September 26, 2011 • 25 mins
People have been talking about vaginas with teeth for ages, and folktales about vagina dentata can be found across the globe. But why? Join Caroline and Cristen as they explore the psychology behind vagina dentata, castration anxiety and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?
From house Stop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. Today's episode is
(00:21):
dedicated to one Molly Edmonds. Before she parted ways with
uh with Steffon Never Told You, she requested a very
specific topic, Vagina didn Tata. She recently watched the movie Teeth,
which I have yet to see. I know, I really
want to see it, um and she thought that for
(00:43):
any of you out there who have seen Teeth, she
said that it was an interesting take on not only
the myth of a Gina da tata, but also on
female sexual empowerment, so I really need to see. But
although she did warn that, like I think, inside of
the IMDb page or the Wikipedia page totally gives way
the entire plot lines, so don't don't look it up
that way. Uh So, of course, if Molly requests a podcast,
(01:07):
we gotta do it right doing it and we're going
to talk about vagina dentata today because little did I
know that it is one of the most pervasive folklore
myths across the world. Yeah, it's been found in India,
Asia and Native American cultures. It's been found everywhere. And
I think I think that just goes to show that
(01:27):
a lot of people have been afraid of women for
a very long time. Is female sexuality? This is the ultimate.
This episode really sums up the ultimate, um fear of
the unleashing of female sexuality and the of course the
castration anxiety that we'll get into. I mean, this is
it's gonna be a good one, Caroline, right, I know
we're going to cover a lot of ground. So where
(01:49):
where should we start? Um, Well, we can start with
some recounting of the myths. Oh yeah, we got a
lot of We got a lot of folklore and myths. Yeah,
and uh. In nineteen nineteen, they were talking they've been
talking about vagina dentata for a long time. This is
not I mean it was, of course, it's it's taboo.
It's a taboo myth, but you know, they've been talking
about it for a while. In nineteen nineteen, the Journal
(02:12):
of American Folklore recounted the Chippewa myth of vagina dentata. Basically,
a young woman's husband's kept dying. She kept getting remarried,
and they just kept dying, and so eventually a new
husband he was he was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna
figure this out why they keep dying. So of course
he marries her, which you know, I don't know. So
they start to have sex and he forces a stone
(02:35):
inside of her, and here's this terrible scraping sound. And
when he checked the stone he found snake teeth on it.
So naturally the elders of the tribe killed the girl
and found a huge snake inside of her. Yeah, the
thing is this, like the snakes inside of vagina's comes
up a lot in the mention of maybe the teeth
in in the vagina and the vagina dentata, which obviously
(02:57):
we should probably go ahead and say that translated from
the Latin is vaginal teeth if you haven't already put
that together, toothed toothed vagina um. And yeah, this this idea,
the symbolism of snakes comes up a lot, and it's
also related to Medusa. Right. A lot of researchers compare
the snakes on her head not only as little vagina
(03:19):
dentata you know, in themselves, but also her mouth, so
like the snakes would be her pubic hair and her
mouth would be the scary va vagina dent tata, so
much symbolism. And then following up in ninety three we
have the British Journal of Medical Psychology publishing research UM
about the Bega tribe in India that has a similar
(03:39):
tale to the one we just talked about with the
chipoy uh There was a Brahmin and his attractive daughter
who were begging at a house and once everyone wanted
to sleep, the girl snuck off to steal cucumbers little
image relic imagery UM. But the Biga caught her enforced
her to have sex, but the teeth and her vagina
(04:03):
castrated him and then his sister in law of this rapist. Basically,
Um convinced the girl to reattach the penis and he
was able to pull her the teeth out with a
string and eventually they fell in love and ran off
together happily over because he was able to tame the
woman team and the ending of all of these myths,
(04:25):
I mean, they're all so similar. They all have this
hero figure who comes in uh is He's like, I'm
not going to fall for this. You know the thing
that all these other men have fallen for. I'm gonna
figure out what's going on. I'm gonna get these teeth out.
It gets the teeth out, and then you know they
usually get married and everything. Yeah, the tribe becomes happier
and harmonious like this, this woman with her rank, that sexuality, like,
(04:49):
we really need to get those teeth out. Let's get
those teeth out. And the folklore scholars refer to that
male hero figure as the super phallic male, and a
lot of times he'll have there's there's a lot of
imagery with either. This comes up a lot in um
Native American folklore of wooden penises or stone penises that
(05:10):
they will forcibly insert into these um you know, sexually
wanted women to break the teeth thereby taming their sexual right.
And this comes up in the Hopie myth of the
gymsun Weed Girls, which is actually a band somewhere um Um.
