Vagina dentata, is Latin for toothed vagina. Various cultures have folk tales about women with toothed vaginas, frequently told as cautionary tales warning of the dangers of sex with strange women.

Cultural basis

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 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.”

The myth expresses the threat sexual intercourse poses for men who, although entering triumphantly, always leave diminished.

The vagina dentata has proven a captivating image for many artists and writers, particularly among surrealist or psychoanalytic works. Although the myth is associated with the fear of castration, it is often falsely attributed to Sigmund Freud. 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 women once had a penis that is now absent. The vagina, then, is the result of castration, not the cause of it.

This myth has been popularized recently by its mention in a sequence from Neil Gaiman's bestselling novel American Gods, and by the film Teeth. The 1987 anime' Wicked City (film) also features a female character with vagina dentata, as does K.W. Jeter's novel Dr. Adder.

Anti-rape female condom

Main article: Anti-rape female condom

In 2005, inventor Sonette Ehlers introduced The Rapex, an anti-rape female condom which can be inserted into the vaginal canal like a diaphragm. The product is lined with microscopic barbs which attach to a rapist's penis and which must be surgically removed. In an article about the Rapex, Ehlers stated that she was inspired to invent the device after meeting a victim who told her, "If only I had teeth down there."

A somewhat similar device (referred to as a "dentata") that injects narcotics into the man's penis appears in the novel Snow Crash.

References

1. ^ Neumann, Erich; Translated by Ralph Manheim (1955). The Great Mother. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 168. 
2. ^ Ducat, Stephen J. (2004). The Wimp Factor. Boston: Beacon Press, 115-149. 
3. ^ Simon, B. (1991). Cambridge Companion to Freud: The development and vicissitudes of Freud's ideas on the Oedipus Complex. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
4. ^ Dixon, Robyn (September 2 2005). Controversy in South Africa over device to snare rapists. Retrieved on 2006-03-16.

See also

• Teeth (film) - 2007 Sundance film
• Kanamara Matsuri