Horny Devils - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Horny Devil

They'll come for you in the night...

O, father dear, I dreamed last night a man sat on me bed
And I fear, when I awoke I could not find my maidenhead.
- Fairport Convention, "Doctor of Physick"

Subtrope of Our Demons Are Different.

In myth and folklore, there is a group of demons who would stalk the night, searching for a victim, a victim that could very easily be you. And when they found you, they wouldn't eat you or tear you to shreds. Oh no, plenty of other monsters and demons have cornered the market on that. No, they would do something far more sinister. They would appear to you as a breathtakingly beautiful woman or handsome man.

And then they would have sex with you.

Not terrifying enough for you?

How about if sex was also their way of sucking out your lifeforce which would leave your body a dry husk, a literal shell of a man?

In a day when sexual lust was seen as something evil and to be ashamed of, the incubus and succubus were scary, sexy beasts. Incubus is the male variant, its name derived from the Latin in and cubo meaning "I lie on top." Succubus is the female variant, its name derived from the Latin sub and cubo meaning "I lie beneath." They are a popular type of demon to use in Speculative Fiction with each creator and author drawing from mythology and mixing it with their own flavor.

However, in order to be recognizable as incubi and succubi, they must follow a few baseline rules:
1. They have a supernatural sense of seduction.
2. They must feed through sexual contact.
3. They have to be incredibly attractive (or at least project that appearance to their victim).

Incubi and Succubi are almost always treated as a species or type of demon. Some stories actually make them a breed of vampire since they function similarly (vampires feed on blood for sustenance, incubi/succubi feed on sex for sustenance). But they are almost always evil. And you do not want to run in to them. No matter how hot they are and how lonely you are.

In some legends The Devil Himself changed shape to be both Incubus and Succubus. See, Old Scratch wants kids but can't produce human seed so he becomes a succubus, receives some sperm from a guy, turns into an incubus and passes it on to a woman. How this transmits satanic genes is a question not addressed as the theory was invented before Mendel's time, never mind Rosalind Franklin's.

The offspring of said demons and a human are either demonic infiltrators of humanity or basically mortals with mysterious powers. The legendary Merlin is sometimes said to be the offspring of an incubus and a nun. Incidentally, the above mythology went a long way to explaining away pregnant nuns in the Middle Ages without destroying their virtues. Better to be seen as the victim of demonic rape than a participant in consensual sex, one might suppose. (Admittedly, people took a VERY dim view of violating vows of celibacy back then.) Several cases of actual rape in politically tricky circumstances also appear to have been dealt with this way. Even more importantly, it explained why Merlin could use magic (which was satanic), but still be one of the good guys.

Compare the literal Out With A Bang and the less direct Death By Sex. See also Naughty Tentacles, which often goes hand (er... tentacle) in... I probably shouldn't mention it out loud... with this trope.