The gyms and weed girls are linked to the idea
(05:31):
of a tooth vagina because the actual Gympson weed is
a prickly rank smelling plant um and basically the women
in the tail are anthropomorphized Gimpson weeds. That represent over sexed,
unmarried women. How scandalous who capture men and torture them,
um with the teeth and their vagina, And of course
(05:53):
this too ends with the women being tricked and the
teeth being broken. And in this case it was penises
were used and then they were copulated to death is
a quote. Yeah, Well then, um, it's not always the
teeth in the vagina. The vagina dentata that has shares
this exact um symbolism, but also also teeth in the
(06:17):
mouth have a lot of loaded meanings in folklore, um,
such as with the the Binga tribe in Australia, they
would equate the loss of teeth in a man with
phallic loss. And then you have the same kind of
symbolism in New Guinea and Africa. And I think that
you mentioned, Caroline that the Vega tribe in India is
(06:38):
they have genetic links to right. Yeah. When I was
reading the whole the whole myth about the Vega tribe
and the Brahmen and begging and cucumbers, um, the Vega
are actually related genetically to very closely to the Aboriginal
people in Australia, so that I mean that's interesting in
and of itself. Yeah, And in the study UM examining
(06:58):
the psychoanalysis behind all of this folklore, the scholar points
out that these kinds of miss I mean there, they
really are everywhere and that was the most fascinating thing
to me is a cross cultural motif. And um, when
it comes to psychoanalysis, the question is, you know, are
these um are these miss is this folklore? Does it
(07:21):
go back to um a fear a male protective origin,
which is basically a fear of men, you know, someone
coming along and lopping off their penis, or is it
a fear rooted in the regenerative power of female sexuality
in which they will be symbolically castrated via intercourse Because
(07:42):
they've also compared the notion of Jina Dentata and intercourse. Um.
As you know, the hero journey into the underworld right
that you see in a lot of like Greek mythology, right,
and and uh the gates of Hell that tossed around
lot of these articles that we read, UM that yeah,
(08:03):
a man is is entering the gates of hill and
comes out diminished, just you know, because of very metaphorical
and I think at this point we got to talk
about Freud. Yeah, well, yes, yes, the giant psychology elephant. Yes, um,
now you mentioned, uh, the common symbolism between mouths and
(08:24):
vaginas and all the teeth they're in, and Freud basically
said that in the unconscious opposites are equal. So in
a lot of these myths you have women devouring men
or or eating their hearts or like vampires even um,
and that is sort of tied into the vagina dent
(08:44):
tata myth because teeth ripping, evil, blood, gore sex. Yeah,
so it's all kind of equated and the whole the
whole idea of castration anxiety. And I also found it,
um really fascinating that among all of this vagina un
tata full clore, there's the notion that the clitterests is
actually the remaining tooth from uh, from the vagina and
(09:09):
taught of the last tooth that hung out I guess
after the rest were either forcibly removed or poked out
with a wooden wooden penis um. Which is kind of
interesting that they would that you would be quite that
the pleasure center of the female body with that kind
of frightful aggression and destruction and um, one scholar explained
(09:32):
it as symbolizing the perceived insatiability of female sexuality, and
it also links into the whole mythology around breaking the hymen,
which we've talked about in a primary prior episode. Um.
And if you you know, once once that happens, and
once the girl quote unquote loses her virginity, then I
(09:52):
mean all hell will break loose for for men on earth. Chris,
and you talked about women's you know, insatiable lust that meant,
you know, they were afraid of, and it kind of
ties into this Aztec tale of serpent hunters and dear ladies. Um. Basically,
these these hunters were after some deer who ended up
turning into women, and one of the women, with her teeth,
(10:16):
tore open the chest of one of the serpent gods
and ate his heart. So that ties into the whole
vagina dentata, teeth, eating of heart instruction of this instruction
of mint exactly. Well, the remaining hunter and the remaining
dear lady get together and she kind of becomes his
goddess or something along those lines. Anyway, Right after that,
(10:37):
so she's become his goddess, he goes off to make
war and um. The author says that this is an
elaborate displacement of masculine anxiety from the female sexuality which
generates it, to the battlefield where it is enacted, and
then to the temple ritual where it is the peas
and fire and blood. And what they're talking about is how, uh,
(10:58):
you know, battle was waged to get people to sacrifice,
so it's appeasing this goddess who's like, I gotta kill everybody.
So it's like, if she can't have the sex, then
you gotta make make the war. Make the war either
either blood or or less, and in this case both
um uh yeah. I just like it might seem kind
(11:20):
of hokey at this point to be talking about, you know, today,
to be talking about vagina dent Tata. When I saw
previews for the movie Teeth, for instance, it was kind
of hilarious, like, oh, horror movie about vagina dent Tata.
That's that's cooky. But when you trace back all of
this folklore and not only you know how, and the
(11:42):
number of cultures that it shows up in and how
far back it goes, it kind of does make you
wonder whether or not it did lay some kind of
foundation for you know a lot of the archaic gender
roles that we talk about and sort of blocking off
like women's sexuality as a way to I don't know.
