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Hey Jenny, Jenny

Why are you crying?

There’s a beauty of a moon in the sky

But I guess when you’ve been

leading such a sheltered life

You never lift your head and look so high

The process of getting better at dating and relationships – especially for men – is a tricky one. As much as men need to work to improve the practical aspects of their game – the ability to approach stranger, knowing how to flirt, the use of body language, even how to master the power of texting and phone calls – they also need to work on the mental aspects.

Earlier this week, we talked about self-limiting beliefs and how they can hold you back from the life you want. Today, we’re going to continue that conversation, dealing with one of the most distressingly common beliefs out there – one that actively affects women as much as men, distressingly enough.

We’re talking about the Madonna/Whore complex. You can see it manifested in pop culture – the virginal, even repressed “good girl” (usually a blonde) and the “fallen” femme fatale (usually a brunette) for whom sex is a weapon and men are merely tools are playthings. You see it in how men – and women – refer to women’s behavior and in how men treat the women in their lives.

And this belief is hurting everyone.

What Is It?

The Madonna /Whore complex was first encoded into psychological literature by Sigmund Freud as the idea that men (and women) codify women into two camps: saintly “Madonnas” and debased “whores”. The good girls – the Madonnas – are virtuous, innocent, pure and virginal, almost to the point of asexuality. The bad girls – the whores – are sexually voracious, indiscriminate and aggressive… in fact, they are often depicted acting in a manner traditionally defined by male sexuality.

Where Does It Come From?

Well, that’s a bit of a question mark, isn’t it? According to Sigmund Freud, it all stems from Mommy and the idea that men are disturbed by feeling the same affection that they once had for their mothers in their sex partner. Because they cannot bear the Oedipal conflict (familial love associated with their mother mixing with sexual desire) they divide women into two categories in their mind.

The dichotomy, however, has existed for centuries before Freud ever started having weird thoughts about cigars and seeing penises everywhere. The division of the saintly, non-sexual woman and the woman-as-sexual-being shows up all over the place. Medieval literature and poetry is rife with the imagery of sexual women being the downfall of men (La Morte D’Arthur, The Faerie Queene) and the pure women as the representation of “proper” life. Hell, in the book of Genesis, it’s Eve who seduces Adam into sin after she’d eaten from the Tree of Knowledge.

Frankly, in my experience and study it stems from the fear of female sexuality, a blurring of gender roles and the transfer of power.

Men are frequently portrayed as being absolutely at the mercy of their own sexual desires, leaving women as the guardians of morality. Men, already feeling at a disadvantage, resent the authority and power over sex that women represent and blame women for their feelings of… impotence. Regulating female sexuality into the acceptable form – under the authority of men (the Madonna) and the unacceptable form – acting in a manner similar to men (the Whore) provides the illusion of control.

In addition, control of female sexuality also means control of reproduction. Because men had no way of being assured that they weren’t actually expending effort raising someone else’s child (thus contributing to the spread of someone else’s genes, rather than their own), locking a woman’s sexuality to specific rules meant that they could have greater control over who the father is.

So What’s The Problem?

When the sweat is sizzling on

your skin in the dark

And you’re desperate now

for somewhere to turn

Every muscle in rebellion

Every nerve is on edge

And every limb has been erotically burned

It’s easy to think of this as an “old-world” problem; after all, this is the 21st century. We’re living in a post-Third Wave Feminism world. Women are encouraged, nay, expected to take ownership of their sexuality, to be empowered sexual beings… right?

And yet this dichotomy still exists. Women who are considered to be “too” sexy or sexual are condemned for the crime of being the “whore”. Witness the recent manufactured controversy with Sandra Fluke’s testimony before Congress on the matter of government subsidization of hormonal birth control. Despite the fact that her testimony was focused on the non-reproductive benefits of the Pill – controlling her friend’s fibroid ovarian cysts – she became the poster child for unrestrained sexuality to the Right. She was accused of being a whore (metaphorically and literally), told that she was having “far too much sex” by people who don’t seem to have any idea how birth control works and called a “sperm-gulping gutter slut” (and worse) by the right-wing echo chamber.

All of the insults directed Fluke’s way were of a sexual nature, implying that not only was she having too much sex but that this marked her as being a horrible person on the whole. The suggestion that she is a sexual being carries the implication that she is otherwise worthless because she’s sexual.

The concept of slut-shaming – bashing or insulting a woman for being a sexual being – also springs from this dichotomy. Because a woman doesn’t follow the role of restrained sexuality that culture has laid out for her (the path of the Madonna), she is to be mocked and shamed. The fault of a Whore’s treatment is focused solely on her. If she were to be proper, innocent and pure, she wouldn’t be bringing this upon herself.

As much as the Whore represents fear of unrestrained sexuality, the Madonna is equally patronizing and insulting to women. By putting the Madonna on the pedestal of saintliness and purity, she becomes something to be “protected”. Her role is to be submissive and subservient to men; just as the Whore is meant to be punished, the Madonna is to be preserved and worshiped. Her personhood is disregarded.

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