Examples

Anime and Manga

Mayu from Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun is the Cute Monster Girl type. Ironically, for a succubus, she has androphobia, which is a problem considering her inability to control her powers, particularly when stressed. The possibility of Shungo dying from Mayu involuntarily draining his life is used to keep him from going too far with her. Her incubus brother is pretty good-natured, too. Mind control (of the opposite sex) is included in the power set.
- Nearly all of the cast are in fact incubi/succubi. Confirmed are Mayu, her brother, Reika, Tasuku, Irori, and even Ryouko and Shungo although he does not need life energy.
Kurumu from Rosario To Vampire is also a Cute Monster Girl, but no androphobia. Before she joined Tsukune's Unwanted Harem and abandoned her evil ways, she was a Femme Fatale, actively seducing the school. Kurumu has the ability to create illusions and sprout wings and a tail, all of which come in handy on a few occasions.
The h-doujin (and presumably many more, it's an obvious theme) Some Freeloaders are Succubus features an incubus who lives off the "life energy" of his host. Given that it's an erotic story, you can probably guess how he does that.
The Hentai OVA Viper GTS stars three succubi and one incubus. They are Noble Demons, in contrast with the group of Knight Templar angels.
Len from the Tsukihime sequel Kagetsu Tohya is Really Seven Hundred Years Old... but she looks about twelve. True to her nature, she rapes the male protagonist during the first encounter. Then again, being on the Good side, she's always shown in a sympathetic light.
The Shikima from La Blue Girl and its sequels. While they dont kill you through sex (as far as i know) they do abduct humans to have lots and lots and lots of brutal sloppy sex with. And the main character is half shikima.
In Berserk, Slan of the Godhand is a sadomasochist who has a crush on Guts because she's Too Kinky To Torture, and in one scene tortures him while in sexual positions and voicing her pleasure. Also, the Apostle from the opening pages that has sex with men before turning into a demon and killing them.
One Piece has some fun with this when the skeletal pervert known as Brook ends up landing/crashing in the middle of a cult ceremony attempting to summon a demon to take revenge on their enemies. Hilarity Ensues...
My Balls. Yeah...
Horny Devils are a common theme of supernatural and horror themed Hentai.

Fan Fiction

Subverted in chapter 76 of Armageddon, where it's long since been discovered that succubi just operate using telepathy and pheromones... leaving them perfectly vulnerable once it's discovered and countermeasures such as air filtration against the pheromones are used. Instead of her getting her way, the succubus Lugasharmanaska is unpleasantly surprised when President George W. Bush (yes, that George W. Bush) actually uses the infamous "with us or against us" line on her, revealing that "we" knew all along about her attempts to play Earth against Hell and vice versa and only let her do so as long as it suited "them"... and before separately showing the queen of the succubi that he's as immune to her too. (Perhaps hilariously, this scene comes close to painting him as a Magnificent Bastard who'd pretended to be a dunce for quite some time. Then again, he's got quite the stacked deck in his favor.)

Comic Books

French comicist Francois Marcela Froideval has the hots for succubi (who doesn't?). They appear in many of his comic series, including {{666}}, Les Chroniques de la lune noire (Black Moon Chronicles) and the aptly titled Succubus.
Gold Digger has the Raksasha act this way partially by necessity. As Shapeshifting demons that drain magic energy, they have to physically exhaust their prey to feed (the process tickles, and wiggling prey can't be drained). This can be done through combat or... well, you know...
Satana is the Devil's daughter in Marvel Comics, and a succubus who feeds on human souls.
XX Xenophile Presents had two installments of the erotic story of an incubus who is thoroughly benign, happily married to a human woman and went public as an intellectual author to present an alternative view of Hell and its occupants. As such sex with him is completely harmless and as such he is continually pestered by the neighboring women in his suburb. Even though he often gives in and indulges them, his wife has no problem with it considering he never neglects her desires as well.
- In a different chapter, a demoness who is tied to a particular family attempts to interfere with a pair of newlyweds (one of whom is from the family in question), hoping to prevent them from ever consummating their marriage and siring an heir... but the demoness is 1. somewhat backward (she is rather surprised by the concepts of both birth control and sex before marriage) and 2. extremely pent-up (her entire existence is based around interrupting sex, so she's got years of "dirty thoughts" built up in her head). The couple invites her to join in the wedding night, and she quite happily agrees.

Film

The Witches Of Eastwick: Daryl van Horne. Just your basic horny little devil.
In the film Conan The Barbarian, Conan has sex with a succubus. Although it could be said she was a witch or sorceress instead. In any case, she starts changing into something not human during the act.
The 2007 Beowulf portrays Grendel's mother as one of these. With high-heeled feet.
The film Grim Prairie Tales features a story about a man that meets a young pregnant woman on the lonely plains. They talk, get to know one another, and eventually curl up by the fire. The man is awakened in the night by the woman, no longer pregnant, achingly beautiful, and begging for sex. He goes to work, only to be sucked into her stomach through the vagina, making her pregnant once again as she begins to digest him.