(12:02):
I don't want to say keep us down because that
sounds so so victims keep victimized. But um, well, I
mean there is there are psychologists who talk about the
divisions between men and women and how we are you know,
we're either from Mars or Venus, and we're scared of
each other. Um. In his blog for Psychology Today, forensic
psychologist Stephen Diamond argues that men and women harbor a
(12:23):
deep seated primordial fear of the opposite sex, primordial so
that we've always had it. But see that's also okay,
so Young also said Carl Young also said that boys
develop this feminine fear in order to establish their own ego,
like they have to break away from their mother. But
see all this stuff freud young, Mr Diamond, with all
(12:44):
due respect, I mean also breaking down Uh this this
male female you know then are scared of getting their
penis is lopped off by women also kind of negates
the whole concept of gender as a fluid spectrum. That's okay, know,
we can't forget about that. So I think. You know,
(13:04):
obviously all of these myths and the notions behind them
are extremely out dated, but um, they still persist in
This was the craziest example that came up actually in
a couple of um sources that we found were examples
of vaginadn taught a symbolism in mass culture today, such
(13:25):
as the movie Jaws. Oh yeah, I wonder if still
were if that ever occurred to him. Yeah, it was
just supposed to be a female. Was Jaws a female shark? Shoot?
I don't know, I don't know, but it did come
up a number of times like this is this gaping?
Uh too? Female? I don't know. I know they had
a lot of problems getting the shark to work during
the movie. Um, but here's the question though, in medical history,
(13:49):
I mean, can can vaginas grow teeth? That's a crazy,
silly kind of question to ask, I know, but they can.
So you can grow them on other parts of your
body too. It's not just her vagina, don't worry. So
you might be one of the lucky ones who gets
a tooth in the eyebrow. So let's back up a
little bit. Yeah, I'm so shifting gears from uh, psychobabble
(14:14):
to um medical, the physical, from the mind to the body.
Vaginal dermoid cysts. It's probably the closest that we physically
can get to vagina, dn'tata right, Yeah, in Dr Dean
Edel wrote in his blog about a kind ofcologist in
Virginia who actually spotted some teeth in a vagina. And
(14:37):
you know this could come as a surprise, you're not
expecting it. Well, yeah, they weren't like, they weren't like
ringed around, they weren't chomping, right, they weren't cheering or talking.
They were not like a full row of pearly wife. Right,
it's just like a tooth here there. They didn't have
they didn't have braces. No, the cavities. Um, what he
saw was actually a dermoid cyst. And these are derived
(15:00):
from the outer layers of embryonic skin and are actually
capable of growing hair, teeth, bones, And like I said,
they can occur anyway, yeah, And I mean they typically
will happen on um. They'll grow inside on the face,
inside your skull, on your lower back, and in the ovaries. Um.
And there have only been five instances of vaginal dermoid
(15:22):
cyst reported in English literature, but we thought it was
definitely worth mentioning that yes, teeth, teeth can grow down there.
And for anyone who listened to our podcasts on um
whether or not you can carry your own twin, this
is not the same thing as fetus in fee too,
in which um one twins. Fetus will absorb into the
(15:43):
other and at some point turn into kind of a
tumorous mass that might also contain teeth and finger nails.
And I'm making a face. Yeah, there was actually an
instance reported in uh an issue of Biomedical Research. The
case of a third a six year old woman was discussed.
They removed a mass from her vagina that was full
(16:03):
of sebacious material and we saw pictures and fair listeners
out there, please don't. Caroline sent me this study and
she did warn me, you know, she was like, Kristen,
what you know? This is open up with PDF, but
you cannot unsee what you will see. And I just
take it for me. Friends, friends listening out there, you
(16:24):
don't want to see a photo of a vaginal dermoid
cyst and at rupturing the sabacious materials inside. I'll lay
it out for you just imagine a giant zip that's
been popped. That's kind of yeah, because subacious material. It
wasn't full of teeth, it was full of just greasy, oily, right.
But I mean, you know that that's along the same
(16:45):
lines because there's something in that cyst that's telling it
to grow this stuff, right, So either whether that's hair
or yeah. So but you know, like we said, these
sisters are a rare condition. And the first was reported
in mine and the cyst was found to have again
subacious glands and hair follicles. And the one that made
(17:06):
me cringe the most as a woman was giving birth.
And when she gave birth, a four inch cyst broke
loose and it was filled with the same subacious material
and hair. And I apologize to anyone who's listening to
this on their lunch break. Uh. And the I don't
think there's any relation to all the folk tales we've
(17:27):
been recounting and um dermoid cysts, but I think it's
a you know, again worth mentioning, right, yeah, because I mean, yeah,
all the all the mythology does have a meaning, you know,
fear of sexuality, et cetera. But you know, it is
interesting too to point out that there have been teeth
spotted on the body. Yeah, and the last time that
(17:49):
vagina dentata came up in the news was last year.
A South African doctor, sonnet Eller's gained a lot of
um gunnered a lot of headline attention for these condoms
she created called rape Acts. And she's a South African
doctor and um. South Africa is a country with one
(18:11):
of the highest rates of rape in the world. The
World Cup was happening there, there was a lot of
concern about, um, you know, a spike in sexual violence
that might be going on, um with all of the festivities.
So this doctor um invested a lot of money into
manufacturing these toothed condoms. Yeah, it's kind of like these
(18:35):
what do they call the Chinese finger traps. That's exactly
how it works with with teeth with teeth um. Basically,
the woman inserts the condom like a tampon tooth side
uh in yeah, yeah in And so when she's attacked
during penetration, the jagged rows of hooks attached to the
(18:55):
penis and if he tries to yank it off, it
only gets on their tighter only only finger traps preference
only doctors can safely remove this and it doesn't mobably
when the man has already been arrested, right and um,
it doesn't. It doesn't break the skin, right, there's no
blood or anything like that. Um, So it seemed like
it got a lot of attention. I remember seeing blog
(19:16):
post about it when um, when rap backs first came out.
