Is Red Riding Hood a Metaphor for losing virginity?

I think you are reading too much into the tale.

Wha…?

Haha! I just thought it was interesting. Someone said it to me today.

Yep. That’s one interpretation. I rather like it, myself.

It’s an interpretation of a version of Little Red Riding Hood. But not every version of the story is different (for example, one of them concludes with the girl being eaten, while others include the huntsman saving her. Some of them have her with the red cape, but originally she was Little Red Cap.) One thing we learn in English Literature is that there are so many different ways to read a text.

I personally don’t like getting caught up in symbolism especially when psychoanalytic stuff surfaces.

I’d really need that to be walked out for me, in full, before seeing as an intended symbol, and not just what one or two readers got out of it.

Uh no. I think people like to come up with details that conveniently fit situations so as to turn regular stuff, like fairy tales, into sexual things.

I think the story, which you can read Here is more a parable to teach children to listen to their parents and follow instructions, and to pay attention to their surroundings and not talk to strangers, to keep themselves safe.

That’s a good way to think about it too! @Kardamom

That is one common interpretation but it is by no means the only interpretation.

So, is the woodsman the abortion doctor?

You can pretty much argue a sexual interpretation for anything in literature.

Hahaha probably! @filmfann
Yeah that’s true. This one seems to be the most popular though. @Haleth

Wow, I never thought of that. It’s pretty neat, and kind of reminds me that many stories that Walt Disney has have really dark origins. (they’re usually not metaphors though, and I’m not familiar with anything WD may have done with this particular tale)
I guess as said already, it’s pretty easy to attribute anything to sexuality. I’m drawn to the metaphor a lot though, because of my love of zombie movies that have metaphors pertaining to consumerism and modern society.
But I don’t think that’s what it really was, unless the version of Red Riding Hood I know isn’t the original, and the original is something else entirely.
If so though, where does the grandmother (actually absent in the entirety of the tale) fit in with that metaphor? Deception? That could certainly be on the list for sexually related…metaphor things, I guess? But why a grandma in that specific metaphor lol? Maybe her role is maternal, teaching and nurturing, and that’s how Little Red Riding Hood is fooled into getting her cherry popped.
Oh grandmother, what a big cock you hav-wait what the hell man?! XD

For some reason, I’m randomly wondering now, why is it that as little kids, we grow up with stuffed animals like bears. I mean if you try to hug one in real life it’s gonna tear you to pieces, yet, as kids, we know them as all cute and snuggly.

Erm anyways, cool question. :)

Never heard that before. I always took it as an example of not being stupidly trusting.

I do not even want to discuss Little Jack Horner!

@Symbeline I actually can’t stop laughing. Well done! XD

@Symbeline I read that part of the reason wild animals are the cute and cuddly ones is because we do not want to become too attached to the domesticated ones we eat on a regular basis.

Now this is what I call a story! I like this one, the other one sucks.

Grandmother is wisdom. The wolf kills wisdom so as to be able to have his innocent girl at his leisure.

Whenever you come across a well developed theory regarding the “meaning” of a fairy tale you have almost certainly stumbled on to one of the those bits of writing that, with variable success, projects the essayist’s own theories (or bullshit) onto the story. It’s the sort of wankery that results in excellent college essays and regrettable reimaginings. It happens all the time, and according to the book I’m reading now, The Uses of Enchantment, fairy tales are especially suited to this sort of projection and it is the ability of the child to project themselves and their concerns into the bare landscape of a fairy tales that makes them so attractive to developing minds.

Apparently there’s a Freudian telling of Little Red Riding Hood but I’ve never been able to find it. I do have a rip of Keith Olbermann reading James Thurber’s The Little Girl and the Wolf. It’s quite good.

@Symbeline “But I don’t think that’s what it really was, unless the version of Red Riding Hood I know isn’t the original, and the original is something else entirely.”

There is no such thing as an original with oral literature. It is amorphous by nature and encourages editing and embellishment as a rule. For what it’s worth I’ve tried on a few occasions to cut Fundevogel and Sweetheart Roland back together, but the different relationships between the boy and girl keeps messing me up.

@fundevogel Hey! Don’t you be knocking cheap porn that stretches the meaning of the phrase “inspired by”!

@Aethelflaed Actually I liked stretching the meaning of the phrase “growing urgency”.

lol

Yes.

In some quite erotic versions of the story the wolf impregnates Red.

Seriously.

Shoot. This question came up in conversation with friends the other day, and I started explaining the answer, but had no remembrance that we had discussed it here. What a riot. I was telling a friend of mine that red dress was about menstruation. OMG. Vs a red cape being about losing virginity. I’m so fucked. LOL.