Instagram's Maddona Whore Complex

  • Danielle Mendes

A mini essay on hegemonic masculinity and sexual double standards on Instagram.

The Madonna-whore complex, first coined by our friend (or racist, misogynist foe) Sigmund Freud, denotes the polarized perception of women as either good and chaste or as bad and promiscuous. This dichotomy suggests that female sexuality is binary, leaving no room for women who exist in the intersection - wild. These categorizations dictate two clear cut idealisations: the asexual vs the sexual, the loved vs the desired. However laughable and ludicrous this may seem, this narrative is scarily pervasive in society today as well as historically.
Society's promulgation of the madonna-whore dichotomy speaks to our tendency to allow our future to be fashioned by the past. As I write this, I think about the way rape often functions as a conduit for male competition and a tool to uphold patriarchy. As an illustration, the women who are described as beautiful and desirable in the Bible such as Bathsheba and Dinah often find themselves being subjected to sexually aggressive and negative male attention. Further, Leviticus states that a woman is unclean after childbirth, and doubly unclean after giving birth to a girl. It is also stated that a man should not lie with a woman on her period as she is 'unclean', so unclean that just occupying the same space as her is enough to make you unclean. Alternatively, when women are raped in the Bible, they are often seen as damaged and are blamed for the violations put upon their bodies. Even though I'm a Christian, I do find myself struggling to reconcile certain aspects of the Bible which are blatantly sexist and informed by the opinions of misogynistic men (which I have to remind myself of).
Moreover, Lilith, although not included in the main creation story in the Bible appears in several Midrashic texts and is widely believed to be the first wife of Adam before Eve. After learning of her in Cassandra Clare's book City of Bones (LOL), her story has beguiled me ever since. Lilith was created by God from dust and placed in the Garden of Eden to provide Adam with some much needed company. Problems between the two soon arose when Adam tried to exercise dominance over Lilith. One story in particular, tells us that Lilith refused to lay beneath Adam during sex because she believed they were both equal as they were created in the same way. Long story short, Lilith kissed her teeth and fled the Garden. She refused to go back to Adam despite God sending his angels to retrieve her, and so subsequently, she was demonized and punished by having the angels kill 100 of her children every day for her disobedience. In popular culture, Lilith is often depicted as a sexually wanton demon who steals babies in the night. Besides Lilith being the portrait of a self-assured and independent woman, her story serves as a stark reminder of how women, once they dare to exercise their sexual power are trodden upon and castigated. Her swift suppression evidences both fragile masculinity and also, the shaky foundations upon which the patriarchy rests.
With regard to the Madonna-whore complex, Instagram is an interesting case study. Its platform highlights how women often face criticism and ostracism from the same society that encourages sexual expression. This begs the question why is it that in a society which is becoming increasingly progressive is female sexuality still such a taboo?
Instagram is saturated by pictures of women who own their sexuality and sensuality, choosing to turn their bodies into art, flaunt their assets or monetize their bodies through content subscription services such as Only Fans. In all of these cases, I have noticed the disparity in the engagement on their posts and the rhetoric used to describe these women. The high engagement a lot of these posts are met by suggests that on a purely aesthetic level, their bodies are desirable and coveted. On the flip-side, a lot of the time, these women face condemnation for their corporeal displays and are seen as being only good for sex, unintelligent, or for lack of a better word, 'sluts'. In these cases, men like to have their cake and eat it too, delighting in the pleasures that female sexuality affords them, whilst simultaneously demanding purity and modesty. Responses to topical questions featured on Instagram accounts such as 'Imjustbait' such as 'what body count is too high?' evidences this discrepancy. Why is it that when a woman has a body count higher than 2, men will joke that 'she belongs to the streets', but when a man on Love Island says that he has slept with over 100 women, no one bats an eyelid? Why is it that we don't hold men to the same standards we hold women to when it comes to sex?
It seems that women who choose to exercise their sexual prowess are often boxed into a homogenous category. It's inconceivable for these women to be sexy, respectable and intelligent. No, that sentiment is far too radical. So radical in fact, that its very conception seems to run the risk of bringing about 'an upheaval of the old property crust, carrier of masculine investments' as Helene Cixous so wonderfully articulated. This upheaval, however, is precisely what needs to happen. Women need to stop internalizing the notion that their bodies and sexuality are innately shameful and dangerous. We need to step outside these toxic modes of sexual modesty and propriety that insist on stifling female agency and self-expression.
The most radical thing we can do as women is to love our bodies and shed the negative stigmas and stereotypes surrounding the female body. We need to own our body counts as men are allowed to do so comfortably and not feel a modicum of shame. We should be able to dress up or dress down as we see fit. We should be able to post whatever we want on Instagram without the worry of being too much or too little. We need to embrace our divine femininity unapologetically, because once we realize just how much hegemonic masculinity short-changes us, we will be able to live freely and confidently in both our individual and collective power; embracing every multidimensional facet of our being.