Can't Keep My Mouth Shut - The Madonna-Whore Dichotomy: Polarized Perception of Women

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

The concept originated in Freudian psychoanalytic theory, where Sigmund Freud coined the term "Madonna-Whore complex" (or "psychic impotence") to describe men who are unable to feel sexual desire for a woman they love and respect - the Madonna - but can only be aroused by women they devalue or disrespect  the Whore. Let's discuss, shall we? With love, Nixalina.  For more awesome content to read including beauty, fashion or dating & love features, please do head over to my digital platform www.nixalina.com. Don't be shy, come say hai! Head over to my Instagram or Tiktok @nixalina to slide into my DMs.

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Visit odoo.com to book a demo. It's odoo.com. Hey, it's Nixalina. Welcome back to another episode of Me. This week, we're going to delve deep into the archives, and I've fished out one of my personal favorite episodes for all of the new listeners joining in to enjoy. This podcast contains strong language and discussions about relationships, sex, and love. It may not be suitable for younger listeners. this is the can't keep my mouth shut podcast and i am nixalina

hello everyone it's nixalina here and i'm back with another episode of my podcast tonight we're gonna get a little deep no not balls deep like i always say i mean psychologically deep This episode is thus, Freud's Madonna-whore complex of women, let's discuss. Okay, let me begin at the beginning. In case you don't know, Sigmund Freud is pretty much like the father-founder of psychoanalysis, okay, and he's best known for like his neuro theories around the unconscious mind. around sexuality your subconscious in fact i'm pretty sure he alone coined the term ego so every time we talk about our ego without freud we wouldn't have that word i'm hedging my bets there might have been someone else that come up with ego but we know it's freud okay so when he discusses a complex called the madonna whore complex the madonna whore syndrome

what he's basically arguing here is that oh this is really this really is a deep one guys so fucking bear with me all right I'm going to try and make it as light as I can but it is important to discuss this so what he's saying is there are polarized perceptions of women as either good and chaste or bad and promiscuous. The Madonna or the whore. And it's a complex, I guess it's, I'm going to say male work with me here. I know we're in gender fluid 21st century times, but this is back when Freud was alive. So in the male mind, there's a split between affectionate and sexual currents in in the male psyche and desire of a woman annoyingly for us females what it does is it puts us into two different boxes right and it's very very neat

and tidy here can we just say oh well you can be in that box or that box done like okay bro I mean, Freud, I got you, but I've got some questions. So what he's saying is the Madonnas are the pure, the nurturing, the asexual, the respected and the loved. And then you've got those whores. They are tainted, depraved, sexual and desired. let's just take a moment shall we i mean let's just have a moment with this so basically just to put it simply you've got saints madonnas or you've got prostitutes you've got the madonna the mothering nurturing loving wife type then you've got the whore

Naughty, dirty, filthy, promiscuous, sexual, deviant, dark And you cannot mix both This is what he's saying He's saying in the man's mind There is those two categories of women And you cannot cross To sum up in this whole theory in one sentence Freud states

Where such men love, they have no desire. And where they desire, they cannot love. Okay, Freud. I have a fucking problem with this, right? Because let me tell you, even though this was back in the 1900s, this is still a problem today, my friends. you as a female you're still in a fucking box you are either the loving woman that he wants to marry but he's still checking out that sexy short skirt like oh I want to bend her over a table and fuck a type girl but you don't want to marry her he wants to marry you the soft sweet loving one who tends to his every whim. It feels like you can't be wife material and be someone who's a fucking freak in the bed and gets him stiff within like a minute. I have a huge problem

with this. Firstly, for my whole life, my whole fucking life, I have been put in the poor box. That's going to be a quote on Instagram. I have never been the Madonna, ever. In polar opposites, I'll use my sister, she's the Madonna. She's virtuous, loving, like she's only been with one man her whole life. She's an angel. She really is just the best human I think I've ever met. And I am the complete opposite to her. I have always, always, always been viewed by men as a sexual object even when I don't fucking want it and I remember back in uni I got so pissed off I remember just when I got drunk at the uni bar because I'd had like back to back week upon week upon week month on month of guys trying to sleep with me trying it on with me