And while it does seem like, um, a very h
ingenious deterrent, at the same time that you know, there
is a guy from the CDC in Uganda who um
countered that it's still creating a form of enslavement for
(19:37):
women if they have to go out of their home
wearing these rap backs condoms party inside like they're expecting
to be attacked. So the term was basically a form
of enslavement for women because they've got to walk around thinking, okay,
well I'm prepared to be right today, like if I
am attacked, I've got this thing inside of me. Right.
And and some critics worry that it could actually lead
(19:57):
to greater violence if know, the guy tries to if
a man tries to rape someone and then you know
he gets this, has to go get this toothed condom
removed and then goes back to seek some kind of
violent revenge. And I can't tell you if there have
been any incidents of that, and I don't even know, um,
and Caroline, I don't know if you saw any follow
(20:18):
up on how many um women have actually been using
this kind of condom. Um. Now, I mean I saw
all the main coverage from around the World Cup, but
no no follow up. Yeah, So if anyone has has
heard about heard any fop on on the rape backs,
that would be that'd be good to know because it's
you know, it's kind it's an interesting concept and it
(20:40):
definitely comes from the right place of wanting to you know,
prevent sexual violence and also um bring uh men to justice,
you know, perpetrators to justice. Not to say that men
can't be raped as well, um, but kind of questionable. Yeah,
it's a little a little controversial. And to end this
(21:01):
very interesting podcast on a bit of a lighter note, UM,
we have a public service announcement, Actually we don't. Um.
Annie Sprinkle did in the early nineties. She had a
one woman show called post post Porn Modernist Still in
search of the Ultimate sexual experience and Um, she would
(21:23):
basically get on stage, she would give everybody sort of
an anatomy lesson in the audience. You'd have pictures of
of all of the plumbing that we have, and um,
she'd begin her demonstration by douching over a toilet, which
we would not recommend. No, we do not recommend doing
official stuff. Mom, never told your recommendation. Um. And afterwards
(21:44):
she inserted a speculum And so clearly I am one
of the few who doesn't have a speculum lying around
in yourside. Yeah. And she invited the audience to walk
by and take a look inside to see her service.
And her reasoning was she had a couple of reasons,
but two of them were many of you have never
seen a service before, and two, I want to show
(22:05):
you that there are no teeth in there. She was.
She was speaking to bust that fear of women's sexuality
and show hey it's okay, Annie Sprinkle. Yeah man, what
a firecracker. Yeah. She she was an advocate for prostitutes
rights and she was performance artists. She sounds like a
poster person for sex positivity. Um. Any of my I
(22:26):
gotta say my takeaway fact toy that I will be
telling people from this podcast research is about the notion
that ecliteris is the remaining tooth. Yeah, I think that's
so so fascinating. I had no idea, um, and no
idea that that folklore exists, not that I think that
that's actually a tooth. Uh sofy on that note, UM,
(22:51):
if anyone's seen teeth, let us know what you thought.
Any other thoughts on veginit and data uh g rated
thoughts heard you've heard any other myths about Yeah, and
if you do email us, you might wanna leave vagina
dentata out of the um subject line because it will
probably be filtered out. But m or the boss will
be standing over year they'll be kind of awkward. UM.
(23:13):
Our email address so is mom stuff at how stuff
works dot com. And we have to non vaginally related
emails to read here. The first one comes from Jennifer
and this is in response to our podcast on NASA,
and she said, I listened to your freak Show podcast
today and at the end you read some listener mail
(23:35):
in which the writer claimed that Star Trek helped NASA. Well.
A few weeks ago, I was at the Museum of
Science and Industry in Chicago, and notice a large picture
of Michelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Hura in the original
Star Trek. She was in a display in their space
travel section. It turns out that she was a NASA
astronaut recruiter for several years, presumably because of her role
(23:59):
on Star Trek, and she said, while I was surprised,
I also think it was a great idea. She's a
fascinating woman and among her recruits or Sally Ride the
first female American astronaut, and Guian Blue for the first
African American astronaut. Good to know, Jennifer. Indeed, thank you.
This one comes from Rose and it's uh. In response
(24:21):
to our Female Scientists podcast, she appreciated our podcast because
she says, I am a female scientist myself. I wanted
to point out, though, that aspiring female scientists needn't necessarily
look to their own gender for role models. I worked
predominantly with men in my career and education, and this
has led me to reflect on whether my gender has
ever been an issue. The best I can conclude is
(24:41):
that it either has had no effect, or perhaps I
had been encouraged for precisely the fact that I was
a young woman interested in science. This may be due
to the fact that I am young and I work
in a field biology with many female scientists already. However,
I think it's safe to say that women shouldn't fear
that they'll be discouraged from pursuing science, and that they
can find wonderful mentors and both men and women. An
excellent word of encouragement, And if you have words of encouragement,
(25:04):
to send our way, because we we need it. Mom
Stuff at House and Works dot Com is our address,
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(25:29):
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two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?
