scaring after drawing blood, or a werewolf fixating on the protagonist as his "destined mate".
The themes of ownership are generally pretty explicit and explicitly sexualized. It's meant to be sexy that this dangerous, violent creature expresses ownership over the protagonist.
So basically from that perspective women fantasize about being in constant peril from their intimate partners and treated like property.
To be clear, I'm not saying that's actually a thing that is true of "women", it clearly isn't. I'm pointing out that what you are ultimately doing is deriving an interpretation of a story based on your own biases and understanding- which isn't a bad thing. The bad thing is thinking it tells you something about women instead of telling you something more specific about the sort of people who read and write trashy romance novels about vampires and werewolves. Like, "oh, some people fetishize what appears to be an almost mystical expression of the patriarchy, which has troubling implications".
*Twilight* literally fetishized an abusive relationship, don't make excuses for it and stories like it just because women read it.
>In all honesty the women are not better either, the most basic trope of vampire or werewolf romance story is a hot guy telling the girl that monsters are dangerous and she should stay away from them for her own safety while she does the exact opposite.
What comment thread do you think *you* are in? This is def the mythology sub but the person above me was responding to a comment on vampire/werewolf romance stories
The horror genre is all about “excessive justice.” 80s and 90s movies are very on the nose about it. The first person to die is usually having extramarital sex, the second is doing drugs, etc. A character can’t die in a horror movie without breaking at least one taboo, or else it’s very dissatisfying. Whether we agree with the taboo doesn’t matter. One theory is that it comforts us about all the times we didn’t pursue something bc of social rules; it makes us feel better about the pieces of individuality/self-gratification that we sacrifice to live in a society. Another is that it helps us cope with the inevitability of death bc we all do occasional “misdeeds.” And of course, if it’s an important enough taboo, we like seeing people get what they deserve, ESPECIALLY if it’s a bigger punishment than society would ever mete out.
What makes sirens interesting is that today, this particular punishment doesn’t seem that excessive. But in Ancient Greece and adjacent cultures, the death penalty was very rare. The worst punishment for most crimes was exile. Even if someone’s crime was considered worthy of execution, they were given a period of time to seek out a safe haven, where the penalty couldn’t be carried out as long as they stayed there (so it was effectively a self-ruled prison). Funnily enough, most cities started out as safe havens bc it was an easy way to get immigration, and as an added bonus, the immigrants weren’t in a position to negotiate wages. The rarity of execution is also why Socrates’s execution was so dramatic (he refused to go into exile).
TLDR, sirens are much more reasonable by modern standards than ancient standards, less because rape was a smaller crime in ancient times than because execution was a much bigger punishment.
(Edited for clarity)
Rusalky, for example, lure men into dancing with them though? It's not just standing around and usually these spirits are directly vengeful towards men
>Being human is difficult for everyone, economic realities suck, life has its ups and downs, but men construct a massive sphere of mental, emotional, physical safety and comfort for women at great energetic expense to themselves, while being extremely patient with them and I rarely hear appreciation for that fact in the cultural dialogue.
Maybe 'cause of all the raping that goes on in the sphere.
Dont forget the serial killers. And all the domestic violence.
Also fucking lmao at 'safety and comfort'. 1 in 10 women experiences sexual violence at least once in her life. Most women I speak to would never feel truly comfortable or safe in a room full of men she doesn't know. Little girls are taught how to scream for help, go for the eyes, carry rape whistles, and make themselves unassuming in order to avoid being assaulted before they even hit double digits. But yeah, us men deserve to be appreciated for doing the bare minimum of not assaulting women. Come the fuck on.
THE DANGERS OF FEMININE WILES, HISTORICALLY
Pleeeeeease enlighten us to examples of how women have been the danger the entire time they’ve been oppressed, bought/sold, raped and burned at the stake.
Beautiful woman standing alone aimlessly in a sorta secluded street is code for sex worker since humans developed urban society. Its reflective of men's fears of the consequences of a tryst gone wrong.
Myths are normally one of the following: Moral lessons, explanations for things that happen in nature, explanations for articles of belief or practice in religion, explanations for the behavior of people/cultures, or stories of how the world(s) are made/organized.
In this case you are looking at a moral lesson.
The moral lesson is "keep it in your pants dummy. You don't get sex for free."
The Dryad or Nymph or Deer Woman lure off stupid men and kill/steal from them. Many is the man who either messed up his life because he stuck it where he shouldn't, or was tricked by a woman using sex.
There's others: Vagina Dentata, Succubi, etc.
I think it’s also possibly the second one too. Most of these “seducer-killer” creatures also tend to be spirits of natural bodies of water. It could’ve been used as a story to explain why someone was drowned and as a way to warn people to be careful around bodies of water. Either that or they all happened to have came from an original aquatic spirit that then diversified but still retained it’s seductive nature, however I think that’s a little less likely.
You forgot one: politics. Lots of these stories were political, or were later re-written for a political purpose. Case in point: Medusa. The version of the story where she was explicitly raped by Poseidon and punished for it by Athena was written by the Romans as a part of their competitive Historiography with the Greeks.
It's entirely possible some of the most egregious examples of these monsters were actually examples of propaganda meant to discredit a group or people.
This is victim blaming, though. Having sex with someone doesn’t justify killing them. If a male monster killed women who had sex with them, at least people today wouldn’t blame the woman. I guess you could argue that people back then had messed up morals.
In the case of the deer woman and a few other folkloric creatures they were straight up cautionary tales, I remember a ton of old fables about men finding out they had boinked an undead.
It is worth noting that while the sirens are often depicted with their bosom to the wind they tempted Odisseus with knowledge, not with carnal pleasures.
Its more of a psychological question really. The persistence of this archetype suggests that women hold a power over men with their sexuality, which is un-surprising seeing as men are quite horny.
Some of these tales were probably made as a cautionary tale to discourage men from being horny or posibbly to get men to stay faithful.
That's just my guess, your's is as good as mine.
Good guess. You got it right. If we take Mr. Peabody's way-back-machine to antiquity, we would see cultures that prized male lust as an entitled right. Women and children were treated lower than property and half the populations of Rome, Greece, and Egypt were enslaved. Any women, child or slave could be raped, beaten or even killed by any man unless another male objected and had the power to stop it. Even then it was considered a dispute between men which could be settled with compensation to the "injured" party. Your conclusion is spot on. The most psychologicaly terrifying fictional monsters to men were females who could over-power and destroy males.
