The Madonna/Whore Complex originates with Sigmund Freud. Freud noticed that men who grew up with distant, cold and/or emotionally abusive mothers developed complexes surrounding women and sex. As the men grew up, they sought out women in their adulthood that possessed the same cold and distant traits of their mothers. What results is an acute fear of intimacy in which men compartmentalize women into categories of pure women who are worthy of love and commitment, and then the sexually desirable women who are sluts or whores. The most popular way the complex plays itself out is in the paradox in which any woman a man sexual desires must be a slut or a whore, and any woman who loves him and adores him is considered pure and consequently, he fears intimacy and feels inferior around her.

It’s kind of a sexual form of Groucho Marx’s ”I wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member,” conundrum.

The whole theory, like many psychological theories, is murky and the only real consensus about it is that basically, a lot of men seem to have a lot of anger and desire tied together around feminine sexuality, as well as a fear of intimacy and inability to get close to women who are deemed marriage-material. Think serial cheaters. Angry womanizers. Playboys with commitment issues.

Generally, any sort of animosity towards female sexuality, belief that certain women are sluts, whores, bitches, skanks, etc. are typical signs of the Madonna/Whore Complex in action. Obviously, it varies widely from man to man, but anything from a shrewd comment about some bitch in a short skirt, to saying you’d never touch a girl because she sucked some guy’s cock in the club bathroom, to going into violent rages at girlfriends over the most minuscule issues are common manifestations.

The philosophical problem with the Madonna/Whore Complex is that it’s a double-standard and it’s misogynistic. It’s basically saying that feminine sexuality should be controlled and squelched, that women who are overtly or freely sexual are somehow morally inferior, while masculine sexuality should be allowed to roam free. Women have far deeper and more complex sexualities than men and to try to limit them from expressing it is flat out prejudice.

It’s a double-standard because as men, we want women to be openly sexual with us — we want them to have the threesome with us, we want them to blow us in the movie theater, we want them to fuck us in the dressing room at H&M — but as soon as they do it with another guy, they’re a fucking skanky-bitch-ass-slut-whore and no fucking way would I ever go near her, she’s probably got herpes or something.

It’s the mere masculine jealousy and insecurity around the feminine affection — again, handed down at childhood — playing itself out in courtship.

If you don’t buy the philosophical argument against the M/W Complex, here’s the pragmatic argument: women aren’t going to be sexually open with a guy who judges and criticizes women for being sexually open. You know that PUA concept of Last-Minute-Resistance (LMR)? Or their so-called Anti-Slut Defense (ASD) thing? You need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Things like “LMR” don’t exist if you’re able to make a woman feel sexually comfortable and open around you. Often this requires little more than an open and candid conversation about sexual experiences and expectations without showing any judgment whatsoever. Once she sees that she can tell you about the time she cheated on her boyfriend in college, or the time she got drunk and had a threesome with her roommate and her roommate’s boyfriend, and you don’t freak out or call her a whore or laugh at her, chances are she’s not going to think twice when it comes time to sleep with you.