Vagina dentata
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 and to discourage the act of rape.
The concept is also of importance in classical psychoanalysis, where it is held to relate to the unconscious fears associated with castration anxiety.
Cultural basis
The vagina dentata appears in the myths of several cultures. 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.”[1]
The myth appears for example in the second of the three sequences of founding Māori myths, where the hero, Māui, has to enter the goddess of night and death Hinenuitepo through her toothed vagina to try plucking her heart, in an attempt to make mankind immortal. He fails and becomes the first man to die.[citation needed]
The legend also appears in the mythology of the Chaco and Guiana [disambiguation needed] tribes. In some versions, the hero leaves one tooth.[2]
In his book, The Wimp Factor, Stephen J. Ducat expresses the view that these myths express the threat sexual intercourse poses for men who, although entering triumphantly, always leave diminished. The myth is also present in the movie Teeth, starring Jess Weixler.[3]
See also
- Teeth, a horror/black comedy film in which the protagonist has vagina dentata
- Snow Crash, a novel by Neal Stephenson in which one of the main characters (Y.T.) uses a rape defense device called a dentata
References
- ^ Neumann, Erich (1955). The Great Mother. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 168.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Leach, Maria (1972). "vagina dentata". Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend. entry by Erminie W. Voegelin. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 1152. ISBN 0308400909.
- ^ Ducat, Stephen J. (2004). jacinta curtis. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. 115–149.