Podcast Summary: Betwixt the Sheets – Who Was The Virgin Mary?

Podcast: Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Host: Dr. Kate Lister
Guest: Professor Sir Dermot McCulloch, historian of sex and Christianity
Date: December 19, 2025
Episode Theme: A deep dive into the historical, religious, and cultural identity of the Virgin Mary—with an eye towards the history of sexuality, virginity, and gender in Christianity.

Overview

In this lively and irreverent Christmas special, sex historian Dr. Kate Lister explores the real Virgin Mary, with the acclaimed historian of sex and Christianity, Professor Sir Dermot McCulloch. Mary’s story is picked apart from biblical texts, early church history, and centuries of Christian doctrine, exposing how her role as the ultimate virgin has shifted—and been hotly debated—across the ages. Together, they unravel how ideas about sex, gender, and purity shaped not only the image of Mary, but also how Christianity has policed sexuality and womanhood throughout history.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The (Un)Surprising History of Virginity in Christianity

• Sex in the Bible: Despite assumptions that Christianity is anti-sex, biblical and earlier Jewish texts are full of sexual stories and songs, some possibly authored or sung by women ([09:54]).

  • Quote: “The Hebrew scriptures, which Christians call the Old Testament, is absolutely enthusiastic about physical sex. It's got a book called the Song of Songs...most of the Bible written by men. But...these are texts which include a lot of writing or singing by women.” — McCulloch ([09:56])

• Virginity as an Imported Ideal: The early Hebrew tradition favored marriage over celibacy; a cult of lifelong virginity only emerged in Christianity centuries after Jesus, influenced by Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism via Syrian Christian traders ([11:52]–[14:31]).

  • “Monks and nuns developing within Syrian Christianity...sources are Hindu and Buddhist. They are not biblical.” — McCulloch ([11:52])

2. Mary: Historical Woman or Theological Icon?

• Mary in the Gospels: The only historical certainty in scripture is that Jesus was born to Mary and her husband Joseph, but Joseph was not his biological father. All nativity embellishments—angels, shepherds, Bethlehem—were layered in later ([16:27]–[18:36]).

  • “Everything else is added...It's added to make sense of...the birth of God in a sense from a human mother...this is an irregular birth. It's a birth...by the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of randomness, of the unexpected.” ([18:36])

• Jesus’s Siblings and Mary’s Ongoing Virginity:

  • The Gospels reference Jesus’s brothers and sisters ([22:09]), embarrassing to later church doctrine.
  • “In the New Testament, in the Gospels it talks about the brothers and sisters of Jesus and you can get up to the number seven...and at least two sisters.” — McCulloch ([22:09])
  • “The church simply forgot about this or explained it away in later centuries.” ([22:09])

• Mary as Goddess-But-Not-Goddess: Mary is venerated, prayed to, and associated with shrines—occupying a practical role akin to a goddess, despite theological insistence otherwise ([16:04]).

3. Emergence of Marian Doctrine and the Cult of Virginity

• Apocryphal Stories & Doctrine Invention: The Protevangelium of James (2nd century, Syria) introduced the “ever-virgin” Mary doctrine, including miraculous tales like a midwife’s hand catching fire when checking Mary’s virginity ([25:56]).

  • “A midwife comes along and...inserts, shall we say, some fingers into the Blessed Virgin Mary and is immediately punished from heaven by it because her hand catches fire.” — McCulloch ([27:11])

• Marriage as “Second Best”: As monasticism spread, celibacy became the ideal; marriage was tolerated only for the necessity of producing Christians ([29:03]–[29:51]).

  • “If you want everyone to be a virgin...we are gonna run out of little Christians pretty quickly...Well, we just have to tolerate marriage.” ([29:20])

• Late Church Control Over Marriage: Church weddings are a medieval invention, only normal in the West from the 12th century—astonishing for modern listeners ([30:50]).

  • “In the early church, there was no such thing as a church wedding...It's a medieval invention.” ([30:50])

4. Mary, Eve, and the Medieval Battle Over Women’s Bodies

• Mary vs. Eve: Cosmic Duel: Increasingly, Mary (the new Eve) is interpreted as redeeming humanity from Eve’s (woman’s) original disobedience; their stories are woven as mirror opposites ([32:13]–[34:58]).

  • “If Eve destroyed everything, Jesus' mother...put it all right, and she is the one who reverses the fall of humanity simply by being the mother of God.” ([32:31])
  • The Latin symmetry: “Eva” (Eve) vs “Ave” (as in “Ave Maria”) intensifies this narrative ([34:57]).