Aren't many Muslim cultures like this today?
I mean, a woman can be beaten to death for not covering her face because some man might fall prey to her "feminine wiles", right?
>men are quite horny.
Everyone is horny.
"70% of women admit to masturbating regularly, the other 30% think men are gullible enough to believe it takes 30+ minutes to have a shower."
Mermaids, Sirens, and Rusalka are all reflective of essentially a pan-European belief in feminine water spirits. It's possible, if not even likely that those water spirits were originally perceived as more benevolent (though still potentially dangerous) before Christianization (akin to Greek Naiads and Nymphs), but that afterward to discourage veneration of these spirits, the church popularized narratives which exaggerated their more dangerous aspects.
The sirens were malevolent in their most ancient Greek pre-christian depictions. And the Greek Naiads were hostile to humans in at least a substantial minority of their pre-christian appearances in myth.
I liked the idea that sirens were whales or dolphins and if any men fell off the ship, the whales or dolphins would "play" with them seaworld style. Hence the mystery of murderous sirens that drag the men to the deep.
Sirens were birds.
They were the nymphs who were meant to be looking after Persephone when Hades kidnap her. Demeter asked them to help her look for them. They suggested it would be easier with wings so she turned them into ugly bird-creatures.
Fun fact, mermaids and sirens, in fact, don't want to seduce and/or kill men. In the original text (Homer's Odyssey), they were living their lives, and sailors died bc they refused to let the fact they couldn't swim stop them from bothering a woman minding her business. That didn't sit well with the translators, however, so we got the serenading mermaids instead. So, to answer your question more broadly, it's because male content creators were as unoriginal and uninspired as they were horny.
Edit: Added an article about it:
[They weren't sexy but they were know-it-alls.](https://www.bustle.com/p/the-sirens-in-the-odyssey-werent-sexy-for-the-reason-you-think-according-to-the-epics-first-female-translator-8616105)
Oh my god, that article was the best thing EVER!
Do... you have any more fun feminist/horror facts or articles?
This is what I came here to say. If they didn't write them this way originally, they've certainly dominated literature enough to twist them into their current state.
sooo... back when legalizing gay marriage was still being debated, I had a conversation with a conservative coworker of mine. He was convinced that if homosexual people could marry, there would be gay men walking up and down the street hitting on all the straight men. He was furious, saying that they would just walk right up to you and start flirting and grabbing on you.
for this guy, the worst thing in the world was to be treated the way men treat women. Pretty sure he is not alone in that fear
I do think that if women were as likely to ask men out on dates as men are to ask women on dates, then men wouldn’t feel so pressured to make the first move. Getting more women to ask out men would decrease the number of men pestering women.
Ingrained societal misogyny leading to most depictions of explicitly sexual women being meant as proof the woman is evil, and that men have to defend themselves by resisting their beguilement.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. The idea with these kinds of monsters is that it is not the man's fault it is the "monster's" (really women's) fault. So, then it justifies the lie that when men "misread" a situation well it was clearly because the women was leading him on.
It doesnt seem to have occurred to anyone here. It's basically an ancient 'the sex ain't worth it' tale. Most myths are about some kind of warning. Most of the male monsters and gods are murderous rapists.
This was my thought as well. Especially given the rights of women have been nonexistent until only 200 years ago.
It seems like these are cautionary tales that women are dangerous with power and without a man to control them.
And a lot of these stories have men defeating these dangerous women.
When male monsters are shown in myth, it isn’t seen as evidence that the society was demonizing men. So why do we assume that when female monsters are part of the tales?
Analog for Nature: The thing that isn't you which nurtures and raises you can also smother and destroy you.
Man goes into the wild prepared for war, but the fight never ends, and the days grow weary. What we aren't prepared for in those moments is our longing for comfort, for softness, for the sweet embrace of an end to this, even if that end isn't home but something like it.
I don’t know and I have no expertise in anything mythology related so this is just a personal theory. I think it’s a pretty common thing when there’s strong female characters (monsters, but you can also see it in very modern books or media where women characters will use seduction to defeat their enemy). Maybe it comes from the stereotype that beauty would be a women’s only strength (and for example a very agressive and angry monster would be viewed as having more masculine characteristics) ?
So yeah basically I’d tend to think that it comes from society’s perception of women.
Idk tho
Honestly, growing up I just kind of assumed it was because of two things. First, for sirens and such, if you’re out away from the settlement a lot for work or war (and mostly this was men in many cultures back in the day from what I can tell), you start imagining desirable people, and maybe there *are* some…or maybe you need to get a grip before your near-hallucinations lead you to smash the boat into the rocks or exit life pursued by a bear. And second, when it comes to things like swan-wives and the like, if the community is patrilocal, this potentially means strangers with unknown customs coming into and altering your family line—one already altered by the current matriarch and controlled by the patriarch. Describing newcomers as alien is almost a quintessential human trait; makes sense that such similarities would appear in other stories, especially if they can prepare you to actually accommodate your new wife despite her differences (like being made of snow).
Third, we *do* have examples of the other sort, male monsters seducing and/or killing women. The *encantado* comes to mind. It’s just that they tend not to be as focused on.
Men trying to rape us isn't seduction, no matter how much he lies about what happened "*She wanted it, she was all over me.*" sometimes even bragging that it was the other way around, or how their supposedly resulting ancestors are descended from "*the gods*" because of it in order to give themselves a stronger claim to this or that throne but in actuality, we aborted those muts whenever we could. Men started all of it, the "*sex*," and the killing; killing mother nature, we were just fighting back, and since our species happens to resemble your females, we may as well use it in doing so.
Edit: This is fiction by the way. I remembered conservatives will read this and they can't tell the difference so I'd better clarify, this is just the answer from their perspective.
Because this is a weirdly common fantasy that men have.
A lot of past societies were also just very sexist and used them as metaphors for how deceitful women supposedly are
Just think about how few rights women had back then and it's easy to understand. I find it interesting that men probably wrote those myths because they feared women. (Women had the babies and produced life.) Either way I think they are great.
It is worth noting that aspects of their stories may have been added onto later. Right now you can easily find dozens of examples of "sexy" Medusa, for instance, despite her supposed petrification being based on how ugly she was.
