Do you know a guy who shames the women in his life for wearing sexy clothes, but watches heaps of porn?
Chances are, that guy has what is known as a Madonna whore complex.
I meet a lot of guys who seem to have this issue with women. In fact, some people in my personal life struggle with this. I know, some of Freud’s theories have been discredited as time has gone on, but it’s very difficult to deny this is a thing when it’s happening right in front of you.
I’ll tell you a quick story;
My friends and I were at a strip club, celebrating the birth of one of my mates first born child (as you do…)
As a joke we decided to get this guy a lap dance because, you know it’s probably the last time we’ll see him for a while now that the baby has been born.
Anyway, we wave one of the girls over and start the negotiation process. She’s nice enough and very friendly. And she’s trying to make conversation with my friend who’s going to be getting the lap dance with her. You know, trying to build some sort of rapport with him.
And my friend’s talking to her, but won’t even face her. As an onlooker, it looked totally weird. She’s facing him and talking directly to him, and he’s at a ninety-degree angle to her, answering her questions but facing us around the table.
Anyway, it got to such a weird state that one of my other friends finally yells to him to “look at her when you’re talking to her!”. Which he did, very reluctantly.
And while he was downstairs getting his lap dance, my friends and I were wondering what that behaviour was all about.
I came up with the theory that my friend who was getting the lap dance could possibly have a Madonna / Whore complex.
So firstly, lets discuss what exactly a Madonna whore complex is.
Well, good ole Wikipedia states that - a Madonna–whore complex is the inability to maintain sexual arousal within a committed, loving relationship. 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 whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (the Madonna). Freud wrote: "Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love."
So essentially, my friend couldn’t look the stripper in the eyes because if he did, he’d experience a cognitive dissonance. By looking at her, he’d have to acknowledge that this stripper was in fact a real person with a life outside of stripping, who had opinions and struggles and hopes and dreams like everyone else does. She stops being this two-dimensional caricature of a real person that he can just objectify, and instead starts to become a three-dimensional human being. And his brain couldn’t reconcile the two conflicting ideals of being able to simultaneously desire and also have a baseline level of respect for her.
Actually, just to digress for a bit, it’s probably not terribly PC of me to say this, but strip clubs are absolutely fascinating if you’re into observing human behaviour. Because the mating dynamics are all back to front. The strippers have to man up and do all the approaching, and the guys get to feel what it’s like to be a pretty girl and get hit on all the time. It’s actually pretty fucking annoying, getting hit on all the time.
You also get to see the difference in the behaviour between guys who are used to being around beautiful women, and those who aren’t.
So yeah, strip clubs. Get at it!
Anyway, back to the Madonna / Whore complex.
So yeah, it’s a problem when a guy can’t get turned on by his girlfriend once she becomes a “real person” in his eyes.
I went and did some research about this whole Madonna whore thing and apparently, it’s quite a prevalent thing. It’s kinda sad.
In fact, I’d go as far to say that today’s highly sexualised culture, that’s also conversely and hypocritically prudish and puritanical as well, tends almost to encourage this Madonna whore complex.
In fact, it’s like western society as a whole suffers from the Madonna whore complex.
As one of my friends very eloquently put it, “you watch someone on TV stab a tit, but you can’t watch them caress one.”
But this leads into something else that gets mistaken for the Madonna whore complex, when in actual fact it’s a biological defence mechanism.
And that’s men’s natural tendency to want to avoid getting into a relationship with a sexually promiscuous woman.
I think from a biological and evolutionary psychology perspective, elements of the Madonna / whore complex work to protect men from this hazard.
It acts as a defence mechanism. For example, a woman who sleeps with a man on a first date could be deemed as promiscuous, and therefore puts a man at increased risk of paternity fraud or being duped into spending his resources looking after a child that isn’t biologically his. It’s the same reason guys have a fantasy about sleeping with a stripper, but never one about making a stripper their girlfriend.
So, this natural repulsion that a guy feels towards a girl who chooses to sleep with him, even though she knows that he only a base desire for her, acts to protect him from wanting to look after such a woman.
