Andrea Dworkin, Woman Hating (Dutton) 1974, pgs 134-139 :

"Here [in the context of witchcraft as defined by the inquisitors] the definition of woman, in common with the pornographic definition, is her carnality; the essence of her character, in common with the fairy-tale definition, is her malice and avarice. The words flow almost too easily in our psychoanalytic age: we are dealing with an existential terror of women...tied to a desire for self (phallic) control...

The evidence, provided by the Malleus and the executions which blackened those centuries, is almost without limit. One particular concern was that devils stole semen (vitality) from innocent, sleeping men -- seductive witches visited men in their sleep...

We see in the text of the Malleus not only the fear of loss of potency or virility but of the genitals themselves -- a dread of the loss of cock and balls. The reason for this fear can perhaps be located in the nature of the sex act per se: men enter the vagina hard, erect; men emerge drained of vitality, the cock flaccid..."



also Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: the Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Beacon) 1978., pg 188 (footnote):

"This anxiety of the witch-hunters [making male genitalia disappear] is understandable when we reflect upon the fact that the women they had in mind were mainly Spinsters and widows -- women free from invasion by the 'member', women who might even find the 'Male Organ' laughable, unaesthetic, and perhaps more importantly, uninteresting. We should not be surprised that such women today are often called 'castrating bitches'...."