From house Stop Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. Today's episode is
(00:21):
dedicated to one Molly Edmonds. Before she parted ways with
uh with Steffon Never Told You, she requested a very
specific topic, Vagina didn Tata. She recently watched the movie Teeth,
which I have yet to see. I know, I really
want to see it, um and she thought that for
(00:43):
any of you out there who have seen Teeth, she
said that it was an interesting take on not only
the myth of a Gina da tata, but also on
female sexual empowerment, so I really need to see. But
although she did warn that, like I think, inside of
the IMDb page or the Wikipedia page totally gives way
the entire plot lines, so don't don't look it up
that way. Uh So, of course, if Molly requests a podcast,
(01:07):
we gotta do it right doing it and we're going
to talk about vagina dentata today because little did I
know that it is one of the most pervasive folklore
myths across the world. Yeah, it's been found in India,
Asia and Native American cultures. It's been found everywhere. And
I think I think that just goes to show that
(01:27):
a lot of people have been afraid of women for
a very long time. Is female sexuality? This is the ultimate.
This episode really sums up the ultimate, um fear of
the unleashing of female sexuality and the of course the
castration anxiety that we'll get into. I mean, this is
it's gonna be a good one, Caroline, right, I know
we're going to cover a lot of ground. So where
(01:49):
where should we start? Um, Well, we can start with
some recounting of the myths. Oh yeah, we got a
lot of We got a lot of folklore and myths. Yeah,
and uh. In nineteen nineteen, they were talking they've been
talking about vagina dentata for a long time. This is
not I mean it was, of course, it's it's taboo.
It's a taboo myth, but you know, they've been talking
about it for a while. In nineteen nineteen, the Journal
(02:12):
of American Folklore recounted the Chippewa myth of vagina dentata. Basically,
a young woman's husband's kept dying. She kept getting remarried,
and they just kept dying, and so eventually a new
husband he was he was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna
figure this out why they keep dying. So of course
he marries her, which you know, I don't know. So
they start to have sex and he forces a stone
(02:35):
inside of her, and here's this terrible scraping sound. And
when he checked the stone he found snake teeth on it.
So naturally the elders of the tribe killed the girl
and found a huge snake inside of her. Yeah, the
thing is this, like the snakes inside of vagina's comes
up a lot in the mention of maybe the teeth
in in the vagina and the vagina dentata, which obviously
(02:57):
we should probably go ahead and say that translated from
the Latin is vaginal teeth if you haven't already put
that together, toothed toothed vagina um. And yeah, this this idea,
the symbolism of snakes comes up a lot, and it's
also related to Medusa. Right. A lot of researchers compare
the snakes on her head not only as little vagina
(03:19):
dentata you know, in themselves, but also her mouth, so
like the snakes would be her pubic hair and her
mouth would be the scary va vagina dent tata, so
much symbolism. And then following up in ninety three we
have the British Journal of Medical Psychology publishing research UM
about the Bega tribe in India that has a similar
(03:39):
tale to the one we just talked about with the
chipoy uh There was a Brahmin and his attractive daughter
who were begging at a house and once everyone wanted
to sleep, the girl snuck off to steal cucumbers little
image relic imagery UM. But the Biga caught her enforced
her to have sex, but the teeth and her vagina
(04:03):
castrated him and then his sister in law of this rapist. Basically,
Um convinced the girl to reattach the penis and he
was able to pull her the teeth out with a
string and eventually they fell in love and ran off
together happily over because he was able to tame the
woman team and the ending of all of these myths,
(04:25):
I mean, they're all so similar. They all have this
hero figure who comes in uh is He's like, I'm
not going to fall for this. You know the thing
that all these other men have fallen for. I'm gonna
figure out what's going on. I'm gonna get these teeth out.
It gets the teeth out, and then you know they
usually get married and everything. Yeah, the tribe becomes happier
and harmonious like this, this woman with her rank, that sexuality, like,
(04:49):
we really need to get those teeth out. Let's get
those teeth out. And the folklore scholars refer to that
male hero figure as the super phallic male, and a
lot of times he'll have there's there's a lot of
imagery with either. This comes up a lot in um
Native American folklore of wooden penises or stone penises that
(05:10):
they will forcibly insert into these um you know, sexually
wanted women to break the teeth thereby taming their sexual right.
And this comes up in the Hopie myth of the
gymsun Weed Girls, which is actually a band somewhere um Um.