It only becomes the Madonna Whore complex when you finally meet a girl worthy of having a long-term relationship with, but can’t shake the feeling that having genuine desire for her is some dirty thing that is only associated with other dirty things.
Now, with this in mind, it’s probably not news to you that modern feminism seems to be trying to corrupt the theory of the Madonna whore complex as a sort of excuse to shame men into accepting female promiscuity as something that needs to be celebrated instead of something that needs to be avoided.
As an example, I found this propaganda piece in (you guessed it) the Huffington Post that illustrates this point. It’s titled “It's Time to Break Free from The Madonna-Whore Complex”.
And I’ll read a few lines from the article;
Holding a view of women as either Madonnas or whores not only limits women's sexual expression, but it creates a false dichotomy and impossible standards. It also strips women of their right to pleasure in the same way that men simply expect it, without question. To quote Beyoncé’s Flawless, "We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes." It may be 2018 people, but some of us might as well be laying on Freud's couch.
The continual demonization of female promiscuity, slut-shaming in all its forms, rape culture in all its horrifying dismissiveness, are all prevalent today, and are all a product of the Madonna-whore Complex, which is simply an identifiable manifestation of men's fear of women's power, and thus of our sexual prowess, as the two are heavily linked. And then you get the spreading of harmful myths, like the idea that men have higher sex drives, women are naturally more passive, men are the hunters, yadeeyah.
Rather than give each other sexist, oppressive advice like, "Don't sleep with him on the first date," or, "Don't text unless he texts first," which is a hell of a bad way to start something with someone worthwhile, we would all do well to instead ignore the "rules of conduct," instead texting when we want, bedding who we want when we want and not denying our past or present desires to paint a picture we think will please someone else.
This has nothing to do with the Madonna whore complex. It’s just a hit piece encouraging men to lower their standards for women.
The problem is, there seems to be a general lowering of standards to what most men are willing to put up with when it comes to women.
And it’s articles like this one that simultaneously encourage women to act poorly in the belief that they are emancipating themselves from the evil oppressive patriarchy, and also shame men into having standards.
All it’s really doing is promoting irresponsibility.
And by irresponsibility, I mean women cannot expect men to change their natural behaviour, just because it doesn’t suit them. In much the same way a high-quality woman wouldn’t be interested in a long-term relationship with a broke, unemployed, incompetent man, the vast majority of high-quality guys wouldn’t dream of wife-ing up a woman who is known as the town bike. That’s just the rules of the game. If you want to be successful at the game you need to take responsibility for yourself and raise your standards to what is expected instead of bitching that it’s unfair.
Perhaps online dating platforms, and the abundance it gives women when it comes to choosing a partner, has a lot to do with this general lowering of their own standards. They’re getting away with things now that they probably wouldn’t have been able to get away with in the past.
And they know it. They know exactly what they’re doing.
I mean, where’s the incentive for women to improve themselves these days. They can sit on the couch and eat junk food and guys will still blow up their phone.
So anyway, how does this all tie in with the Madonna / whore complex?
Well, it kinda doesn’t. There’s two separate things I’m discussing here. But they’ve incorrectly been lumped together by the Huffington post so I’m doing the same.
While the Madonna whore complex is an issue that lots of guys struggle with, there is definitely merit in men wanting a sexual partner they also trust and admire, and then having standards when it comes to earning that trust and admiration.
But we can’t really blame women for this drop in standards. We guys let them get away with it and we don’t hold them accountable. But, if you listen to popular belief, you’re sexist if you want a partner who hasn’t slept with a hundred guys. Hell, you’re sexist if you ask your girlfriend to join you in the gym and get herself back in shape. You’re trying to force her to change for you! You’re a misogynist!
Having a partner and being in a relationship is a luxury nowadays, not a necessity. I wouldn't put up with owning a shitty, broken down sports car, so why would I put up with a shitty, broken-down partner? I think women realise this, but men, who are clouded by the old idiom of ”any hole’s a goal”, haven’t figured this out yet.
It’s only if we guys collectively, we ignore all this bullshit that’s getting pounded into our skulls these days by the mass media, and raise our standards for both ourselves and others, women will finally be given the incentive to raise their own standards.