Temptress: Why our Hatred of the Mistress is Rooted in Misogyny

Tales from the “Other Woman”

Elizabeth Taylor, Queen Camilla, Cleopatra, Ariana Grande…What do all these women have in common? They have all been the “other woman.”

The “other woman” is a term we use to describe a certain type of woman, though any individual, regardless of gender, can embody her archetype. She is one that the man (or woman) in the relationship cheats on their primary partner with. Most often, this occurs in cis-gender heterosexual relationships, or at least that is what is modeled for us through art and media. We’ve all seen movies like Obsession, The Seven Year Itch, and TV shows like The Affair, which portray the “other woman” as a lustful temptress set on seducing the married/taken man she has set her eyes on. Often, in these movies, the other woman is seen by the male main character as alluring, sexually empowered, liberated, and unshackled by the rules and regulations of society. She represents everything the main male character shouldn’t want and yet desires to be with. She is wild, untamed, and free – all the things he feels like he cannot be as he believes he is trapped in his marriage/relationship, which is full of obligation and responsibility. Thus, she represents not a person to him but rather an ideal – an idea of what his life would be like if he weren’t held down by the weight of the structures in his life, which he feels he must maintain. A kind of love that defies the patriarchal traditions and values he has internalized to be the “golden standard” of not only what he should want in a relationship, but for his life as well. Thus, she represents freedom. Specifically, a type of freedom that is inherently feminine because, like the ocean, nature, and the moon, it does not abide by the laws and structures of men. It exists, it just is.

The Seven Year Itch (1955) staring Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell

Who is the “Other Woman”?

Much like the wild woman archetype, the temptress or “other woman” has come to symbolize a woman uncontrolled by the structures and laws of men. Thus, like the moon, which is ever-changing, she is mysterious and unpredictable, bright and light one day and dark and hidden the next. That uncertainty is precisely why men are drawn to her. Like Tom Ewell’s character in the Seven Year Itch, men believe that they already know everything about their wives/partners and that there is nothing more for them to learn. So as the boredom sets in, they start to wonder what it would be like to have a little “novelty” or “a bit of fun,” they believe they need a temptress to awaken something that is missing in their life. When in truth, these men are projecting their own shadows onto her (i.e. Marilyn Monroe’s character) in an attempt to outrun themselves. In an effort to deny their own “feminine” qualities – the parts of them that wish to be wild, untamed, and untethered to the rules and regulations of society.

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung said it himself: The “anima (feminine principle) is the purveyor of self-knowledge,” and who better to speak on the power of the feminine/temptress archetype than the man whose own emotional affair with his patient-turned-colleague no doubt inspired his notion of the anima in his theory. Not to mention that this affair, which he wrote profusely about to his mentor and colleague, Sigmund Freud, was also likely the inspiration behind Freud’s infamous Madonna-Whore Complex, which I have taken to label as the Goddess-Witch Spectrum™. What was the name of this mysterious woman? Sabina Spielrein, but we will talk about her more on another day…

For now, let me share what inspired me to write this post. Recently, I saw an article on my Instagram feed from The Cut titled “I Opened My Marriage. Maybe I Should Have Tried an Affair Instead” by Haley Mlotek author of No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce. Perhaps it was that this article found me just a few weeks shy of the anniversary of my decision to end an emotional affair with a long-time friend of mine where I played the part of the “other woman.” Or perhaps it was just Venus retrograde causing me to reflect on my relational patterns. Either way, clearly, the title of Mlotek’s article got my attention, and while in full transparency, I have not read the article, the comments I saw on her post got me wondering. Why is it that we demonize the “other woman,” yet, at the same time, glamorize the concept of having an affair?

In both the Seven Year Itch and Obsession, the man’s affair with the “other woman” served as a catalyst for him to develop his own self-insight, thus discovering what he valued and needed to do to save his marriage. Or, to put it more plainly, to quit dicking around (metaphorically and figuratively). This pattern isn’t also just specific to men or cis-gender relationships either. Recently, in the movie Babygirl, which starred Nicole Kidman, her character, a high-power CEO, has an affair with her mentee/intern, which almost destroys her family until she can learn how to communicate with her husband to improve their sex lives. Thus, the affair served its purpose; it allowed her to reconcile her own shadows, and by proxy, she was able to be more authentic and open with her husband.

Babygirl (2024) starting Nicole Kidman

However, while there are tons of stories and examples from the perspective of the cheaters who atone for their past transitions, thus either returning to their partners with new insight or electing to end their relationships if they decide they really need freedom to become their authentic self, we don’t often hear stories of the women (or men) who are forced to play the role of the temptress.

The temptress is the woman who betrays her fellow kind (other women) and doesn’t play by the rules of men, only to usually be burned in the end. (Sometimes quite literally, i.e., what occurred in Cleopatra’s case or how the archetype of temptress has often been associated with another fear archetype for men - the Witch.) And while, yes, men and queer folx can play the part of the temptress, I have noticed that we seem to have a specific kind of hate, jealousy, and misogyny reserved for the women who get placed into this role. Hence, why I will be using heteronormative language to describe this dynamic throughout the rest of my post. (Though I would argue this archetype exists within all of us in the collective and therefore, we can all access her power and destructive force.)

These are women that history has decided to villainize, turning them into a cautionary tale for all little girls to fear turning into. I was (and am) one of these women, and this is my story.

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