• Theologians’ Sexual Fantasies and Anxieties: Medieval scholars speculated wildly about how conception happened without normal sex—suggesting the ear as the point of divine insemination, for symbolic (and non-graphic) reasons ([34:46]).

5. Shifting Attitudes, Sex, and Power

• Sex: Satanic or Sacred?: Fierce debates arose: was sex inherently fallen, or still part of God’s plan? Augustine, contrary to his “gloomy” reputation, argued that sex and marriage remain sacred, though tainted by the fall ([36:10]–[38:35]).

  • “Augustine...is saying something much more healthy. He is saying, no, sex is part of God's plan. We've mucked it up because we've fallen, but it's still there as part of God's plan.” ([37:24])

• Paul’s Radically Equal Marriage: The Apostle Paul promoted sexual reciprocity and equality within marriage, radical in its day ([39:31]–[40:22]).

  • “Each partner...have equal duties to each other in a sexual way. Their body is owned by the other person. Any old Roman would have said...my wife's body is my property. But Paul...the wife owns the husband's body. That's really radical.” ([40:22])

6. Modern Reflections and The Lasting Legacy

• Virginity: Social Construct, Ancient Anxieties:
  • Virginity, even the hymen, is a later medical and cultural invention ([44:24]). Both ancient and modern debates are shaped by changing priorities and social needs.
  • “What we know now through medical research is that virginity is really a nonsense. You can't prove it. It's an entirely social construct.” — Lister ([44:24])
• Celibacy’s Double-Edged Legacy: Historically, celibacy offered real independence for some women, especially nuns and abbesses, liberating them from patriarchal families ([44:26]–[46:01]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Jesus’s Family and Celibacy:
  “Mary is a girl from Galilee who does marry a man called Joseph. They have children. — Kate Lister ([20:02])
  “It is true. It's in their gospels. And it's sort of casually put in there. Jesus, brothers and sisters came up and he wasn't best pleased when they appeared.” — McCulloch ([20:03])

• On Marian Dogma’s Oddities:
  “A midwife inserts...some fingers into the Blessed Virgin Mary and is immediately punished from heaven because her hand catches fire.” — McCulloch ([27:13])

• On Church Weddings:
  “In the early church, there was no such thing as a church wedding...It's a medieval invention.” — McCulloch ([30:50])

• On Eve, Mary, and Latin Wordplay:
  “Eva's name is Eva. Yeah, well, Our Lady Mary is addressed by the angel...in Latin, that is Ave...the other way around from Eva. It's a beautiful piece of poetry...” — McCulloch ([34:57])

• On Sex and Virginity as Control:
  “Virginity is really a nonsense. You can't prove it. It's an entirely social construct.” — Lister ([44:24])

Important Timestamps

• [09:54] – Sex in the Hebrew Bible and the roles of women as singers/authors
• [11:52] – The emergence of monastic virginity, influenced by Eastern religions
• [14:31] – Jesus’s own celibacy, debunking myths of marriage to Mary Magdalene
• [16:27] – The development of Marian veneration and shrine culture
• [18:36] – Why nativity stories and miracles were added to Mary’s story
• [22:09] – Church discomfort over Jesus’s siblings
• [25:56] – How “ever-virgin” Mary doctrine was invented in Syria
• [29:03] – Early church’s problem with celibacy vs. procreation
• [30:50] – The late invention of church weddings
• [32:13] – Mary vs. Eve: development of cosmic dualism about women
• [34:46] – Medieval speculation on “divine conception”
• [36:10] – Augustine vs. Jerome: Is sex Satanic?
• [39:31] – Paul's radical concept of sexual equality in marriage
• [44:24] – Modern view: Virginity as a social construct
• [46:01] – How celibacy could be liberating, especially for women

Tone and Style

The conversation is witty, frank, and accessible—mixing sharp historical scholarship with gleeful irreverence and modern analogies. Both host and guest are unafraid to challenge received dogma, embrace the indecorous, and question how sexual mores—and the figure of Mary—reflect long shifts in power, gender, and society.

Conclusion

This episode of Betwixt The Sheets dismantles centuries-old assumptions about Mary, virginity, and sex in Christianity. Kate Lister and Sir Dermot McCulloch show how Mary’s image is the result of social, not scriptural, invention, and how the cult of the virgin tells us more about anxiety and power than about “purity.” Essential listening for anyone curious about the intersection of sex, religion, and history.