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Madonna–whore complex
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In psychoanalytic literature, a Madonna–whore complex is the inability to maintain sexual
arousal within a committed, loving relationship.[1] First identified by Sigmund Freud, this
psychological complex is said to develop in men who see women as either saintly Madonnas or
debased prostitutes. Men with this complex desire a sexual partner who has been degraded (the
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whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (the Madonna).[2] Freud wrote: "Where
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such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love."[3] Clinical
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psychologist Uwe Hartmann, writing in 2009, stated that the complex "is still highly prevalent in
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today's patients".[2]
In sexual politics the view of women as either Madonnas or whores limits women's sexual
expression, offering two mutually exclusive ways to construct a sexual identity.[4]
The term is also used popularly, often with subtly different meanings.
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1 Causes
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2 In popular culture
3 See also
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4 References
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5 External links
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Causes
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Freud argued that the Madonna–whore complex is caused by oedipal castration fears which arise
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when a man experiences the affection he once felt for his mother with women he now sexually
desires. In order to manage this anxiety, the man categorizes women into two groups: women he
can admire and women he finds sexually attractive. Whereas the man loves women in the former
category, he despises and devalues the latter group.[5] Psychoanalyst Richard Tuch suggests that
Freud offered at least one alternative explanation for the Madonna–whore complex:
This earlier theory is based not on oedipal-based castration anxiety but on man's
primary hatred of women, stimulated by the child’s sense that he had been made to
experience intolerable frustration and/or narcissistic injury at the hands of his mother.
According to this theory, in adulthood the boy-turned-man seeks to avenge these
mistreatments through sadistic attacks on women who are stand-ins for mother.[5]
According to Freudian psychology, this complex often develops when the sufferer is raised by a
cold and distant mother.[citation needed] Such a man will often court someone with qualities of his
mother, hoping to fulfill a need for intimacy unmet in childhood. Often, the wife begins to be seen
as mother to the husband—a "Madonna" figure—and thus not a possible object of sexual
attraction.[citation needed] For this reason, in the mind of the sufferer, love and sex cannot be mixed.
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The man is therefore reluctant to have sexual relations with his wife for, according to his
unconscious mind, this would be incest. He will reserve sexuality for "bad" or "dirty" women, and will
not develop "normal" feelings of love in these sexual relationships. This introduces a dilemma
where a man may feel unable to love any woman who can satisfy him sexually and is unable to be
sexually satisfied by any woman whom he can love.[citation needed]
Another theory claims that the Madonna–whore complex derives from the representations of
women as either madonnas or whores in mythology and Judeo-Christian theology rather than
developmental disabilities of individual men.[6]
In popular culture
[edit]
Alfred Hitchcock used the Madonna-whore dichotomy as an important mode of representing
women.[7] In Vertigo (1958), for example, Kim Novak portrays two women that the hero cannot
reconcile: a virtuous, blonde, sophisticated, sexually repressed "madonna" and a dark-haired,
single, sensual "fallen woman".[8]
In American Horror Story: Asylum, set in a mental asylum during the 1960s, a time when the
field of psychoanalysis was in chaos, the repressed character Dr. Arthur Arden, as portrayed
by James Cromwell, is fixated with a seemingly innocent and virtuous nun. When she later
sexually propositions him, he bitterly defaces and then destroys a statue of the Virgin Mary
(a.k.a. the Madonna), screaming "Whore!" at it accusingly. Earlier in the series, Arden had
shown to subscribe to Freudian theory regarding feminine sexuality.
In Diego El Cigala and Bebo Valdés's album Lágrimas Negras there is a song titled Corazón
Loco (Crazy Heart) which introduces an Andalusian folk song where the singer plays this false
dichotomy situation related on traditional roles.[9]
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See also
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Ambivalence
Borderline personality disorder
Coolidge effect
Dichotomy
Dualism
Friend zone
Love–hate relationship
Machismo
Manichaeism
Marianismo
Misogyny
Neo-Freudian
Psychoanalytic concepts of love and hate
Sexism
Schism (religion)
Splitting (psychology)
References
[edit]
Notes
1. ^ Kaplan, Helen Singer (1988). "Intimacy disorders and sexual panic states". Journal of Sex &
Marital Therapy 14 (1): 3–12. doi:10.1080/00926238808403902 .
2. ^ a b Hartmann, Uwe (2009). "Sigmund Freud and His Impact on Our Understanding of Male Sexual
Dysfunction". The Journal of Sexual Medicine 6 (8): 2332–2339. doi:10.1111/j.1743open in browser PRO version
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6109.2009.01332.x
.
3. ^ Freud, Sigmund (1912). "Über die allgemeinste Erniedrigung des Liebeslebens" [The most
prevalent form of degradation in erotic life]. Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und
psychopathologische Forschungen 4: 40–50.
4. ^ Denmark, Florence; Paludi, Michele A. Psychology of Women: A Handbook of Issues and
Theories
. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993, pp. 493–94, ISBN 978-0-313-26295-1.
5. ^ a b Tuch, Richard (2010). "Murder on the Mind: Tyrannical Power and Other Points along the
Perverse Spectrum". The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 91 (1): 141-162.
doi:10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00220.x
.
6. ^ Feinman, Clarice. Women in the criminal justice system
. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994, pp.
3–4, ISBN 978-0-275-94486-5.
7. ^ Gay, Volney P. (2001). Joy and the Objects of Psychoanalysis: Literature, Belief, and Neurosis
.
SUNY series in psychoanalysis and culture. Albany: State University of New York Press. p. 109.
ISBN 978-0-7914-5099-4.
8. ^ Gordon, Paul. Dial "M" for Mother: A Freudian Hitchcock
. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson
University Press, 2008, pp. 89–91, ISBN 978-0-8386-4133-0.
9. ^ Lyrics Corazón Loco Lagrimas Negras
.
Literature
Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund
Freud, Volume XI: "A Special Type of Choice of Object Made by Men", pp. 165–175; "On the
Universal Tendency of Debasement in the Sphere of Love", pp. 179–190; London: Hogarth
Press, 1957, ISBN 978-0-7012-0067-1.
External links
[edit]
John A. Speyrer. The Madonna/Whore Complex: A Primal Theory Interpretation , The Primal
Psychotherapy Page
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Categories: Dichotomies
Sexism
Psychoanalytic terminology
Sexual and gender prejudices
Complex (psychology)
Freudian psychology
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