origins
Chapter 1: The Origins of Asmodeus
The God of Desire, Power, and Indulgence
For centuries, men like us—men who love other men, who revel in desire, who refuse to apologize for our hunger—have been told that our passion is a sin.
We have been taught that sex should be restrained, that indulgence should be hidden, that pleasure is something to be ashamed of.
But this was not always so.
Before the rise of Christianity, before monotheism imposed its rules on the world, there were gods who celebrated lust, power, and indulgence.
And one of them was Asmodeus.
Before he was called a demon, before his name was twisted into a warning, he was a god—a force of nature, a guide to those who knew that desire was not a curse but a gift.
And for men like us, men who have spent too long being told to suppress what we are, he is a god worth reclaiming.
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Pre-Christian Depictions of Asmodeus
Most people today know Asmodeus only as a demon of lust, a tempter, a corruptor. But if we trace his origins, we find something very different.
His roots go back to ancient Persia, Mesopotamia, and early Semitic traditions—long before Christian fearmongering turned him into something wicked.
One of his earliest known forms was Aeshma-Daeva, a spirit of passion, rage, and indulgence from Zoroastrian belief.
Aeshma was not evil. He represented raw, primal desire—the kind that burns through the body, that ignites need and pleasure.
He was uncontrolled passion, a force that could lead to destruction if left unchecked, but one that could also be harnessed into something powerful.
He was, in many ways, the embodiment of what gay men have always known:
Desire is dangerous when it is repressed. But when it is embraced and mastered, it is divine.
Over time, Aeshma’s influence merged with other gods—particularly those associated with sex, indulgence, and sovereignty.
Some scholars suggest that he was connected to Ba’al, a Canaanite god of fertility and storms, whose name was also demonized by later religions.
Others draw parallels to Ishtar (Inanna), the goddess of love, war, and sacred sexuality, who was worshipped through ritualistic sex and unashamed indulgence.
In these early myths, desire was not feared—it was revered.
Asmodeus, or the figures that inspired him, would have stood alongside these deities—a god of men who did not just feel desire, but knew how to wield it.
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Asmodeus’s Role in Ancient Worship
In the pre-Christian world, gods of pleasure and passion were worshipped openly.
Lust, indulgence, and sex were not seen as dirty—they were expressions of something divine.
Temples were built where men could come together in ritual pleasure, where the act of sex itself was an offering, a form of worship.
Asmodeus, in his original form, was likely one of these gods—a figure invoked not in fear, but in reverence.
1. Asmodeus as a God of Gay Desire
He would have been a protector of those who embraced their urges instead of suppressing them.
His presence would have been felt in sacred spaces where men indulged without shame, where pleasure was an act of devotion.
He was a god of those who took, those who gave, those who ruled through the energy they commanded.
2. Asmodeus as a Guide to Power and Influence
Asmodeus as a Guide to Power and Influence
For as long as men have desired other men, we have been forced to navigate a world that demands restraint. But restraint is not power—mastery is.
Asmodeus was never a god of reckless indulgence. He was a god of command—of knowing when to take, when to hold back, and how to bend desire into something greater than instinct.
He did not demand blind obedience but taught that true power comes from understanding the forces of desire and wielding them with intent.
His followers would not have been weak-willed men lost in indulgence but masters of their own pleasure—men who knew how to shape the world through their presence, their confidence, and their control.
To worship him was not just to experience pleasure, but to understand it as a force of influence, as something that could be offered, withheld, and mastered.
This is what modern religion stole from us.
The idea that sex is more than physical. That attraction is more than biological. That there is a current of power running beneath it all, waiting to be shaped by those who know how to use it.
Asmodeus was once the god who taught men to harness that power.
And then the world turned against him.
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The Demonization of Asmodeus
When monotheistic religions took hold, gods of pleasure and indulgence were not forgotten—they were deliberately erased.
Asmodeus, once a god of lust and mastery, was rewritten into a warning.
In Jewish tradition, he appears in the Book of Tobit, recast as a jealous demon who torments a woman, preventing her from consummating her marriages.
In Christianity, he becomes one of the so-called Princes of Hell, ruling over lust and corruption.
In later occult traditions, he is invoked as a tempting force—a figure associated with sin rather than enlightenment.
But look closer.
These stories do not speak of a monster who ravages without purpose. They speak of a force that men feared because they could not control it.
What was once divine was made demonic. What was once worshipped was cast into darkness.
And the ones who suffered most from this shift?
Men like us.
Gay men, who had once gathered in temples, who had once been celebrated as sacred, were now seen as deviants.
Our desire was called unnatural. Our lust was labeled sinful. Our power—the power of attraction, of indulgence, of influence—was turned into something to be ashamed of.
But Asmodeus was never a demon to those who understood him.
He was the god of men who took pride in their pleasures. Who did not shrink from what they wanted. Who ruled through their presence and confidence, not through fear and guilt.
And now?
It is time to reclaim him.
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The Revival of Asmodeus
Asmodeus never vanished. His presence has always lingered in the spaces where men indulge freely, where pleasure is embraced without apology.
He is in the bars, the clubs, the hidden rooms where men still worship through touch and hunger.
He is in the ones who walk into a space and draw others toward them without speaking a word.
He is in every act of lust made sacred—in the moments when pleasure stops being just physical and becomes something more, something electric, something divine.
To reclaim Asmodeus is not to kneel before him.
It is to embody him.
To live without shame. To take without hesitation. To command without force.
This is what was stolen from us.
And now?
We are taking it back.
