Vagina dentata

Vagina dentata (Latin for toothed vagina) is a folk tale tradition in which a woman's vagina is said to contain teeth, with the associated implication that sexual intercourse might result in injury, emasculation, or castration for the man involved. The topic of "vagina dentata" may also cover a rare medical condition affecting the vagina, in which case it is more accurately termed a vaginal dermoid cyst.

In the novel by Neal Stephenson, the vagina of Y.T., a female character, is equipped with a dentata, a device which injects a powerful soporific into whatever penetrates it, in order to prevent rape.

Snow Crash

The folk tale is the basis for the 2007 American film Teeth, written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein.^[15] In the film, Jess Weixler plays Dawn O'Keefe, a teenage spokesperson for a Christian abstinence group, who has vagina dentata and employs it to fight back against rape and sexual abuse.^[16]

comedy horror

The 2024 musical Teeth was based on the 2007 comedy horror film, with book and music by Anna K. Jacobs and book and lyrics by Michael R. Jackson^[17] (the latter of whom wrote the Tony Award–winning musical A Strange Loop). The show features a musical sequence in which the cast's female ensemble transforms into disciples of "Dentata" (a mythological goddess) and castrates the male cast members with their vaginas.^[18]

Off-Broadway

In the novel , the Pale Lady is a fae and chimera who possesses vagina dentata, which she uses to kill men with whom she is having intercourse.^[19]

Rivers of London

In the short story "The Weasel Bride" by , the titular bride possesses vagina dentata, which leads to her death. The short story first appears in The Book of the Dead (1991) part of Lee's The Secret Books Of Paradys series.^[20]

Tanith Lee

The comedic and feminist novel Vagina dentata (2019) by features toothed vaginas alongside Germanic mythology.^[21]

Luci van Org

Medical[edit]

In rare instances, dermoid cysts (a type of tumor) may grow in the vagina. Dermoid cysts are formed from the outer layers of embryonic skin cells. These cells are able to mature into many different types of tissues, and these cysts are able to form anywhere the skin is or where the skin folds inwards to become another organ, such as in the ear or the vagina. However, when dermoid cysts occur in the vagina, they are covered by a layer of normal vaginal tissue and therefore appear as a lump, not as recognizable teeth.^[22]^[23]^[24]

Delpech, François (1994). "Le vagin denté: variantes ibériques". . Cahiers de Fontenay (in French). Vol. 14. pp. 11–31. doi:10.3406/cafon.1994.1030.