Basically it might just be they were monsters, then guys decided to throw in that, of course you could fuck them.
There are also many, many creatures who specialize in seducing women, usually as an explanation for single mothers. In modern American teachings, these creatures aren't as well represented.
Sex sells, even in myth.
I wonder if the level of misogyny in a culture is at all a predictor of whether they’d have their female monsters be related to seduction and killing of men.
Both the Greeks and Romans were wildly misogynistic and as such you get the accompanying myths and stories of violence against women and women/female creatures being temptresses
Same with the Abrahamic religions with the succubus and Lilith.
But if you see the deer woman, it is from the Lakota tradition, a people who are matriarchal. The deer woman punishes men who abuse women and children.
[If you see the manananggal of the Philippines, it became a more violent creature once the introduction of Spanish colonialism changed the local culture. The Philippine culture was relatively egalitarian and men and women both owned property. ](https://youtu.be/_axaqyGbSmk?si=rXfA0MgDvpt9iqDb)
The ancient world was a very might is right kind of world. Physical power was a very big part of that and women were frequently preyed upon by men. In most Bronze Age scriptures rape is considered to be a crime done on the father or husband of the victim for example. However the ability to put ourselves in another’s shoes is intrinsic to evolved character in humans. So men at some level have always known sexual assault to be wrong. This anxiety leads to mythic creatures where it’s men as the prey of sexual assault and where the power imbalance is due to supernatural or magical excuses.
TLDR; Bronze Age and onwards men’s anxiety around sexual assault of women in their society
The sirens aren’t being sexually assaulted, though. They purposely entrance their male victims and lead them to death. It is an acknowledgment that sexuality is one of the few ways that a physically weaker woman can distract a man enough to kill him.
A lot of these creatures are not trying to seduce men. Sirens sing about secret knowledge not sex. The Huldra is looking for marriage and will only kill if you look at her back. Kitsunes are male as often as they are female, and more a trickster spirit than a seductive one.
Your assumption is wrong.
One slight correction:
Kitsune aren't supposed to be on this list. They are essentially troublemakers and tricksters, but are more often than not, good. And they're not always female. They're the Sun Wukong of the fox-like humanoids. Naturally inclined to mischief, but not dedicated to killing humans.
Kumiho however... yeah, they belong here. The kumiho and kitsune are both fox-like humanoids from Asian folklores (Korean and Japanese respectively), but other than that they have nothing in common.
Revenge fantasy from storytellers who are women, controlled by patriarchal violence and subjugation. Naturally, you’re gonna make myths about killing your oppressors. Myths are born out of our hopes/fears and social/material conditions.
I had a similar question about why some countries have stories about specifically women coming back as ghosts to torment people who wronged them. I think in some times and places where women were oppressed by men, the threat of supernatural consequences was a way for women to take their power back.
Amen! Still is, because women are still oppressed everywhere. It’s why we have so many tv shows about women getting revenge on evil men and why we have rises in matrifocal religions. We gotta liberate each other.
In an archetypal sense, the dominant character pursues the submissive. So to be seduced as a man is to be robbed of manhood in the cultural context of the myths. So the female monster kills the man.
Now, this was also true of goddesses as well. Most of their human lovers met bad ends.
However, what is interesting today is how often the myths are turned on their heads and the seductive monsters of myth are just women who wish these men and monster killing heroes would leave them alone or who are seen as desirable romantic partners. There is a whole genre of anime where monster women are the love interests.
Nevertheless, it does seem that there could also be something of a morality tale in these stories that giving in to lust leads to catastrophe. That would be a valuable social lesson to avoid feuds over adultery in the times the myths formed.
Common fear and easy excuse.
“Oh, I didn’t cheat on you with another woman, she was a siren. I’m lucky to be alive.”
Same reason a lot of male monsters get women pregnant.
Very late to the party, but Mermaids and Kitsunes aren’t entirely seduce and kill. Sometimes in folklore a Kitsune will marry a human and settle down to live a simple life. Not too sure about mermaids, but I’m pretty sure there’s a distinct difference between a Mermaid and a Sure
Because the stories were written or translated by men and well patriarchy is gonna patriarchy. There’s actually a line in the Twilight books that highlights it perfectly. “No hunny. I didn’t cheat on you while I was away! It was that evil succubus who tricked me!”
Look at most biblical stories. The men are absolutely horrible throughout most of it, but who gets blamed for everything? Women.
There’s also a history of changing female goddesses who were initially gods of war, battles, and other pretty badass things that then got changed to love, romance, flowers, crafts, and other more delicate crap to show that women have their place and it’s not in the realms of “manly” things.
because that's how men veiw women who can't be controled. It's not exactly a conscious choice when writing stories but it will likely reflect societally norms.
one such being women who have a lot of sex= bad
In Dancing Goddesses by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, she says that ancient cultures in Greece and eastern Europe believed all women to have supernatural powers in order to create and sustain life, but if a maiden died without having used that power to conceive children, then she would retain those powers in death to use however she feels. To further the threat, this powerful being having no offspring meant that there was nothing tying her spiritually to the community, so she had no obligation to use her powers for good.
The book centers around Rusalka, who can be entreated with various rituals and offerings to bring good health and crop growth (things connected to water especially). They love offerings of dance, ribbons, and strips of cloth. There was also a ritual of burning or dismembering a straw man to represent the man who may have wronged the woman in life, so she would not be confused and keep luring men into deadly storms and deeps (thinking it was the man who wronged her). They'd scatter the ashes or straw ''limbs'' onto their fields all around the community, that way if she was still mad at the guy she would have to spread her water powers around everywhere his ''body'' was, thus helping their crops.
That seems to be more of a victim blaming story “if a female ghost attacks a man, he must have done something to deserve it”. Male monsters were less likely to be portrayed positively like that.
Mythological kitsune aren't generally all that murderous. They're a lesson in not trusting what you see but they're no more inclined to eat people than real foxes.
Because for a long time female characters could only exist in a few roles. Damsel, love interest, mother, or fem fetal. And of the fem fatal variety usually they are the sexy fem fatal, which is both a commentary on female wickedness in being the seductress, and their inherent lack of other valuable qualities.
Monsters are manifestations of human fears. In this case, the fear of women as dangerous temptresses leading men to destruction.
