Psychoanalysis
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
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 whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (the Madonna). [ 2 ] Freud wrote: "Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love." [ 3 ] Clinical psychologist Uwe Hartmann, writing in 2009, stated that the complex "is still highly prevalent in 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 duality implies that women must assume subservient roles, either as madonnas to be protected or as whores to be punished by men. [ 5 ]
