What is spectrophilia?
Spectrophilia is the sexual attraction to ghosts or images seen in mirrors.
Spectrophilia can also include the supposed phenomenon of sexual encounters with ghosts and the living. These alleged encounters obviously cannot be verified and should be met with a certain level of skepticism. But who can say what is real to someone else? Many people have claimed such encounters, and artists of all kinds have created art to explore the concept.
Many legends and ghost stories include an act of seduction. Much paranormal literature, vampires being an obvious example, have attraction between humans and the (un)dead as a primary theme. In many instances, the encounter is nonconsensual and negative. There are instances, like the legend of La Llorona (Episode 12), where female ghosts lure men to their deaths. In such succubus encounters an evil spirit takes female form and seduces and drains men from their energy. An incubus is the male counterpart to a succubus, where an evil spirit takes male form and seduces women with the goal of impregnating them. A mare, in European folklore, is another example of this type of seducing evil.
Sometimes spectrophilia is associated with sleep paralysis, where people experience seeing or feeling an evil spirit in the room with them.
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The theme is often explored in pop-culture in films like Scary Movie 2 (2001), The Entity (1982), and Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 7). Even the Phantom of the Opera has spectrophilic elements. In my newest novel, Soul Breather, there’s an unwanted sexual encounter with a demon.
Despite there not being any solid evidence for the phenomena, many people throughout the centuries have claimed to have had an encounter. It’s been theorized that hallucination encounters of this type are due to repressed sexual frustrations.
As a writer, I’m most interested in the application of spectrophilia in fiction. But the idea of an actual encounter is absolutely terrifying.
What are your thoughts on spectrophilia?