Literature

In The Dresden Files, they are a type of vampire: the Black and Red Courts are the ones we're used to and a Jade Court has been hinted at, but the White Court feeds on lust through sex instead of the blood-drinking of the other Courts (and some feed on other emotions, such as fear.) Instead of suffering from the standard vampire Kryptonite Factor, The Power Of Love is their holy water, and they feel pain if they even touch someone who is in True Love™. They're all Even The Guys Want Him-level hot, of course. The Dresden Files being what it is, though, all aren't evil, and one, Thomas Raith, has recently become a main character.
Parodied in the Discworld story ~~Faust~~ Eric, where we hear of a lonely old demonologist who wanted to conjure up a succubus but only ever managed a Neuralgia, "A demon what comes and has a headache at you," as the talking parrot puts it.
The Dark Tower features "demons" of both sexes, typically tied down to stone circles. With strong enough will, copulation can be a bargaining chip.
- It also portrays one of the rarer examples up above: The same demon takes Roland's seed in one book, and impregnates Susannah with it in another.
Mack the half-demon from Tales Of MU is widely speculated to have been fathered by an incubus (and by extension, to be half-succubus herself, though she feeds on virgin blood rather than sex).
- Actually, she doesn't only feed on blood, she can eat (If she wanted to) souls and body parts. See the chapter "Girly Fight", with the subtitle "In which Mackenzie gets the finger". Literally. Virgin fingers are candy to her.
The novel If I Pay Thee not in Gold, has the seed passing type. In addition, the character is both succubus and incubus, but can only switch by having sex.
Though technically not a demon herself, recent novels of the Anita Blake series changed the titular character's power structure to this; originally only being a small-time witch and big-time Necromancer, her powers have stretched to unknown limits, she requires several bouts of sex each day to replenish her magic reserves and to unlock new powers, and it's almost impossible for you to resist her if she's determined to get it. Wall Banger material, at its finest. In a couple different ways, evidently.
The webfiction Kumiko The Demon Girl featured a demon who looks like the classical succubus as the Magical Girlfriend of the main character. Slightly averted in that demons in this world feed by ripping out the souls of their target and consuming them (killing the subject in question) but Kumiko decides to allow Ken (the protagonist) the chance to at least not die a virgin and finds that sex is not only enjoyable, but allows her to consume his soul in smaller chunks.
Though D&D based, the Drizzt Do'Urden novels generally stay away from the more sensual fiends (see below). However, during Wulfgar's years-long imprisonment in the Abyss, he was raped several times by succubi, who would sometimes have children by him—which were then eaten alive by his captor while he was forced to watch. Now that is Chaotic Evil.
- Speaking of Drow, there is a disturbing subversion involving priestess of Lloth, and demons that aren't humanoid and can't shapeshift to show their devotion to the goddess. As if it wasn't already clear Lloth is bat shit insane.
Lamia the Velvet from the novel Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is a classic succubus. She seems sweet, until she kisses the main character and he begins to turn into an icicle.
- While we're on the subject of Neil Gaiman, let's not forget what happened in American Gods.
In Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, Our Hero goes on his honeymoon which is interrupted by an incubus/succubus pretending to be a brother/sister pair (only one demon). The Power Of Love triumphs in the end (and the fact that Our Hero is a werewolf).

Live Action TV

Giles specifically mentioned that succubi and incubi should be drawn to the Hellmouth when he was explaining the Hellmouth in the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but oddly we never see any.
- Shortly after her introduction, Tara sneakily disrupted a "locate demons" spell Willow was casting, which led to months of online speculation that she might be a succubus. Er... incubus? Hm... stupid heteronormative demonology terms...
The alien in the Torchwood episode "Day One" has all the markings of a traditional succubus, though as it gets more despereate it seems to trade seduction for violent rape.
Marleena in Reaper. She's one of the good demons, or at least one of the demons trying to be good.
One appears in Charmed and Prue changes into a man to lure her.
Though not actually a demon, the shapeshifting/illusionist salt vampire in an early Star Trek The Original Series episode uses seduction, appearing as someone's "ideal lover", as its most reliable trick.
In The Middle Man, fashion mogul Roxy Wasserman and her staff are all reformed succubi and incubi.

