Throughout human history, mankind has used the penis as a tool of terror and subjugation.¹ “Rape and pillage” isn’t a euphemism, after all… for thousands of years, violating (or abducting and then violating) the enemy’s women was an essential component of war’s waging. Particularly in ancient cultures (or some of the primitive ones we still have around today), there was no better way to ethnically cleanse a region or win hearts-and-minds among the conquered than to pump the losing side full of sperm and wait for it to bear a generation of kids who looked like the winners. With fewer logistical headaches than mass enslavement and more orgasms than you generally get from genocide, rape was a go-to, post-victory approach to managing the vanquished.

Rome's founding legends include something called The Rape of the Sabine Women, wherein Romulus and his buddies got tired of buggering each other and decided to steal themselves some chicks from a neighboring clan. After executing a plan full of lies, kidnapping, and brandished weaponry, the captured women "voluntarily" married Roman men, in much the same way that I "voluntarily" pay taxes and wear pants in public.

And so, for thousands of years, with the feminine love-tunnel constantly under siege by testosteronic forces, there has been a cottage industry centered around methods of protecting a woman’s baby bungalow from breaking-and-entering.

For the most part, this industry’s efforts have not worked out so well.

• Vagina Dentata
  That’s Latin for “cooch teeth”, but the idea it represents is older than a single language… probably older than the written word. And it’s pretty much pan-cultural; just about anywhere you look in the world,  there are legends and warnings about it. The stories range from the plain ol’ “crotch-pocket with a toothy smile” to the more exotic: some Native American tribes believed that vaginas could have rabid dog heads or man-eating piranhas tucked up inside them, for example.
  
  Apparently, right around the same time some dude came up with the idea to use his penis as a fleshy shillelagh on any woman who got too close, some unidentified soul started spreading stories that snatches were packing bicuspids. It makes for an interesting approach to addressing an issue, and at least there’s a chance that an actual woman came up with the core idea; historically speaking, women haven’t had much say in calling vag-related plays, whether on offense or defense.
  
  Unfortunately… there are two immediate problems with using vagina dentata stories as a defense mechanism. First, some enterprising dudes decided to subvert such tales into heroic challenges; in many cases, the guy who could finally fuck up the scary-but-beautiful woman’s groin-grill by pulling her nether-teeth would win her hand in marriage or some other lucrative prize. Yeah, that surprised me too… as it turns out, men were willing to risk destroying their junk on a lark even before YouTube was invented.
  
  Second, well… turns out, the odd woman here and there actually does have a tooth or three lining her pleasure pouch. Thanks to disturbing little medical nightmares called dermoid cysts, those super-flexible embryonic stem cells that people are always fighting over can clump together in unexpected places and start growing wholly unwelcome body parts, such as teeth. Sadly, as a real phenomenon, women tend to be even more horrified by it than the intended targets, and are subsequently reluctant to claim sisterhood in such a biting sorority. Which doesn’t make sense to me; I mean, if my penis had teeth, I’d paint racing stripes on it and show it off at the bar for $5 a peek. Maybe I’m the weird one.²

• Chastity Belts
  Easily the dumbest idea in the history of sexual oppression, these things were straight fucked up, yo. What’s your best-case scenario when you slap one on your wife? Musty, rusty crotch, that’s what. It’s like a scorched earth policy for poon tang… in order to keep anyone else from hittin’ that, I will attach a device to my woman’s moist, fertile ladybits and ensure that once I take it off again, it won’t have much appeal to me, either. Genius!

  Some say chastity belts were invented by the Crusaders, who knew they were going to be at war for many years, and needed a way to keep the ladies back home on lockdown. If true, this suggests the Hugh Hefner of medieval Europe was undoubtedly a locksmith. And very, very tired.

  Others insist they came along later, and didn’t really find extensive appeal until the Victorian era, when doctors tried convincing their patients that masturbation and pre-marital sex were leading directly to all sorts of illness and mental disorder. Basically, they were trying to protect the vagina-bearer from herself. Talk about your brilliant scams.

  “Why, yes, I can help your daughter with her strange and unnatural desire to hump her own hand or the apple farmer across the way! Just let me take her into a private room and fit her for this anti-diddling device, and then come back every week or so to examine her extensively, and your nubile offspring will be 100% satisfaction-free. Hm? What? Oh, this lump in my pants? That’s, ah… where I keep my medical instruments.”