The gyms and weed girls are linked to the idea
(05:31):
of a tooth vagina because the actual Gympson weed is
a prickly rank smelling plant um and basically the women
in the tail are anthropomorphized Gimpson weeds. That represent over sexed,
unmarried women. How scandalous who capture men and torture them,
um with the teeth and their vagina, And of course
(05:53):
this too ends with the women being tricked and the
teeth being broken. And in this case it was penises
were used and then they were copulated to death is
a quote. Yeah, Well then, um, it's not always the
teeth in the vagina. The vagina dentata that has shares
this exact um symbolism, but also also teeth in the
(06:17):
mouth have a lot of loaded meanings in folklore, um,
such as with the the Binga tribe in Australia, they
would equate the loss of teeth in a man with
phallic loss. And then you have the same kind of
symbolism in New Guinea and Africa. And I think that
you mentioned, Caroline that the Vega tribe in India is
(06:38):
they have genetic links to right. Yeah. When I was
reading the whole the whole myth about the Vega tribe
and the Brahmen and begging and cucumbers, um, the Vega
are actually related genetically to very closely to the Aboriginal
people in Australia, so that I mean that's interesting in
and of itself. Yeah, And in the study UM examining
(06:58):
the psychoanalysis behind all of this folklore, the scholar points
out that these kinds of miss I mean there, they
really are everywhere and that was the most fascinating thing
to me is a cross cultural motif. And um, when
it comes to psychoanalysis, the question is, you know, are
these um are these miss is this folklore? Does it
(07:21):
go back to um a fear a male protective origin,
which is basically a fear of men, you know, someone
coming along and lopping off their penis, or is it
a fear rooted in the regenerative power of female sexuality
in which they will be symbolically castrated via intercourse Because
(07:42):
they've also compared the notion of Jina Dentata and intercourse. Um.
As you know, the hero journey into the underworld right
that you see in a lot of like Greek mythology, right,
and and uh the gates of Hell that tossed around
lot of these articles that we read, UM that yeah,
(08:03):
a man is is entering the gates of hill and
comes out diminished, just you know, because of very metaphorical
and I think at this point we got to talk
about Freud. Yeah, well, yes, yes, the giant psychology elephant. Yes, um,
now you mentioned, uh, the common symbolism between mouths and
(08:24):
vaginas and all the teeth they're in, and Freud basically
said that in the unconscious opposites are equal. So in
a lot of these myths you have women devouring men
or or eating their hearts or like vampires even um,
and that is sort of tied into the vagina dent
(08:44):
tata myth because teeth ripping, evil, blood, gore sex. Yeah,
so it's all kind of equated and the whole the
whole idea of castration anxiety. And I also found it,
um really fascinating that among all of this vagina un
tata full clore, there's the notion that the clitterests is
actually the remaining tooth from uh, from the vagina and
(09:09):
taught of the last tooth that hung out I guess
after the rest were either forcibly removed or poked out
with a wooden wooden penis um. Which is kind of
interesting that they would that you would be quite that
the pleasure center of the female body with that kind
of frightful aggression and destruction and um, one scholar explained
(09:32):
it as symbolizing the perceived insatiability of female sexuality, and
it also links into the whole mythology around breaking the hymen,
which we've talked about in a primary prior episode. Um.
And if you you know, once once that happens, and
once the girl quote unquote loses her virginity, then I
(09:52):
mean all hell will break loose for for men on earth. Chris,
and you talked about women's you know, insatiable lust that meant,
you know, they were afraid of, and it kind of
ties into this Aztec tale of serpent hunters and dear ladies. Um. Basically,
these these hunters were after some deer who ended up
turning into women, and one of the women, with her teeth,
(10:16):
tore open the chest of one of the serpent gods
and ate his heart. So that ties into the whole
vagina dentata, teeth, eating of heart instruction of this instruction
of mint exactly. Well, the remaining hunter and the remaining
dear lady get together and she kind of becomes his
goddess or something along those lines. Anyway, Right after that,
(10:37):
so she's become his goddess, he goes off to make
war and um. The author says that this is an
elaborate displacement of masculine anxiety from the female sexuality which
generates it, to the battlefield where it is enacted, and
then to the temple ritual where it is the peas
and fire and blood. And what they're talking about is how, uh,
(10:58):
you know, battle was waged to get people to sacrifice,
so it's appeasing this goddess who's like, I gotta kill everybody.
So it's like, if she can't have the sex, then
you gotta make make the war. Make the war either
either blood or or less, and in this case both
um uh yeah. I just like it might seem kind
(11:20):
of hokey at this point to be talking about, you know, today,
to be talking about vagina dent Tata. When I saw
previews for the movie Teeth, for instance, it was kind
of hilarious, like, oh, horror movie about vagina dent Tata.
That's that's cooky. But when you trace back all of
this folklore and not only you know how, and the
(11:42):
number of cultures that it shows up in and how
far back it goes, it kind of does make you
wonder whether or not it did lay some kind of
foundation for you know a lot of the archaic gender
roles that we talk about and sort of blocking off
like women's sexuality as a way to I don't know.
(12:02):
I don't want to say keep us down because that
sounds so so victims keep victimized. But um, well, I
mean there is there are psychologists who talk about the
divisions between men and women and how we are you know,
we're either from Mars or Venus, and we're scared of
each other. Um. In his blog for Psychology Today, forensic
psychologist Stephen Diamond argues that men and women harbor a
(12:23):
deep seated primordial fear of the opposite sex, primordial so
that we've always had it. But see that's also okay,
so Young also said Carl Young also said that boys
develop this feminine fear in order to establish their own ego,
like they have to break away from their mother. But
see all this stuff freud young, Mr Diamond, with all
(12:44):
due respect, I mean also breaking down Uh this this
male female you know then are scared of getting their
penis is lopped off by women also kind of negates
the whole concept of gender as a fluid spectrum. That's okay, know,
we can't forget about that. So I think. You know,
(13:04):
obviously all of these myths and the notions behind them
are extremely out dated, but um, they still persist in
This was the craziest example that came up actually in
a couple of um sources that we found were examples
of vaginadn taught a symbolism in mass culture today, such
(13:25):
as the movie Jaws. Oh yeah, I wonder if still
were if that ever occurred to him. Yeah, it was
just supposed to be a female. Was Jaws a female shark? Shoot?