Mythology

Lilith of ancient Mesopotamian/Jewish mythology, who went on to mother an entire race of demons and makes this Older Than Dirt.

Tabletop Games

Andrealphus' demons in In Nomine Satanis and its English adaptation, In Nomine. Interestingly, Eli's angels in In Nomine can also power up by having sex. Also, all Impudites can suck out your soul from any friendly contact, including sex.
In the "3.5" edition of Dungeons And Dragons, succubi and incubi are the same creature, and may change shape to suit themselves. They are tanar'ri demons, but as demons go aren't too terribly powerful in combat. They have a more powerful "variant", lillitus (the name obviously derived from Lilith). As demons, they are Always Chaotic Evil.
- Well... almost always. Fall-From-Grace, an NPC from Planescape: Torment, was a Lawful Neutral and chaste succubus priestess (and an agnostic priestess at that), who ran the Brothel For Slaking Intellectual Lusts [emphasis added]. Her cadre of "prostitutes", all very lovely in their own way (though some in a very...nonhuman fashion), can be called upon to stimulate their patrons' intellect, ranging from playing chess or debating the finer points of governmental policies to storytelling or verbally abusing you. Fall-From-Grace had been sold to devils (demons' mortal enemies, as they are Lawful Evil) by her mother as a slave, but won her freedom by winning a contest that required improvisation. PS:T uses AD&D Second Edition rules, but succubi were in the second edition, too, and just as Always Chaotic Evil.
- Speaking of devils, the baatezu have their own versions of succubi. However, erinyes (which look like, for lack of a better term, beautiful female emo angels) are more powerful and capable warriors than succubi, noted for their skill with bows. Erinyes also have an "upgrade", that being brachinas, devils whose duty it is to use seduction to lure worshippers of good deities away from their faith, though they'll gladly "torment" anyone. Brachinas possess a contact poison that affects the mind; in game terms, it deals Wisdom damage, making a person more susceptible to seduction and a less powerful divine caster.
- Fourth Edition has made succubi into devils—the new lore is that more human-looking fiends are all devils, and more monstrous-looking fiends are all demons. Further, without the Lawful Evil / Chaotic Evil distinction, there is no real need for both a succubus and an erinyes; there are none of the latter detailed in the first Monster Manual.
  - Another reason is that in 4th ed, angels are not automatically good. They have the same alignment as their gods, and don't look as human-like as they did in previous editions. It makes the concept of the Erinyes - who was a fallen angel - redundant when there's actual evil angels running (well floating, as they have no more legs) around.
  - And people wonder why we cried They Changed It Now It Sucks.
The first edition of the Vampire: the Masquerade supplement entitled A World of Darkness (published 1992) includes a type of being called a Hengeyokai Cat that is based on Japanese legends, specifically the animal form of Youkai. These beings are born feline but can take any human form, and seduce humans for their Ki or life force.
Slaaneshi Daemonettes in Warhammer and Warhammer 40000.

