vagina dentata [warning: anatomically correct ghost witch]
Disclaimer: If you are the type of person who finds discussions concerning toothed vaginas and castration anxiety vulgar, uncouth or offensive, stop reading now and go read Charles Bukowski, who was a real man's man and never talked about vagina dentatas because he was too busy telling us all how virile and man-like he was. Of course if you are the type of person who finds toothed vaginas and castration anxiety offensive then you, more than anyone else, should be reading this. But that is why we call it "irony."
Vagina Dentata, or the myth of the Toothed Vagina, is age old and goes back farther than you or me. Of all the sites on the Internet concerning this myth (and there are a few) I was bemused with rotten.com It dealt with the subject humorously, but I thought, as levelheaded as one could hope for. There was some question as to whether it was indeed "everyone's favorite cocaine addict, and all around misogynist" (I love that term) Dr. Freud who brought the myth into the 20th Century (one source claims he never mentioned the term in any of his psychoanalytic work, though he did have his own ideas about castration anxiety) is not really the point. However, before you click on it, beware! There is not only a better, more graphically accomplished image of the vagina dentata than I was able to pull off (I think they used the teeth from Aliens), but an extremely close up photograph of someone's poor vagina suffering from cysts that do indeed look like little teeth. For those of you who do not want to look at such images, I suggest Wikipedia's article. It is less balanced, I think, but it has no illustrations.
I first became aware of this myth while reading a Yurok tale concerning the Coyote and his amorous adventures with a Ghost Witch. It is told humorously, of course, probably as a warning against sleeping with women you don't know (an idea from Barbara Walker on the vagina dentata myth in general). Franchot Ballinger writes a fascinating account of Coyote the Trickster's ability to not only shift gender roles for various (usually waggish) purposes but the fluidity in which Tricksters are talked about in Coyote, He/She Was Going There: Sex and Gender in Native American Trickster Stories from Studies in American Indian Literatures Series 2. Volume 12, Number 4 (Winter 2000). Concerning Coyote's angry attitude at times to sex, the article reads:
There is at least one common story type in which female sexuality is the cause of trickster's hostility: so-called vaginal dentata stories.
In these stories, female sexuality — not male, as is usually the case in trickster stories — poses a threat, at least to the availability of women to men. In an Upper Cowlitz story of Soft Basket Woman's vaginal teeth, Coyote destroys the teeth with artificial penises and then announces that in the future sexual union between men and women will be more congenial to and a good deal less dangerous to men … a Kwakiutl story tells of Coyote's similarly defeating Death-Bringing Woman and her vaginal dentata … [there are] other stories in which Coyote has sex with dangerous females — a butterfly and mussel-shell killers …
I find this all delightfully interesting. What is your take on it?
at first there was only
an microscopic quivering
of the skin, unnoticed
perhaps and then "as
you wish," you said. It
is where the skin is
the darkest, in some,
the palest in others, it
is where the skin"what's wrong with you?"
let's call is a razor
sharp misunderstanding.
let's call it a pause. then
a furious gnashingof teeth. who has not
felt a fear of the balmy?
a body, even at rest, is
still a balm, a salve
against hatred,
the strange?"That's not the point,
no that's not fair!"No good. no good. When
did we let ourselves become
untouchable? When was
the last touch you can
remember? Take pride in?
When the skin grows
paler, or darker, when
all we leave behind
are what others
call scars.
More Suggested Reading
Jacobs, Melville. "Northwest Sahaptin Texts." Pt. 1. Columbia Contributions to Anthropology 19. New York: Columbia U P. (1934)
Erdoes, Richard, and Alfonso Ortiz. Ed. American Indian Trickster Tales. Viking: New York. (1998)
Walker, Deward, in collaboration with Daniel N. Matthews. Nez Perce Coyote Tales: The Myth Cycle. Norman: U of Oklahoma P. (1998)