I don't know, I don't know, but it did come
up a number of times like this is this gaping?
Uh too? Female? I don't know. I know they had
a lot of problems getting the shark to work during
the movie. Um, but here's the question though, in medical history,
(13:49):
I mean, can can vaginas grow teeth? That's a crazy,
silly kind of question to ask, I know, but they can.
So you can grow them on other parts of your
body too. It's not just her vagina, don't worry. So
you might be one of the lucky ones who gets
a tooth in the eyebrow. So let's back up a
little bit. Yeah, I'm so shifting gears from uh, psychobabble
(14:14):
to um medical, the physical, from the mind to the body.
Vaginal dermoid cysts. It's probably the closest that we physically
can get to vagina, dn'tata right, Yeah, in Dr Dean
Edel wrote in his blog about a kind ofcologist in
Virginia who actually spotted some teeth in a vagina. And
(14:37):
you know this could come as a surprise, you're not
expecting it. Well, yeah, they weren't like, they weren't like
ringed around, they weren't chomping, right, they weren't cheering or talking.
They were not like a full row of pearly wife. Right,
it's just like a tooth here there. They didn't have
they didn't have braces. No, the cavities. Um, what he
saw was actually a dermoid cyst. And these are derived
(15:00):
from the outer layers of embryonic skin and are actually
capable of growing hair, teeth, bones, And like I said,
they can occur anyway, yeah, And I mean they typically
will happen on um. They'll grow inside on the face,
inside your skull, on your lower back, and in the ovaries. Um.
And there have only been five instances of vaginal dermoid
(15:22):
cyst reported in English literature, but we thought it was
definitely worth mentioning that yes, teeth, teeth can grow down there.
And for anyone who listened to our podcasts on um
whether or not you can carry your own twin, this
is not the same thing as fetus in fee too,
in which um one twins. Fetus will absorb into the
(15:43):
other and at some point turn into kind of a
tumorous mass that might also contain teeth and finger nails.
And I'm making a face. Yeah, there was actually an
instance reported in uh an issue of Biomedical Research. The
case of a third a six year old woman was discussed.
They removed a mass from her vagina that was full
(16:03):
of sebacious material and we saw pictures and fair listeners
out there, please don't. Caroline sent me this study and
she did warn me, you know, she was like, Kristen,
what you know? This is open up with PDF, but
you cannot unsee what you will see. And I just
take it for me. Friends, friends listening out there, you
(16:24):
don't want to see a photo of a vaginal dermoid
cyst and at rupturing the sabacious materials inside. I'll lay
it out for you just imagine a giant zip that's
been popped. That's kind of yeah, because subacious material. It
wasn't full of teeth, it was full of just greasy, oily, right.
But I mean, you know that that's along the same
(16:45):
lines because there's something in that cyst that's telling it
to grow this stuff, right, So either whether that's hair
or yeah. So but you know, like we said, these
sisters are a rare condition. And the first was reported
in mine and the cyst was found to have again
subacious glands and hair follicles. And the one that made
(17:06):
me cringe the most as a woman was giving birth.
And when she gave birth, a four inch cyst broke
loose and it was filled with the same subacious material
and hair. And I apologize to anyone who's listening to
this on their lunch break. Uh. And the I don't
think there's any relation to all the folk tales we've
(17:27):
been recounting and um dermoid cysts, but I think it's
a you know, again worth mentioning, right, yeah, because I mean, yeah,
all the all the mythology does have a meaning, you know,
fear of sexuality, et cetera. But you know, it is
interesting too to point out that there have been teeth
spotted on the body. Yeah, and the last time that
(17:49):
vagina dentata came up in the news was last year.
A South African doctor, sonnet Eller's gained a lot of
um gunnered a lot of headline attention for these condoms
she created called rape Acts. And she's a South African
doctor and um. South Africa is a country with one
(18:11):
of the highest rates of rape in the world. The
World Cup was happening there, there was a lot of
concern about, um, you know, a spike in sexual violence
that might be going on, um with all of the festivities.
So this doctor um invested a lot of money into
manufacturing these toothed condoms. Yeah, it's kind of like these
(18:35):
what do they call the Chinese finger traps. That's exactly
how it works with with teeth with teeth um. Basically,
the woman inserts the condom like a tampon tooth side
uh in yeah, yeah in And so when she's attacked
during penetration, the jagged rows of hooks attached to the
(18:55):
penis and if he tries to yank it off, it
only gets on their tighter only only finger traps preference
only doctors can safely remove this and it doesn't mobably
when the man has already been arrested, right and um,
it doesn't. It doesn't break the skin, right, there's no
blood or anything like that. Um, So it seemed like
it got a lot of attention. I remember seeing blog
(19:16):
post about it when um, when rap backs first came out.
