Dictionary

Madonna-whore complex en · NOUN

Etymology

Madonna here refers to the Virgin Mary.

Meanings

1. (qualifier:feminist theory) A complex said to develop in men who see women as either saintly "Madonnas" or debased prostitutes, potentially leading to the inability to maintain sexual arousal within a committed, loving relationship.
   • ‘Who’s That Knocking at My Door?’ [1967] was a film that dealt with a simple theme, one basic idea—a young guy trying to deal with his madonna-whore complex about women—plus a slight indication of what Little Italy was like. 1973 November 18, Gene Siskel, quoting Martin Scorsese, “Along the ‘Streets’ of Little Italy …”, in Chicago Tribune, section 6, page 6:
   • Like other expressions of Madonna-whore complexes, there is an idea that bad things don’t happen to good girls. 2020, Mikki Kendall, “Of #FastTailedGirls and Freedom”, in Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 48:
   • The female nurse, however, still fulfils a public stereotype, according to the nurses The Sydney Morning Herald spoke to. She suffers from the Madonna-whore complex – she is a Madonna in the ward because she “helps” people, but socially she’s a Nurse and everybody’s heard of nurses’ parties, haven’t they? 1981 June 20, “Nurses: think like a man, work like a dog, smile like an angel”, in The Sydney Morning Herald, number 44,765, page 33:
   • Under the Madonna-whore complexes that plagued me and most boys, there was a deep Christian fear of ourselves as animals, creatures of flesh more than spirit. 2013, Andrew Hudgins, “Morning, Ladies!”, in The Joker: A Memoir, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 246:
   • “Just got here. Saw the light on my way up to the loo—then I saw your fat arse sticking up investigating Nanny’s drawers so I thought I’d pop in. I see her taste in quasi-nun’s outfits hasn’t changed since 1985,” she observed, flicking through the hangers. “Think she’s got a Madonna and whore complex?” 2008, Hester Browne, The Little Lady Agency and the Prince, Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 375:
   • As we’re well into the 21st century, we might have hoped that all of that Freudian hooey about the Madonna-Whore Complex could have been ditched by now, but [Rena] Priest’s work suggests that our society is still impacted by those archetypes. 2017 June 4, Barbara McMichael, “Two views of life from Bellingham”, in Kitsap Sun, page 4D:
   • The analyst clarifies the enactments into reality of a defensive dissociation of the intimate object from the sexual object, a classic Madonna-and-Whore complex. 2005, The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Psychoanalysis, American Psychiatric Publishing, →ISBN:

Forms