Video Games

Morrigan and Lilith in Darkstalkers (shown in the picture above).
Castlevania uses them both as regular monsters in several games and as named bosses with flirty energy-draining attacks in Symphony of the Night, Lament of Innocence and the recent remake of Rondo of Blood. The last one is the hero's girlfriend if you fail to save her.
City Of Heroes features them as a minor enemy class under the Circle of Thorn. They're actually quite feared, due to their hard-to-block ability to confuse PC's into attacking each other... of course, considering that they mainly appear in City Of Villains (with its Character Class reliant on its minions - that all go berserk if the master is confused), some consider this to be more of a perk than a problem...
Diablo has an army of succubi in, well, Diablo, and his brother Baal's personal harem is unleashed in Lord of Destruction, the expansion to the sequel.
The Succubus and Incubus monsters from Lost Kingdoms II (and they even get a card combo when used together).
Nevan in Devil May Cry 3 is never outright referred to as such... but she's topless (her hair covers her breasts), she announces her attacks like she's propositioning you ("Are you enjoying yourself?"), and one of her attacks involves embracing Dante and sucking the life out of him - which heals her, too. If she isn't a succubus (albeit a lightning succubus that transforms into an electric guitar that shoots bats), your guess is as good as anyone's. Adding to this theory is that the conversation before and briefly after Dante defeats her resembles verbatim what you'd hear at a whorehouse.
- She could be a vampire, you know, what with the bats and all.
  - Morrigan and Lillith from Darkstalkers (see above) have bats too. They're Succubi. And since both games are made by Capcom, calling Nevan a Succubus is a pretty safe bet.
Succubi are featured as a monster class in Disgaea.
- In the storyline, Etna and Hanako are both considered Succubi; however, Etna is treated as humanoid, while Hanako is considered a monster like generic Succubi.
- These are more or less carried over from La Pucelle. In fact, Priere, the protagonist of La Pucelle, has herself become a Horny Devil Bonus Boss. Scroll about halfway down this page to see the Succubus.
The Succubi from War Craft
In World Of Warcraft, warlocks of 20th level or higher can learn how to summon a Succubus as a minion, using the hearts of pure men to entice her from her home plane. From what this troper has seen of such minions, they clearly enjoy being spanked.
- To put a bit of a twist on it, the majority of demons in the Warcraft universe are described in a tie-in novel as being not particularly libidinous. Some, if anything, are prudes. Which makes succubi something of an anomaly.
Nethack: Foocubi (the Nethack term for incubi/succubi of the opposite sex of the player, which is both a pun on the metasyntactic variable "foo" and a fairly obvious Double Entendre) can strip the player naked and ... you know. This intercourse gives the player a semi-randomly chosen benefit/penalty which may include a power boost, making "foocubus dancing" a popular sport.
In Heroes Of Might And Magic V, Succubi are ranged attackers for the Inferno faction. While they act the part, only their alternative promotion in the second expansion actually have the ability to seduce enemies.
The Elder Scrolls features the oddly named "Daedric Seducers." They were only found in Daggerfall, the second game, and the Gaiden Game Battlespire, but Oblivion's Expansion Pack introduced the Dark Seducers, Expys of the Daedric Seducers (This editor thinks that Dark Seducers are ugly as sin, though, what with their grape juice-coloured skin.)
- The Dark Seducers are also not very seductive, unless you count the fact that they're all clad in bikini armor.
  - Note that they never refer to themselves as Dark Seducers, according to the in-game information it's a name the people of the Shivering Isles made up for them based on their appearance - same with the Golden Saints, who act nothing but a saint and more like arrogant Knight Templars. So, technically, they're not Horny Demons.
God Hand had Shannon, who's an arguable parody.

Webcomics

Sabine in Order Of The Stick. Subverted in that she has a healthy relationship with a human man. (As healthy as things can be in this case, and looking over the fact that they're both evil. And. Well. It's kept healthy by human sacrifices.)
Most of the female demons in the webcomic Krakow have jobs as succubi. In a subversion of the typical morality of succubi, most of them aren't that evil, and Case (human) and Kia (succubus) have a happy relationship and recently got married.
Another webcomic example: There's two incubi and one succubus among the main cast of DMFA. Furry ones. Not to mention a rather prolific race of Cubi, with their own Elaborate University High. This comic being PG, the Cubi (mainly) feed on emotions instead.
Return to Eden has this, only it's viewed as a curse on the demon that they have to feed that way.

Western Animation