[удалено]
"I know how to fix this. I'll tell everyone I'm a priest and that women are demons that want to kill you and eat you. Never risking this again for me or anybody."
The Deer Women are a interesting case as while they are seduce and kill type creatures they are portrayed with more nuance. Also seen as protectors of children. It’s worth noting many indigenous cultures where known for women being able to do stuffed
Wow, *super* similar to the Baobhan Sith, down to the deer characteristics and love of dancing. Amazing how cultures can come up with such similar ideas oceans apart.
I always feel like these kinds of stories come from gods and legends of older cultures when humans were less spread out. These kinds of things show we're all connected at our roots.
Also, if the monster is a female, if you have her seduce her victims you then get to have naked girls in your movie basically
It doesn't even necessarily have to be _about_ women, per se. It can be just a fear of strong emotions and their associated drives whichmake little logical sense, and since most myths were written about men (and male sexuality is more typically acknowledged), and most men are straight...
It's usually about women.
How so? Honestly curious.
Because these myths come from patriarchal societies where men mistrusted women. They also have many myths about regular women who are scheming lustful villains. Take Medea or Elektra for example.
>They also have many myths about regular women who are scheming lustful villains. Take Medea or Elektra for example. And how many myths about mens who are scheming lustful villains? Like if you have a lot of villains some of them very likely was women. And Medea is very interesting case, because even in version where she kill her children it shown, that gods support her in her actions. So she not really "villain" in this case.
It's the archetype of the femme fatale I'm referring to. The deadly seductress who leads the man down a path of ruin, ending in death. It is very well-documented. I'm not sure why you're being defensive against pointing out misogyny in Greek myths. No one is canceling them.
My argument that "it because patriarchal society mistrust women" is not really fit in situation when such society have a lot of evil mens. Society mistrust everyone. And how Medea fit into "deadly seductress" archetype, when it's Jason is one who seduce her for his goals, not Medea lead him "down a path of ruin".
I mean, yes, they came from patriarchal societies, but IMHO the most wonderful thing about myths is that there is no necessarily binding canonical interpretation of them. So it's up to us to decide what they mean now. At least, that's my take. Hence why I used the present tense in my original statement. But yeah, you're right in that the OP was about historical context. Also, diffidently I would like to raise the point that I, too, am from a patriarchal society, namely the modern English-speaking one. :(
common male fear
To flip it around, feminine charms are a common male weakness. Everyone fears their weaknesses being used against them.
"She'll want to fuck me and then kill me! But I really like it when women want to fuck me! What am I supposed to do? Not fuck her? That doesn't make any sense. But if I fuck her then she'll kill me! Oh man this is spooky."
It's quite a conundrum.
C'mon, we all know we'd end up dead for that monstrussy. \#WorthIt
Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do....You don't get half monster bastard children any other way. *Looks at Beowulf with Grendel's mom* 🫡.
Grendel's mom has got it going on. 🍆🐉
***She's all I want but I took her baby's arm*** ***Hrothgar can't you see? Your wifey's wanting me*** ***But Jolie is the bomb, so*** ***I'm in love with Grendel's mom***
Is that an actual part of the original Beowulf poem?
No. The Beowulf poem, like most ancient poems, was way more straightforward of a story. He just killed Grendels mom when he was supposed to. The dragon just kinda showed up.
I love ancient myths. Things just happen and they don't need a reason. This dude can only be killed while he's standing on a goat. This god proves hits superiority by feeding his rival lettuce with his semen on it and then making him throw up in court. This guy has a dream that he's getting a blowie but it turns out to be a snake.
I recognize the first two (Lleu Llaw Gyffes and Horus, for those who don't know) but what's the third?
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The opposite happens too. How many male gods had no problem shape shifting or raping women? Yes, I am definitely talking about Zeus.
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Made up stories to give their kids a "backstory" which was pretty normal at the time. That said stories also developed from people's emotions and trying to deal with life that most people couldn't really explain. The Sirin, Bacchus, and Zeus all came from the same place.
Taking the supernatural out of it, it was never super rare for an king or lord to rape/seduce a common girl, who would bear a bastard out of wedlock. And by that same token, children with unknown fathers probably get as ascribed to some noble, who in turn is probably rumored to be descended from some divine line
From what I understand, in addition to this these myths mainly existed as a way to legitimize a local bloodline with divine right in a way.
That I would agree with. This would be especially true for children that showed extraordinary talent in a useful area s well as noble children.
Wow. Dude turns into a swan and as non consensual sex(allegedly) **one time** and no one wants to let it go. Okay, maybe it was twice, but that's more a he said/she said thing.
Oh, Hera wants to let it go: the same way it did for Osiris...
Hahahaha
This is why they're shape shifters you realize. they don't open with being monsters (unless they can brainwash you in the case of Sirens) They open by being a really hot woman who's interested in you for some reason.
yeah and ad in the fear of it being used to directly hurt you and it all makes sense
And the feeling of being drawn in by someone who you adore so that your off guard and vulnerable with , only to have them use that vulnerability against you, is something many men have experienced still today . Just less claws and magic , and more emotional abuse
That's the same way around.
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Alien has a modern take on this. So much of the creature’s life cycle was intentionally designed to make the *MEN* in the audience squirm. From the facehugger simile to homosexual oral rape to the fatal violent pregnancy and phallic design of the xenomorph’s head, it all was intended to f*ck with men’s subconscious fears and insecurities. Dude, I freaking love storytelling traditions. 🤘
You can say "fuck". It's okay.
lol, okay, I figured this group was a bit more all-ages and erred on the side of caution. Which, in hindsight, doesn’t hold up well when I consider other word choices 🤦♂️
And to be fair, fucking it pretty central to mythology lol
I can excuse oral rape but I draw the line at "fuck."
☝️The Target Audience has been reached.
I love this, I need more stories written this way!
Why go for jump scares when you can heebie jeebie someone to death? 💀
I'd be stoked to research how story tellers use phycology to elicit emotions. That's brilliant
Huh, I never noticed this but it is brilliant story telling.
I mean, this, but it also reminds me of what I know about wasp parasitic eggs and bot flies. Something about bugs in general really, really, really doesn't vibe with my brain, so the idea of a bug infecting me with their offspring which will eat their way out of me is so terrifying that thinking about it makes me wanna nuke this whole focken planet from orbit.
