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Vagina DentataVagina dentata is Latin for toothed vagina. The myth of the vagina dentata in the Western world was popularized chiefly by Sigmund Freud, who found that it neatly meshed with his theories concerning castration anxiety. Freud bestowed this name on the phenomenon, inspired by a number of legends about women with vaginas which were supposed to contain teeth or other weapons, and with which they were supposed to be able to murder or castrate their sexual partners. The motif is contained in a number of myths from Asia, especially Southeast Asia, where various sorts of penis panic are endemic. Barbara Walker has speculated that this myth gave rise to the depiction of the opening of Hell as a giant mouth in medieval Europe. The tale is frequently told as a cautionary tale warning of the dangers of sex with strange women. An urban legend that circulated during the Vietnam War concerned Southeast Asian prostitutes who were supposed to have implanted glass knives or razor blades into their vaginas, which they used to injure GIs. Examples in popular culture and literature 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 lovers by extraterrestrials. Another example can be found in the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. In Snow Crash, the teenage Kourier Y.T. mentions several times (usually when she sees a sexually aroused man) that her "dentata" will protect her. It's clear that if she is to engage in consensual intercourse, she needs to take it out. But we don't get any details until late in the book, when she forgets to take it out: - "...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."
A brief mention of this myth is in Stephen King's book Christine. 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 witch girl claims to have a toothed 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 this in the books by Julian May set in the Pleistocene Era - The Many Coloured Land, The Golden Torc, etc. Some of the Firvulag females were so equipped. The web comic strip Queen of Wands included a musical tribute to the phenomenon. Toba-Pilaga and Mataco 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 Mataco myth. (Lvi-Strauss, 1975) Vaginas with actual teeth In rare instances, teeth may be found in a vagina. Dermoid cysts are formed from the outer layers of embryonic skin cells. These cells are able to mature into teeth, bones, or hair, and these cysts are able to form anywhere the skin folds inwards to become another organ, such as in the ear or the vagina. Source - Lvi-Strauss, Claude (1975). The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology: I (Le Cru et le Cuit), p.113-114. New York: Harper Colophon. Translated by Doreen and John Weightman.
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