Vagina dentata

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some information in this article or section has not been verified and may not be reliable.
Please check for any inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed.

Vagina dentata is Latin for toothed vagina.

The vagina dentata appears in the myths of several cultures, most notably in several North American Indian tribes. Erich Neumann relays one such myth in which “A meat-eating fish inhabits the vagina of the Terrible Mother; the hero is the man who overcomes the Terrible Mother, breaks the teeth out of her vagina, and so makes her into a woman.” ^[1]

The vagina dentata has proven a captivating image for many artists and writers, particularly among surrealist or psycho-analytic works.

The myth expresses the threat sexual intercourse poses for men who, although entering triumphantly, always leave diminished. There may also be parallels between the myth and ancient marriage laws that protected women as the property of a man. To this day in several parts of the world if a man is caught raping a woman he is punished by castration.^{[citation needed]}

Although this myth obviously relates to the fear of castration, it is false to attribute it to Sigmund Freud as many have done. Freud never mentions the term in any of his psychoanalytic work and it runs counter to his own ideas about castration. For Freud the vagina signifies the fear of castration because the young (male) child assumes that the woman used to have a penis and now does not. For Freud the vagina is the result of castration, not the cause of it.^{[citation needed]}

Barbara Walker has speculated that this myth gave rise to the medieval European depiction of the opening of Hell as a giant mouth. The tale is frequently told as a cautionary tale warning of the dangers of sex with strange women.

The origin of the myth may be the rare occurence where cysts will form and within those cysts teeth can be found. Or bits of bone that have formed resembling teeth.

1 Anti-rape condom
2 Examples in popular culture and literature
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Anti-rape condom

In 2005, inventor Sonette Ehlers unveiled the "rapex", an anti-rape female condom the inside of which is lined with microscopic barbs that hook onto the rapist's penis and can only be removed surgically. In an article about the Rapex condom, Ehlers says that she was inspired to invent the device after meeting a victim who told her "If only I had teeth down there."^[2]

[edit] Examples in popular culture and literature

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

One adaptation of this myth within a Western context comes from the motion picture Liquid Sky, in which one of the protagonists is said to have been given the power to kill her sexual partners by extraterrestrials.
On an episode of Saturday Night Live's popular sketch Wayne's World, Wayne (Mike Myers), returns a sarcastic remark made by a female guest with a comment about her "major vagina dentata!"
An example can be found in the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. In Snow Crash, the teenage girl "Y.T." mentions several times (usually when she sees a man sexually aroused by her) that her "dentata" will protect her from rape. It's clear that if she is to engage in consensual intercourse, she needs to take it out. Late in the book, when she forgets to take it out, it is revealed that the dentata is a tiny device that incapacitates anyone who succeeds in penetration:

"...a very small hypodermic needle slipped imperceptibly into the engorged frontal vein of his penis, automatically shooting a cocktail of powerful narcotics and depressants into his bloodstream."

Mentioned in the book "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons, when a protagonist has sexual intercourse with his lover, who slowly morphs into the bladed demon known as "The Shrike".
An urban legend that circulated during the Vietnam War concerned prostitutes who, working with the Viet Cong, were supposed to have implanted glass knives or razor blades into their vaginas, which they used to injure GIs (however, see above).
In Yoshiaki Kawajiri's Yoju Toshi (known in English as Wicked City), the hero narrowly avoids castration when the Spider Woman demon attempts to take a bite during a bout of sex.
In Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods a young African girl prevents a rape by claiming to be a witch with a toothed vagina. At another point a prostitute is revealed to be a god when she envelops a man's entire body in her vagina.
A more bizarre version of the vagina dentata appears in artist H.R. Giger's designs for the titular creature from the film Alien.
There is also a depiction of it in the books by Julian May set in the Pliocene epoch (The Saga of Pliocene Exile) in which the Firvulag females were so equipped.
A character encounters a vagina dentata up close and personal in K. W. Jeter's novel Dr. Adder.
The web comic strip Queen of Wands included a musical tribute (sung to the tune of Hakuna Matata) to the phenomenon.^[3]
In the South American Indian Toba-Pilaga myth of "the origin of women", a group of women with toothed vaginas appear from the sky and steal the men's meat from their roofs, though eventually the men "get the better of the toothed vaginas", as do the men in a similar Wichí myth.^[4]
Vagina dentata is a recurring theme throughout the novel "Christopher Unborn" by Carlos Fuentes, including the state of Mexico surgically implanting jewel-encrusted teeth into the vagina of a young girl chosen to be the country's new iconic figurehead. Later in the novel a suitor successfully couples with her by wearing a wooden condom.
In the popular list of "50 REASONS WHY RETURN OF THE JEDI SUCKS" on the internet, the 50th and final reason is "The Sarlaac Pit as Freud's Vagina Dentate".^[5]
In the South Park episode "Red Hot Catholic Love", when Father Maxi asks why the Catholics must molest children, it is revealed that there exists a sect of Catholicism composed of aliens, and that the females of the alien species have a vagina "three feet wide and lined with thousands of razor-sharp teeth" making sexual intercourse with them extremely unpleasant.
In Russell Hoban's novel Riddley Walker, the mythical personification of death is characterized as the female "Auntie" with "teef between her legs".
In Josh Zmijewski's book, A Scale Of Stars, there is a race of females who use their vulvas to feed on the external genitals of males of other species, by some accounts even consuming some of their internal organs, such as prostate and bladder, if they are particularly hungry, as well. Their victims are also infected with a stem cell-like retrovirus during the feeding which causes them to grow replacement female organs, including a uterus and breasts, afterward. It was implied that the victims once also developed vagina dentata themselves, but now simply become ordinary females.
In David Lynch's film Blue Velvet, the camera pans to and fixes on an object resembling a vagina dentata. The object hangs near a bed on an otherwise empty bedroom wall.
In Blade Trinity Hannibal King (portrayed by Ryan Reynolds) jokingly states that one of the female vampires has her vampiric fangs in her vagina.
In the Genome novel by Sergey Lukyanenko, it is implied that the female protagonist Kym has a vagina dentata body modification and uses it in the conclusion of the book to incapacitate the antagonist.
In Clerks II, the character of Elias tells Randal Graves that his girlfriend has a little troll in her vagina named "Pillow Pants", and another in her mouth named "Lister Fiend". Elias believes that these trolls will bite off anything that he puts into her vagina or mouth prior to her 21st birthday, a very likely reference to the myth of vagina dentata. The normally jaded and unshockable Randal is visibly dismayed by Elias' statement.

[edit] References

^ Neumann, Erich, Translated by Ralph Manheim (1955). The Great Mother. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 168.
^ Dixon, Robyn (September 2 2005). Controversy in South Africa over device to snare rapists. Retrieved on 2006-03-16.
^ Aeire (January 21 2004). Queen of Wands. Retrieved on 2006-03-16.
^ Lévi-Strauss, Claude, Translated by Doreen Weightman and John Weightman (1975). The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology: I (Le Cru et le Cuit). New York: Harper Colophon, 113-114.
^ Vebber, Dan (May 15 2001). 50 REASONS WHY RETURN OF THE JEDI SUCKS. Retrieved on 2006-03-16.