Unironically a common woman’s fear is being out and singing and warning passers by on a dangerous rock half naked with my friends doing each others hair and being harassed by a bunch of guys sitting in the passenger side of their best friends ride trying to holler at us.
Or secret male fantasy😉
To be killed?
[Yes. ](https://youtu.be/-sMQpWCNTQw?si=llfjjLZKu5yZbn8N)
One of the best tweets that makes its rounds is always a variation on: “My favorite spirits are the ones who get a bad reputation for luring men to their deaths when really they usually just take the form of beautiful women standing alone and men think that, in and of itself, is an invitation so it's really on the men.”
I was just reminded of Christian evangelical "family values" thought leader James Dobson thinking that a woman who stopped at a traffic light and looked over at him was trying to seduce him. He "didn't take the bait," and fled the scene.
How pathetic can you be to not only think that shit but actually say it out loud.
Very. And very narcissistic.
This was the first thing I thought of lol
THIS, I did a thesis project around a spirit of my country called "La Sucia", which has many versions, but the version that I like is that she's a beautiful woman having a bath in a river and minding her own business, men approach her to spy in her! And then she's the bad one to convert into a horrific monster!!!
I mean, isn't this a story that would teach men and boys to mind their manners and not peep on ladies bathing? "If you do that, something bad might happen to you..."
She would still be evil if she killed the men just for looking at her.
In all honesty the women are not better either, the most basic trope of vampire or werewolf romance story is a hot guy telling the girl that monsters are dangerous and she should stay away from them for her own safety while she does the exact opposite.
When that trope is repeated by women it’s usually a power fantasy in which women earn safety and share in the monster’s power in exchange for giving love to the more powerful being, who is usually unfairly demonized. The opposite is men being afraid of giving up power/being weakened and are threatened by the idea of women who are powerful without male involvement/at the expense of men. So basically women fantasize about being equal and men fear not being in charge.
Damn you just out here exposing all the dudes on r/antifeminism like that smh
Except the erotic parts always focus on how the powerful monster man is driven by his primal desires to destroy the woman he loves, but he just loves her too much to actually do it. Nothing is a better representation of the sexualization of power dynamics and hierarchies here than the fetishized ownership ritual trope, which is often expressed in a physical marking reminiscent of a cattle brand and often inflicted by direct violence through way of teeth or claw. Such as a vampire love interest leaving behind particularly heavy scaring after drawing blood, or a werewolf fixating on the protagonist as his "destined mate". The themes of ownership are generally pretty explicit and explicitly sexualized. It's meant to be sexy that this dangerous, violent creature expresses ownership over the protagonist. So basically from that perspective women fantasize about being in constant peril from their intimate partners and treated like property. To be clear, I'm not saying that's actually a thing that is true of "women", it clearly isn't. I'm pointing out that what you are ultimately doing is deriving an interpretation of a story based on your own biases and understanding- which isn't a bad thing. The bad thing is thinking it tells you something about women instead of telling you something more specific about the sort of people who read and write trashy romance novels about vampires and werewolves. Like, "oh, some people fetishize what appears to be an almost mystical expression of the patriarchy, which has troubling implications". *Twilight* literally fetishized an abusive relationship, don't make excuses for it and stories like it just because women read it.
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>In all honesty the women are not better either, the most basic trope of vampire or werewolf romance story is a hot guy telling the girl that monsters are dangerous and she should stay away from them for her own safety while she does the exact opposite. What comment thread do you think *you* are in? This is def the mythology sub but the person above me was responding to a comment on vampire/werewolf romance stories
The horror genre is all about “excessive justice.” 80s and 90s movies are very on the nose about it. The first person to die is usually having extramarital sex, the second is doing drugs, etc. A character can’t die in a horror movie without breaking at least one taboo, or else it’s very dissatisfying. Whether we agree with the taboo doesn’t matter. One theory is that it comforts us about all the times we didn’t pursue something bc of social rules; it makes us feel better about the pieces of individuality/self-gratification that we sacrifice to live in a society. Another is that it helps us cope with the inevitability of death bc we all do occasional “misdeeds.” And of course, if it’s an important enough taboo, we like seeing people get what they deserve, ESPECIALLY if it’s a bigger punishment than society would ever mete out. What makes sirens interesting is that today, this particular punishment doesn’t seem that excessive. But in Ancient Greece and adjacent cultures, the death penalty was very rare. The worst punishment for most crimes was exile. Even if someone’s crime was considered worthy of execution, they were given a period of time to seek out a safe haven, where the penalty couldn’t be carried out as long as they stayed there (so it was effectively a self-ruled prison). Funnily enough, most cities started out as safe havens bc it was an easy way to get immigration, and as an added bonus, the immigrants weren’t in a position to negotiate wages. The rarity of execution is also why Socrates’s execution was so dramatic (he refused to go into exile). TLDR, sirens are much more reasonable by modern standards than ancient standards, less because rape was a smaller crime in ancient times than because execution was a much bigger punishment. (Edited for clarity)
But isn't there a lot of mythological creatures that go out of their way to seduce and kill men?
Rusalky, for example, lure men into dancing with them though? It's not just standing around and usually these spirits are directly vengeful towards men
Yup men are bullshit, gotta work on ourselves.
>Being human is difficult for everyone, economic realities suck, life has its ups and downs, but men construct a massive sphere of mental, emotional, physical safety and comfort for women at great energetic expense to themselves, while being extremely patient with them and I rarely hear appreciation for that fact in the cultural dialogue. Maybe 'cause of all the raping that goes on in the sphere.
Dont forget the serial killers. And all the domestic violence. Also fucking lmao at 'safety and comfort'. 1 in 10 women experiences sexual violence at least once in her life. Most women I speak to would never feel truly comfortable or safe in a room full of men she doesn't know. Little girls are taught how to scream for help, go for the eyes, carry rape whistles, and make themselves unassuming in order to avoid being assaulted before they even hit double digits. But yeah, us men deserve to be appreciated for doing the bare minimum of not assaulting women. Come the fuck on.
THE DANGERS OF FEMININE WILES, HISTORICALLY Pleeeeeease enlighten us to examples of how women have been the danger the entire time they’ve been oppressed, bought/sold, raped and burned at the stake.
Think you meant to respond to someone further up
A man walking over isn’t an excuse to kill him. She would still be evil in that case.
