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.

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.”

The myth appears for example in the second of the three sequences of founding Maori myths, where the hero, Māui, has to enter the goddess of night and death Hinenuitepo through her toothed vagina to try and pluck her heart, in an attempt to make mankind immortal. He fails and becomes the first man to die.

The legend also appears in the mythology of the Chaco and Guiana tribes. In some versions, the hero leaves one tooth.

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 popularized in the movie Teeth, starring Jess Weixler.