And while it does seem like, um, a very h
ingenious deterrent, at the same time that you know, there
is a guy from the CDC in Uganda who um
countered that it's still creating a form of enslavement for
(19:37):
women if they have to go out of their home
wearing these rap backs condoms party inside like they're expecting
to be attacked. So the term was basically a form
of enslavement for women because they've got to walk around thinking, okay,
well I'm prepared to be right today, like if I
am attacked, I've got this thing inside of me. Right.
And and some critics worry that it could actually lead
(19:57):
to greater violence if know, the guy tries to if
a man tries to rape someone and then you know
he gets this, has to go get this toothed condom
removed and then goes back to seek some kind of
violent revenge. And I can't tell you if there have
been any incidents of that, and I don't even know, um,
and Caroline, I don't know if you saw any follow
(20:18):
up on how many um women have actually been using
this kind of condom. Um. Now, I mean I saw
all the main coverage from around the World Cup, but
no no follow up. Yeah, So if anyone has has
heard about heard any fop on on the rape backs,
that would be that'd be good to know because it's
you know, it's kind it's an interesting concept and it
(20:40):
definitely comes from the right place of wanting to you know,
prevent sexual violence and also um bring uh men to justice,
you know, perpetrators to justice. Not to say that men
can't be raped as well, um, but kind of questionable. Yeah,
it's a little a little controversial. And to end this
(21:01):
very interesting podcast on a bit of a lighter note, UM,
we have a public service announcement, Actually we don't. Um.
Annie Sprinkle did in the early nineties. She had a
one woman show called post post Porn Modernist Still in
search of the Ultimate sexual experience and Um, she would
(21:23):
basically get on stage, she would give everybody sort of
an anatomy lesson in the audience. You'd have pictures of
of all of the plumbing that we have, and um,
she'd begin her demonstration by douching over a toilet, which
we would not recommend. No, we do not recommend doing
official stuff. Mom, never told your recommendation. Um. And afterwards
(21:44):
she inserted a speculum And so clearly I am one
of the few who doesn't have a speculum lying around
in yourside. Yeah. And she invited the audience to walk
by and take a look inside to see her service.
And her reasoning was she had a couple of reasons,
but two of them were many of you have never
seen a service before, and two, I want to show
(22:05):
you that there are no teeth in there. She was.
She was speaking to bust that fear of women's sexuality
and show hey it's okay, Annie Sprinkle. Yeah man, what
a firecracker. Yeah. She she was an advocate for prostitutes
rights and she was performance artists. She sounds like a
poster person for sex positivity. Um. Any of my I
(22:26):
gotta say my takeaway fact toy that I will be
telling people from this podcast research is about the notion
that ecliteris is the remaining tooth. Yeah, I think that's
so so fascinating. I had no idea, um, and no
idea that that folklore exists, not that I think that
that's actually a tooth. Uh sofy on that note, UM,
(22:51):
if anyone's seen teeth, let us know what you thought.
Any other thoughts on veginit and data uh g rated
thoughts heard you've heard any other myths about Yeah, and
if you do email us, you might wanna leave vagina
dentata out of the um subject line because it will
probably be filtered out. But m or the boss will
be standing over year they'll be kind of awkward. UM.
(23:13):
Our email address so is mom stuff at how stuff
works dot com. And we have to non vaginally related
emails to read here. The first one comes from Jennifer
and this is in response to our podcast on NASA,
and she said, I listened to your freak Show podcast
today and at the end you read some listener mail
(23:35):
in which the writer claimed that Star Trek helped NASA. Well.
A few weeks ago, I was at the Museum of
Science and Industry in Chicago, and notice a large picture
of Michelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Hura in the original
Star Trek. She was in a display in their space
travel section. It turns out that she was a NASA
astronaut recruiter for several years, presumably because of her role
(23:59):
on Star Trek, and she said, while I was surprised,
I also think it was a great idea. She's a
fascinating woman and among her recruits or Sally Ride the
first female American astronaut, and Guian Blue for the first
African American astronaut. Good to know, Jennifer. Indeed, thank you.
This one comes from Rose and it's uh. In response
(24:21):
to our Female Scientists podcast, she appreciated our podcast because
she says, I am a female scientist myself. I wanted
to point out, though, that aspiring female scientists needn't necessarily
look to their own gender for role models. I worked
predominantly with men in my career and education, and this
has led me to reflect on whether my gender has
ever been an issue. The best I can conclude is
(24:41):
that it either has had no effect, or perhaps I
had been encouraged for precisely the fact that I was
a young woman interested in science. This may be due
to the fact that I am young and I work
in a field biology with many female scientists already. However,
I think it's safe to say that women shouldn't fear
that they'll be discouraged from pursuing science, and that they
can find wonderful mentors and both men and women. An
excellent word of encouragement, And if you have words of encouragement,
(25:04):
to send our way, because we we need it. Mom
Stuff at House and Works dot Com is our address,
and you can also hit a stuff on Facebook and
follow us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcast, and of
course you can check out our blog during the week,
It's stuff Mom Never told You from how Stuff Works
dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
(25:29):
Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuff Work staff as
we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
The House Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download
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