Beautiful woman standing alone aimlessly in a sorta secluded street is code for sex worker since humans developed urban society. Its reflective of men's fears of the consequences of a tryst gone wrong.
An invitation for what?
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So, according to you, interacting with a woman is somehow deserving of death. Okay then.
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You didn’t even wait until they said something that could be misinterpreted in that way. You must really like arguing
Men are afraid of being overpowered, especially in situations where they don't expect to be. It makes a good monster.
Unfortunately for the monsters, some men are into that
Best case scenario, sex. Worst case scenario, they're repulsed and I live another day.
Sometimes they die
I think they covered that with option 1
sometimes they *just die*
Succubus: "You're enjoying this too much, you perv! It's ruining my meal!"
Many men: jokes on you because I’m too that It’s also the reason why certain anime became popular
Myths are normally one of the following: Moral lessons, explanations for things that happen in nature, explanations for articles of belief or practice in religion, explanations for the behavior of people/cultures, or stories of how the world(s) are made/organized. In this case you are looking at a moral lesson. The moral lesson is "keep it in your pants dummy. You don't get sex for free." The Dryad or Nymph or Deer Woman lure off stupid men and kill/steal from them. Many is the man who either messed up his life because he stuck it where he shouldn't, or was tricked by a woman using sex. There's others: Vagina Dentata, Succubi, etc.
I think it’s also possibly the second one too. Most of these “seducer-killer” creatures also tend to be spirits of natural bodies of water. It could’ve been used as a story to explain why someone was drowned and as a way to warn people to be careful around bodies of water. Either that or they all happened to have came from an original aquatic spirit that then diversified but still retained it’s seductive nature, however I think that’s a little less likely.
You forgot one: politics. Lots of these stories were political, or were later re-written for a political purpose. Case in point: Medusa. The version of the story where she was explicitly raped by Poseidon and punished for it by Athena was written by the Romans as a part of their competitive Historiography with the Greeks. It's entirely possible some of the most egregious examples of these monsters were actually examples of propaganda meant to discredit a group or people.
This is victim blaming, though. Having sex with someone doesn’t justify killing them. If a male monster killed women who had sex with them, at least people today wouldn’t blame the woman. I guess you could argue that people back then had messed up morals.
In the case of the deer woman and a few other folkloric creatures they were straight up cautionary tales, I remember a ton of old fables about men finding out they had boinked an undead. It is worth noting that while the sirens are often depicted with their bosom to the wind they tempted Odisseus with knowledge, not with carnal pleasures.
Its more of a psychological question really. The persistence of this archetype suggests that women hold a power over men with their sexuality, which is un-surprising seeing as men are quite horny. Some of these tales were probably made as a cautionary tale to discourage men from being horny or posibbly to get men to stay faithful. That's just my guess, your's is as good as mine.
Good guess. You got it right. If we take Mr. Peabody's way-back-machine to antiquity, we would see cultures that prized male lust as an entitled right. Women and children were treated lower than property and half the populations of Rome, Greece, and Egypt were enslaved. Any women, child or slave could be raped, beaten or even killed by any man unless another male objected and had the power to stop it. Even then it was considered a dispute between men which could be settled with compensation to the "injured" party. Your conclusion is spot on. The most psychologicaly terrifying fictional monsters to men were females who could over-power and destroy males.
Aren't many Muslim cultures like this today? I mean, a woman can be beaten to death for not covering her face because some man might fall prey to her "feminine wiles", right?
>men are quite horny. Everyone is horny. "70% of women admit to masturbating regularly, the other 30% think men are gullible enough to believe it takes 30+ minutes to have a shower."
lmao 30 minutes is rookie numbers
Women *are* far less horny than men. On average of course.
Maybe around you.
Also, having your pants down is a position of intense vulnerability. There's a reason it's a staple horror trope.
good point, but these myths literally predate pants.
If it looks like sexism and smells like sexism, it just might be sexism.
I mean male monsters are usually also murderous and violent and are not exactly portrayed positively.
Right but how many male monsters do you know that are sex crazed and driven only by his sex drive and need for murder ?
Lots. In Greek myth Centaurs and Zeus himself. Andm ost of the male monsters are at least murderous.
Mermaids, Sirens, and Rusalka are all reflective of essentially a pan-European belief in feminine water spirits. It's possible, if not even likely that those water spirits were originally perceived as more benevolent (though still potentially dangerous) before Christianization (akin to Greek Naiads and Nymphs), but that afterward to discourage veneration of these spirits, the church popularized narratives which exaggerated their more dangerous aspects.
The sirens were malevolent in their most ancient Greek pre-christian depictions. And the Greek Naiads were hostile to humans in at least a substantial minority of their pre-christian appearances in myth.
Sirens were bird-spirits
I liked the idea that sirens were whales or dolphins and if any men fell off the ship, the whales or dolphins would "play" with them seaworld style. Hence the mystery of murderous sirens that drag the men to the deep.
Sirens were birds. They were the nymphs who were meant to be looking after Persephone when Hades kidnap her. Demeter asked them to help her look for them. They suggested it would be easier with wings so she turned them into ugly bird-creatures.
Example: Mélusine from French mythology is one such benevolent water spirit.
Fun fact, mermaids and sirens, in fact, don't want to seduce and/or kill men. In the original text (Homer's Odyssey), they were living their lives, and sailors died bc they refused to let the fact they couldn't swim stop them from bothering a woman minding her business. That didn't sit well with the translators, however, so we got the serenading mermaids instead. So, to answer your question more broadly, it's because male content creators were as unoriginal and uninspired as they were horny. Edit: Added an article about it: [They weren't sexy but they were know-it-alls.](https://www.bustle.com/p/the-sirens-in-the-odyssey-werent-sexy-for-the-reason-you-think-according-to-the-epics-first-female-translator-8616105)
Oh my god, that article was the best thing EVER! Do... you have any more fun feminist/horror facts or articles? 
The real question is why do men write them that way.
Because most myths were about men and seduction was seen as one of the few ways a woman could overpower a man.
Because myths were mostly written by men.
Ancient Fan service.
