Vagina Dentata

Since time immemorial, men have been afraid of the woman’s most private part. The easiest escape is to just blame it on biology.

- Mallika Nawal

VAGINA IS A curious word, indeed! Originating from Latin, the etymology of the word actually dates all the way back to the 1680's whence it basically meant a sheath or a “scabbard.” For those of you who are too lazy to consult a dictionary or Google the word on your smartphones or aren’t really into fencing (although you are into women…no pun intended), a scabbard, according to the Oxford dictionary, is a “close-fitting cover for the blade of a knife or a sword.”

Well, to say that the etymology of the word that is used to describe a woman’s private part is rather curious would actually be quite an understatement. But it is curious nevertheless how a woman’s genitalia is actually compared to a “close- fitting” cover where one would symbolically (and sometimes in reality) thrust a weapon such as the sword or the knife (and sometimes…even iron rods). Then again, to be completely and brutally honest, it sure does call out for some serious deliberations, if not in-depth psychological assessments.

The first comparison is rather obvious, and deals with the clear allusion to a “close-fitting” cover. As I once-upon- a-time wrote in another article of mine, “Warranty Void If Seal Broken” (Swarajya, February 2015), such is the penchant of man to stick himself into the smallest virginal hole he can find (wonder what it says about his own private-part girth) that women in order to fit “into” this man-made allusion have now started resorting to surgical illusion. Thus, whether it is a simple hymenoplasty that guarantees to spill a little blood or a supervaginoplasty that promises to leave the woman as tight as an oyster, women too have been living up to this strangely contorted and constricted part of the etymology with respect to the female anatomy.