Episode 4: The Madonna-Whore Complex

Managing Love Intelligently with Steven Ing, MFT

In this episode, Steven discusses the Madonna-Whore Complex (MWC) and his experiences with it. Wikipedia defines MWC as the inability to maintain sexual arousal within a committed, loving relationship. Sigmund Freud first identified this complex, under the rubric of "psychic impotence." It is a psychological complex said to develop in men who see women as either saintly Madonnas or debased prostitutes. Men with this behavioral complex desire a sexual partner who has been degraded (the whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (the Madonna). To sum all of this up, Freud wrote: “Where such men love, they have no desire and where they desire, they cannot love.”
For over 30 years, Steven Ing, MFT, has been a Marriage and Family Therapist with a specialty in forensic work. He is a contributing writer to Psychology Today and the author of two books on sexuality: We're All Like This and Get Busy Living. He is the creator and host of the true crime podcast Sex Crime Central. In 2022, he was the victim of an attempted murder and survived multiple stabbings. And good thing: in 2023 his feminist science fiction novel Polliwog was published and he was appointed a community faculty member for the UNR School of Medicine. He lives in Reno, Nevada, with his wife, Sharon, on the edge of the Toiyabe National Forest.

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