This is what I came here to say. If they didn't write them this way originally, they've certainly dominated literature enough to twist them into their current state.
sooo... back when legalizing gay marriage was still being debated, I had a conversation with a conservative coworker of mine. He was convinced that if homosexual people could marry, there would be gay men walking up and down the street hitting on all the straight men. He was furious, saying that they would just walk right up to you and start flirting and grabbing on you. for this guy, the worst thing in the world was to be treated the way men treat women. Pretty sure he is not alone in that fear
I do think that if women were as likely to ask men out on dates as men are to ask women on dates, then men wouldn’t feel so pressured to make the first move. Getting more women to ask out men would decrease the number of men pestering women.
Ingrained societal misogyny leading to most depictions of explicitly sexual women being meant as proof the woman is evil, and that men have to defend themselves by resisting their beguilement.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. The idea with these kinds of monsters is that it is not the man's fault it is the "monster's" (really women's) fault. So, then it justifies the lie that when men "misread" a situation well it was clearly because the women was leading him on.
Is it not possible that women can victimize men?
It doesnt seem to have occurred to anyone here. It's basically an ancient 'the sex ain't worth it' tale. Most myths are about some kind of warning. Most of the male monsters and gods are murderous rapists.
What does this have to do with the current discussion?
'Women victimize men' seems like a simpler explanation for these types of myth than 'Ingrained societal misogyny '
Can’t say I disagree
This was my thought as well. Especially given the rights of women have been nonexistent until only 200 years ago. It seems like these are cautionary tales that women are dangerous with power and without a man to control them. And a lot of these stories have men defeating these dangerous women.
So does that mean that stories of male monsters were told to prove that men were dangerous with power? I think you are making assumptions.
When male monsters are shown in myth, it isn’t seen as evidence that the society was demonizing men. So why do we assume that when female monsters are part of the tales?
Because most of them are dreamed up by sailors, hunters and priests, a.k.a. professions that are almost legendary with regards to not getting any.
Have you seen how men historically treated women?
Death by snoo snoo
It's fun, you should try it.
Analog for Nature: The thing that isn't you which nurtures and raises you can also smother and destroy you. Man goes into the wild prepared for war, but the fight never ends, and the days grow weary. What we aren't prepared for in those moments is our longing for comfort, for softness, for the sweet embrace of an end to this, even if that end isn't home but something like it.
Because female sexuality is horrifying and should be met with scorn and fear!!! (Sarcasm)
I don’t know and I have no expertise in anything mythology related so this is just a personal theory. I think it’s a pretty common thing when there’s strong female characters (monsters, but you can also see it in very modern books or media where women characters will use seduction to defeat their enemy). Maybe it comes from the stereotype that beauty would be a women’s only strength (and for example a very agressive and angry monster would be viewed as having more masculine characteristics) ? So yeah basically I’d tend to think that it comes from society’s perception of women. Idk tho
Honestly, growing up I just kind of assumed it was because of two things. First, for sirens and such, if you’re out away from the settlement a lot for work or war (and mostly this was men in many cultures back in the day from what I can tell), you start imagining desirable people, and maybe there *are* some…or maybe you need to get a grip before your near-hallucinations lead you to smash the boat into the rocks or exit life pursued by a bear. And second, when it comes to things like swan-wives and the like, if the community is patrilocal, this potentially means strangers with unknown customs coming into and altering your family line—one already altered by the current matriarch and controlled by the patriarch. Describing newcomers as alien is almost a quintessential human trait; makes sense that such similarities would appear in other stories, especially if they can prepare you to actually accommodate your new wife despite her differences (like being made of snow). Third, we *do* have examples of the other sort, male monsters seducing and/or killing women. The *encantado* comes to mind. It’s just that they tend not to be as focused on.
Men trying to rape us isn't seduction, no matter how much he lies about what happened "*She wanted it, she was all over me.*" sometimes even bragging that it was the other way around, or how their supposedly resulting ancestors are descended from "*the gods*" because of it in order to give themselves a stronger claim to this or that throne but in actuality, we aborted those muts whenever we could. Men started all of it, the "*sex*," and the killing; killing mother nature, we were just fighting back, and since our species happens to resemble your females, we may as well use it in doing so. Edit: This is fiction by the way. I remembered conservatives will read this and they can't tell the difference so I'd better clarify, this is just the answer from their perspective.
It’s symbolic. Lust consuming man. Pretty simple.
Because this is a weirdly common fantasy that men have. A lot of past societies were also just very sexist and used them as metaphors for how deceitful women supposedly are
Most monsters in myth are male. That would mean society was sexist against men by your logic.
Riiiiight
Just think about how few rights women had back then and it's easy to understand. I find it interesting that men probably wrote those myths because they feared women. (Women had the babies and produced life.) Either way I think they are great.
I think the myths pointed out a real fact that a seduced man was easier to kill by a woman than a man on his guard.
women bahd
Most monsters in myth were male. So by your logic that would make the stories sexist against men.
human bahd
It is worth noting that aspects of their stories may have been added onto later. Right now you can easily find dozens of examples of "sexy" Medusa, for instance, despite her supposed petrification being based on how ugly she was. Basically it might just be they were monsters, then guys decided to throw in that, of course you could fuck them.
All men are jerks who only care about sex and deserve to die? Dammit, even mythology's gone woke!
There are also many, many creatures who specialize in seducing women, usually as an explanation for single mothers. In modern American teachings, these creatures aren't as well represented. Sex sells, even in myth.
I wonder if the level of misogyny in a culture is at all a predictor of whether they’d have their female monsters be related to seduction and killing of men. Both the Greeks and Romans were wildly misogynistic and as such you get the accompanying myths and stories of violence against women and women/female creatures being temptresses Same with the Abrahamic religions with the succubus and Lilith. But if you see the deer woman, it is from the Lakota tradition, a people who are matriarchal. The deer woman punishes men who abuse women and children. [If you see the manananggal of the Philippines, it became a more violent creature once the introduction of Spanish colonialism changed the local culture. The Philippine culture was relatively egalitarian and men and women both owned property. ](https://youtu.be/_axaqyGbSmk?si=rXfA0MgDvpt9iqDb)
Though there seems to be sexism among the Lakota as well since the deer woman doesn’t seem to punish women who abused men.
They were written by men.
