The Madonna Whore Dichotomy: Motherhood and Sexual Agency

This lecture focuses on exploring the often uncomfortable duality of two aspects of identity and experience: Sexuality & Motherhood. The sexual agency of Mothers is still very much a taboo, across cultures. The lecture gives contemporary and historic context to this and then shares research that provides insight into the experience of mothers in finding and navigating their sexual agency.

The Madonna-Whore dichotomy denotes polarised perceptions of women as either “good” chaste and pure “ Madonnas”, or as “bad” promiscuous and seductive “whores” (Tanzer, 1985; Tavris & Wade, 1984 in Kahalon, et al. 2019). This dichotomy can be traced back to ancient civilizations and has been attributed to ideas around psychoanalysis, socio-economics and ultimately patriarchal control of society and the women in it. The idea might sound outdated, but is it? The impact is ever present; Friedman, Weinberg, and Pines (1998) found that the more sexual a woman was described, the less she was perceived as a “good mother” (i.e., indicating that sexuality and motherhood are viewed as mutually exclusive). Research published as recently as 2019 identifies that societal beliefs around the Madonna-Whore dichotomy are still prevalent and create maternal shame around sexuality (Kahalon et al. 2019). Despite divorce rates at an all-time high a figure still often demonised is the single mother, often characterised as a threat to civilised society, Jacqueline Rose explains “it is a common assumption that a single mother is a woman who puts her sexual life ahead of her social responsibility. She therefore has only herself, or rather her voracious sexual appetites to blame. Manipulative or sexual the single mother exhibits either too much control over her sexual life or not enough” (2018). There are no such narratives around the ‘single father’ despite common sexual scripts depicting men as more promiscuous.

Jennifer Anyan’s research uncovers the ways in which mothers are reclaiming pleasure, drawing insights from interviews with a diverse range of mothers on their relationship with s3x, their sexual agency, and the paths they have taken in reclaiming their bodies for pleasure.

We are committed to making our sessions as accessible as possible. If you are unable to pay the full amount for this class, please reach out to us via email at [email protected] and we will provide you with a discount code.