Vagina dentata

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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. It is implicitly mentioned in the film, Clerks 2, in which a character claims he can't have sex with his girlfriend because she says she has "a troll that lives down there" that would bite off his penis if he did. The device is explicitly referenced in Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash.

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.

Although this 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.^{[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.

1 Anti-rape female condom
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] 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."^[2]

[edit] See also

Vagina dentata in popular culture

[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 March 16, 2006.