  Of course, we still have chastity belts today, as the stainless steel model (pictured above) demonstrates; the chief differences being the (presumably) consensual, kinky applications and superior build quality. Still leaves me wondering one thing, though: who wants to have less access to vajayjay? I spent all of my adolescence and a decent chunk of adulthood trying to get First National Pussy & Loan to open that lane for my deposits, and the very last thing I want is someone giving the teller the day off.

  Or in the immortal words of the Georgia Satellites: “I don’t care if it’s wrong or it’s right/I just wanna know if that thing is open all night”.

• Attack Condoms
  Above is a photo of the Rape-aXe, yet another example of modern marketing’s love affair with randomly cApiTaliZed wOrdS.  The Rape-aXe is inserted into the vagina like a tampon, where it waits… like a spiky, plastic gargoyle on the edge of a really cheap-looking gothic building… it waits. To be precise, it waits for some stupid bastard to stick his wang into it, at which point, the sharp little prongs that line its inner surface dig into the shaft and hold on in a manner that might best be described as “ouchy”.

  The idea is painfully simple: dude sticks his shank where it doesn’t belong, the Rape-aXe latches on, and two theoretical things happen. (1) The attacker is so startled that the victim has a chance to run away, and (2) the attacker is now marked as such, since there’s no way to get the thing off without medical attention. When someone wanders into an ER with a Rape-aXe giving his schlong a stabby little hug, there will be immediate grounds for suspicion of a crime. Or suspicion of some really odd masturbatory habits, I suppose.

  It’s honestly not a horrible idea, but there are significant limitations. For instance, given that it doesn’t look particularly comfortable for anyone involved, the only time a woman is going to insert the Rape-aXe is when she’s planning to be raped. While there are (sadly) regions of the world where women are forced to take such possibilities into daily account, it’s obviously not going to be of much help in marginally more civilized places.

  The bigger –and potentially fatal– flaw of the Rape-aXe is that it isn’t an axe. It isn’t going to chop off anyone’s prick, and if handled properly, won’t even cause significant damage. And see, among the things I know and understand about those of my sex is this: if you’re going to try to do something unpleasant to a man’s junk, do it with gusto. ‘Cause if you don’t put him down on the first try, he’s going to take offense. Serious, crazy-eyed, Viking berserker-type offense. At which point a really bad situation just got worse.

  This raises the question: “So, why not make the thing do something more?” Enter stage left: one Jaap Haumann, a 70-something from South Africa. He invented a female condom containing a spring-loaded blade; push anything deep enough into the device, the blade is triggered, and SNIKT! Your penis is suddenly a convertible.

  For reasons of generally spine-chilling creepiness and unease, Haumann’s design has never made it past the development stage.

• Sticking A Gun In It
  You might say this sounds dangerous. You would be right. But I have noticed in my travels and travails that this earthly realm has no shortage of complete fucktards willing to do things that make about as much sense as Bob Dylan, James Brown and Vinny’s Uncle Nino having a conversation about celestial mechanics.

  In 2006, Victoria Lundy was arrested for driving on a suspended license after police found her fleeing the scene of a shots-fired call. They took her back to the cop-shop, patted her down, and stuffed her into a cell. A few minutes later, yet another shot rang out, this time coming from the detention area. Turns out, Victoria had stashed a loaded gun in her Super Golden Crisp, kept it hidden from the police, extracted it successfully once she was alone, and only then managed to accidentally fire it into the ceiling while attempting to hide it under a toilet paper dispenser. She’s lucky she didn’t give herself the world’s most radical hysterectomy.

  Despite Vickie’s near-success, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that putting a loaded gun in your box is never a good idea. Unless you’re a woman who has a dermoid cyst that has inexplicably grown into a functional trigger finger, in which case, I say have at it, Calamity Jane.

• Weaponized Yeast Infection
  Pros: Appears to take out the target permanently, thus limiting recidivism. Element of surprise should not be underestimated. Continues to work after death, ensuring vengeance for the victim.

  Cons: Messy clean up.  Smells like the inside of a goat’s ass. Curiously slow and short-range. Seems to be ineffective against anyone capable of standing up and walking away. Easily defeated by arch-enemy, Monistat.