A 15th-century witch-hunting manual called the Malleus Maleficarum claimed witches could magically steal men’s penises, leaving victims“smooth as a Ken doll”until they begged for forgiveness. The detail resurfaces online almost every time someone quotes it, and a new Cosmopolitan piece digs into where it came from and what historians actually think.
Spoiler: historians say it probably wasn’t literal. The legend looks like a metaphor for impotence and erectile dysfunction, wrapped in a witch panic that let men blame women for a very ordinary problem. TikTok historian @sapphael has been walking followers through the history, while a modern witch named Freya told Cosmo that energy manipulation could theoretically create phantom sensations, though she says she won’t be doing this kind of thing herself.
The real takeaway? Online spell-casting on platforms like Etsy is booming, and the article’s writer jokes that today’s curses have nothing on medieval drama. Folklore like this says less about magic and more about who gets blamed when things go wrong.
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.