madonna-whore complex

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Definition of madonna-whore complex in English English dictionary

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madonna-whore complex

(Psikoloji, Ruhbilim) The term Madonna-whore complex refers to a psychological complex in Freudian psychoanalysis that is said to develop in the human male. The term is also used popularly, often with subtly different meanings. According to Freudian psychology, this complex often develops when the sufferer is raised by a cold and distant mother. Such a man will often court women with qualities of his mother, hoping to fulfill a need for intimacy unmet in childhood. Often, the wife begins to be seen as mother to the husband — a Madonna figure — and thus not a possible object of sexual attraction. For this reason, in the mind of the sufferer love and sex cannot be mixed, and the man is reluctant to have sexual relations with his wife, for that, he thinks unconsciously, would be as incest. He will reserve sexuality for "bad" or "dirty" women, and will not develop "normal" feelings of love in these sexual relationships

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madonna-whore com-plex