who very knowingly had girlfriends and I was like why do you think I'm the kind of woman to to disrespect other women that I would even fucking do that and it was like I was so desperate to be loved at that point and I was like I'm never I'm never going to be in a relationship I'm the girl that guys fuck and then go home to their missus right and someone when I was lamenting about this at the time someone described this to me I'll never forget it and it was actually one of the boys the ones that was trying it on like okay he when I said no it was very chill after that it was like back to being friends or whatever but he was like look a Ferrari as a car guys fucking want a Ferrari proper sexy red Ferrari they want to drive it

really fast in the streets like look at me and my Ferrari isn't it fucking awesome but no one drives a Ferrari every day. No one puts a Ferrari in the garage, you know, and then goes in home. Ferraris are like the lavish excitement, like statement piece. But for every day, you want like a four by four. You want a standard drive about car, one that's comfortable, one that's reliable. That doesn't make you not want the Ferrari. Just the Ferrari isn't an everyday thing. You're the Ferrari, Nicks. That's what he said to me. I'm pretty sure that's the day I took up smoking. So you see, without even knowing about this syndrome back then, I'd already been living it. I was still living it. 21st century,

madonna horse syndrome still a big big thing and that's what he was basically saying is you're the one we want to fuck you're the one that's sexy you like even just when you're trying to be friendly you're flirty even when you try and dress dowdy you're sexy and i've always said that i'm not tooting my own horn because honestly it's a fucking pain in the ass but i try and not be sexy and it doesn't seem to I just can't do it I can't be that really fashionable chill cool girl next door and that's all really I've ever wanted is to like get that vibe I can't I really can't and I guess what happened is I put myself in that whore box because when I've been treated that way for ages it's just like okay well that is me now don't get me wrong I'd had boyfriends

but I don't think they ever really really took me at like seriously as someone I'd settle down with I really don't I think I was that incredible like sexual hot girlfriend that make them look good and feel good but I was never on any of their long-term plans to wife up I really really wasn't And I kind of get it because it goes back to Freud's longstanding theory. Men consciously, they consciously and subconsciously, by the way, and sometimes they don't know it's subconscious, but it is, and it's sometimes very overt. They put women into these two categories. There is the nurturing mother type, and then there's a sexually pleasing promiscuous one. That's the Madonna and the whore.

so coinciding with this theory is in my opinion unfounded concept that states that being both sexually arousing and in a very loving long-term caring nurturing relationship are actually two mutually exclusive ideals and you can't have both and thus in my opinion this presents very very difficult issues that women have faced throughout the ages and as I've depicted we're still facing. Are we as females the nurturing borderline mothering kind sweet at home girlfriend or are we the sexually attractive freak in bed sexually open promiscuous whore type woman? more to the point how the fuck do we be both because if a dude in the 1900s has said it's one or the other how the hell are we gonna transcend that and i'm not shitting on freud

like he's the big guy he knows his shit there are some controversy to some of the you know the other the things he talks about his neurotheories and i get that but honestly he was bang on the money with this one because it's still happening 100 200 years later only this time it's explained to me with ferraris dude i get it thanks for the explanation i think what i try and reason with this as well is guys seem to think that women aren't wife material if she is sexual promiscuous if she does put a sexuality out there it's like she becomes tainted or impure dirty and thus unworthy of wife status he may possess very passionate sexual feelings towards this chick but she ain't wife material she's like a fucking guy material or perhaps just date her

and fuck her and show off but no no no not settle down not have kids no no no no he's gonna look for a good girl to marry. This woman, you know, is the sweet, less overtly sexy woman. Maybe the sex will be more, I don't know, chilled, calm, less exciting, dare I say boring with her. But she's the wife. She's the mother of the children. She's a long-termer. This is the crux of the theory. Now, I just want to argue my fucking case here that we women can be both. Say that louder for the dead Freud at the back, Sigmund Freud. You were on the money, but let me tell you, my friend, we can be both. We women are able in this fucking day and age to be a sexual being, to love ourselves sexually, to put our sexual fantasies out there, to know

