page_title: Madonna–whore complex
section_title: In popular culture
hierarchical_section_title: Madonna–whore complex / In popular culture
context_page_description: In psychoanalytic literature, a Madonna–whore complex is the inability to maintain sexual arousal within a committed, loving relationship. First identified by Sigmund Freud, under the rubric of psychic impotence, 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 while they cannot desire the respected partner. Freud wrote: "Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love." Clinical psychologist Uwe Hartmann, writing in 2009, stated that the complex "is still highly prevalent in today's patients".
  The term is also used popularly, if sometimes with subtly different meanings.
context_section_description: Tiziano's Sacred and Profane Love (1514, the sacred-profane title is from 1693) has several interpretations. The clothed woman has said to be dressed as a bride and as a courtesan. The nude woman seems at first sight to be an allegory of profane love, but 20th-century assessments notice the incense on her hand and the church beyond her.
  James Joyce widely utilized the Madonna-whore polarity in his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. His protagonist, Stephen Daedalus, sees girls who he admires as ivory towers, and the repression of his sexual feelings for them eventually leads him to solicit a prostitute. This mortal sin drives Stephen's inner conflict and eventual transformation towards the end of the novel.
  Alfred Hitchcock used the Madonna–whore dichotomy as an important mode of representing women. 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".
  Pamela Thurschwell highlighted "the range of [Bob] Dylan's women, which may often begin with a fine line in madonnas and whores but which often go on to undercut each other in spectacular reversals".
  The Martin Scorsese films, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, feature sexually obsessed protagonists, both played by Robert De Niro, who exhibit the Madonna–whore complex with the women they interact with.
  The singer Madonna played with both identities, specially in her earlier career. Madonna herself declared: "I have always loved to play cat and mouse with the conventional stereotypes. My Like a Virgin album cover is a classic example. People were thinking who was I pretending to be—the Virgin Mary or the whore? These were the two extreme images of women I had known vividly, and remembered from childhood, and I wanted to play with them. I wanted to see if I can merge them together, Virgin Mary and the whore as one and all. The photo was a statement of independence, if you wanna be a virgin, you are welcome. But if you wanna be a whore, it's your fucking right to be so."
  Sex and the City mentioned Madonna–whore when describing Trey (played by Kyle MacLachlan) and Charlotte's (played by Kristin Davis) sex-life after they got married. Trey was unable to maintain an erection whenever trying to have sex with Charlotte due to the Madonna–whore complex. Charlotte was able to change that by touching herself in front of him.
  In the Seinfeld episode The Sponge, Jerry is unsure how he will have sex with his new girlfriend Lena, on account of her being a charitable and wholesome person.
  In the episode "Limelight" of Criminal Minds the team find an unsub with the complex. They believe this mixed with a severe mental condition caused a delusion where he would rape, electrocute, and strangle women in high end jobs.
  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 on 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 The Handmaid's Tale, women are strictly categorised and forced to wear a uniform of a specified colour, representative of their status as "Madonna" or "whore". The Handmaids, who are disrespected and violated continually, are made to wear red, which is associated with sex and fertility; the protagonist, a nameless Handmaid, is objectified and abused by the Commander, Fred. In contrast, the wives wear blue which is reminiscent of the virgin Mary; Serena, Fred's wife, doesn't get the attention she wants from her husband.
caption: Tiziano's Sacred and Profane Love.
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