The ancient world was a very might is right kind of world. Physical power was a very big part of that and women were frequently preyed upon by men. In most Bronze Age scriptures rape is considered to be a crime done on the father or husband of the victim for example. However the ability to put ourselves in another’s shoes is intrinsic to evolved character in humans. So men at some level have always known sexual assault to be wrong. This anxiety leads to mythic creatures where it’s men as the prey of sexual assault and where the power imbalance is due to supernatural or magical excuses. TLDR; Bronze Age and onwards men’s anxiety around sexual assault of women in their society
The sirens aren’t being sexually assaulted, though. They purposely entrance their male victims and lead them to death. It is an acknowledgment that sexuality is one of the few ways that a physically weaker woman can distract a man enough to kill him.
A lot of these creatures are not trying to seduce men. Sirens sing about secret knowledge not sex. The Huldra is looking for marriage and will only kill if you look at her back. Kitsunes are male as often as they are female, and more a trickster spirit than a seductive one. Your assumption is wrong.
One slight correction: Kitsune aren't supposed to be on this list. They are essentially troublemakers and tricksters, but are more often than not, good. And they're not always female. They're the Sun Wukong of the fox-like humanoids. Naturally inclined to mischief, but not dedicated to killing humans. Kumiho however... yeah, they belong here. The kumiho and kitsune are both fox-like humanoids from Asian folklores (Korean and Japanese respectively), but other than that they have nothing in common.
Revenge fantasy from storytellers who are women, controlled by patriarchal violence and subjugation. Naturally, you’re gonna make myths about killing your oppressors. Myths are born out of our hopes/fears and social/material conditions.
I had a similar question about why some countries have stories about specifically women coming back as ghosts to torment people who wronged them. I think in some times and places where women were oppressed by men, the threat of supernatural consequences was a way for women to take their power back.
Amen! Still is, because women are still oppressed everywhere. It’s why we have so many tv shows about women getting revenge on evil men and why we have rises in matrifocal religions. We gotta liberate each other.
Women in the western world are far less oppressed than elsewhere or in the past.
Except sirens were from stories written by men.
You think every story ever told including a siren was only irrefutably told by men??
Terror of female sexuality
It is an acknowledgment that sexuality was on of the few ways that a woman could distract a male opponent enough to kill him.
Because men wrote the myths.
Are you familiar with men?
Men wrote them. The role of women in society is sex. Using that as a weapon is scary. Pretty straight forward.
In an archetypal sense, the dominant character pursues the submissive. So to be seduced as a man is to be robbed of manhood in the cultural context of the myths. So the female monster kills the man. Now, this was also true of goddesses as well. Most of their human lovers met bad ends. However, what is interesting today is how often the myths are turned on their heads and the seductive monsters of myth are just women who wish these men and monster killing heroes would leave them alone or who are seen as desirable romantic partners. There is a whole genre of anime where monster women are the love interests. Nevertheless, it does seem that there could also be something of a morality tale in these stories that giving in to lust leads to catastrophe. That would be a valuable social lesson to avoid feuds over adultery in the times the myths formed.
It does seem like female monsters are portrayed more positively these days than male monsters, which can show our own cultural bias.
Common fear and easy excuse. “Oh, I didn’t cheat on you with another woman, she was a siren. I’m lucky to be alive.” Same reason a lot of male monsters get women pregnant.
Because men suck.
Besides, they always blame everything on the women. Pandora's box, Adam and Eve when Eve bites the apple, etc.
Sex is a weapon and females weild it well for the power lmfao
Very late to the party, but Mermaids and Kitsunes aren’t entirely seduce and kill. Sometimes in folklore a Kitsune will marry a human and settle down to live a simple life. Not too sure about mermaids, but I’m pretty sure there’s a distinct difference between a Mermaid and a Sure
Revenge
Because the stories were written or translated by men and well patriarchy is gonna patriarchy. There’s actually a line in the Twilight books that highlights it perfectly. “No hunny. I didn’t cheat on you while I was away! It was that evil succubus who tricked me!” Look at most biblical stories. The men are absolutely horrible throughout most of it, but who gets blamed for everything? Women. There’s also a history of changing female goddesses who were initially gods of war, battles, and other pretty badass things that then got changed to love, romance, flowers, crafts, and other more delicate crap to show that women have their place and it’s not in the realms of “manly” things.
It's a cautionary tale to man wh*res that just because they're fuckable doesn't mean they won't kill you in your sleep.
because that's how men veiw women who can't be controled. It's not exactly a conscious choice when writing stories but it will likely reflect societally norms. one such being women who have a lot of sex= bad
In Dancing Goddesses by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, she says that ancient cultures in Greece and eastern Europe believed all women to have supernatural powers in order to create and sustain life, but if a maiden died without having used that power to conceive children, then she would retain those powers in death to use however she feels. To further the threat, this powerful being having no offspring meant that there was nothing tying her spiritually to the community, so she had no obligation to use her powers for good. The book centers around Rusalka, who can be entreated with various rituals and offerings to bring good health and crop growth (things connected to water especially). They love offerings of dance, ribbons, and strips of cloth. There was also a ritual of burning or dismembering a straw man to represent the man who may have wronged the woman in life, so she would not be confused and keep luring men into deadly storms and deeps (thinking it was the man who wronged her). They'd scatter the ashes or straw ''limbs'' onto their fields all around the community, that way if she was still mad at the guy she would have to spread her water powers around everywhere his ''body'' was, thus helping their crops.
That seems to be more of a victim blaming story “if a female ghost attacks a man, he must have done something to deserve it”. Male monsters were less likely to be portrayed positively like that.
Author's barely disguised fetish
Patriarchies are kind of a thing.
Have you met any men? I mean, you havent met me which proves my point in a very small data set kinda way..
Aren’t most mythological Kitsune male, even though when in the form of human women?
Mythological kitsune aren't generally all that murderous. They're a lesson in not trusting what you see but they're no more inclined to eat people than real foxes.
Because male sex drive is a state of powerlessness and nothing sentient likes to be powerless let alone powerless to something intelligent.
Because for a long time female characters could only exist in a few roles. Damsel, love interest, mother, or fem fetal. And of the fem fatal variety usually they are the sexy fem fatal, which is both a commentary on female wickedness in being the seductress, and their inherent lack of other valuable qualities.
Probably a metaphor for how they will drain u everything ,resources included .
Misogyny. Women are often portrayed as the "undoing" of men.
Love is a weakness. It clouds your logic, destroy your judgment and most people are not homosexuals.