that we love sex, to know that we can be pretty and promiscuous. And yet we can also be the one at home cooking dinners, looking after the children. We can have the ring on our finger and be called wife. We can take your surname and still be a freak in bed. We do not deserve to be split into these two categories. Am I right? I can't fathom why this still happens. Because if we're really going down this route, and we are, for me, it feels like men still can be overtly sexual they can be promiscuous they they're the fucking legend they're the man if they sleep around if they have loads of women after them like yeah fuck yeah i shagged this i shagged that right if we women have anything even near similar the same lifestyle we're sluts

we're whores we're dirt birds we're slags we are slut shamed for enjoying sex as a single girl single guys they're the fucking man oi oi fucked her last week got a different bed oh my god on tinder i got three different dates in one night hey fuck off honestly it's it's still so prevalent now and it drives me nuts like my instagram as a prime example i would do often lots of lingerie photo shoots. Do you know why? Because I was really proud of my body. I'm like 30 something. I done loads of photo shoots where I was like, hey, like shit, this is how I look. I'm 31. I'm 32. I was damn proud. Why shouldn't I be able to say this is me? This is who I am. I am confident woman. I'm strong. I am sexy. But I'm also intelligent. But I'm also the founder of my

own company, but I'm also going to be the best girlfriend you've ever had. Why can't I do that? No, no. As soon as these images go up, it's like wank bank material. I'm being sent dick pics from strangers I don't want. You know, I'm being sexualized as like a one dimensional creature. Oh, she's here to be like spunked all over. No, I'm not. And I am so over this connotation that we can't be both the Madonna and the whore? Why can't we be proud of our bodies, be open with our bodies, be very expressive and honest with our sexual appetites, and yet still be nurturing, loving, loyal, and wife material at home? Thankfully, I have met a man who can see that I bridged the gap and I think I mean obviously it's taken to 34 years old but here

we are I think many of my boyfriends in the past started off dating me because they put me in the hall box and then realized oh shit she's actually really nice um she's actually really loving like she tends to my every need which I do if I love you and you're my partner like you get you get everything I used to wait on all of them hand and foot I really did to my own detriment mind you and I just don't think they ever expected it and kind of was like wow like you are actually a better partner than I ever thought it would be because they put me in the whore box and then they got a Madonna at home and I didn't know how to handle it I didn't know what to do with it and I just think I'm not alone like I'm most women I know are both really we're we're both

and i want finally god i want everyone to bin those boxes to understand that the madonna is not the whore and the whore is not the madonna and women are not the madonna not the whore in fact we are both madonna and the whore and that's just us as a woman expressing our sexual nature enjoying ourselves be open with our bodies we are women that are multifaceted we can do it all we can give birth to your children we can marry you and take your surname but we can also look like fire in a short dress and we can suck your dick until you spunk over our face whatever it is that turns you on but then we can still cook you a nice dinner and you know go shopping with you at the weekend why why are you trying to put us in a box dudes let me just tell you if you keep us

separate you're losing out if you're choosing a Madonna or a whore and you're saying oh god she's a whore I only see her once or twice you're fucking losing out on a full package let me tell your friend if you stop splitting us up and accept the woman is both of these and we can do it all you are getting a full package and who doesn't want that so to sum up i mean i know i've ranted a lot tonight i'm not dissing freud god love you r.i.p dude you're a fantastic man you're extremely intelligent way way beyond your years and just wow like pioneered so much for us and did so much for psychoanalysis and mental health and really exploring the mind and yes he was bang on the money with his Madonna horse syndrome he really was

and it's sad to say he was right but what I want to say to Freud and to the guys out there today and the girls listening is let's not split us up anymore and let's combine the Madonna and the whore and drop the names completely, drop those labels and just refer to us as a woman. Thanks for listening to the Can't Keep My Mouth Shut podcast, produced and hosted by me, Nick Salina, and recorded in the Splice Cast Studios in Singapore.

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