Vagina dentata
The myth of the vagina dentata (Latin for toothed vagina) 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 GI's.
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 horny 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 for Raven:
- "...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 more bizarre version of the vagina dentata appears in artist H.R. Giger's designs for the titular creature from the film Alien.