by Fall_Child42 » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:43 pm
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.
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.
