By Princess O’Nika Auguste

The Christmas season centres the story of the Virgin Mary, a narrative of divine mystery and grace. Yet when we examine this sacred trope across scripture and popular culture, a troubling and consistent question emerges: what happens when a “virgin birth” is not a chosen vocation but a divine imposition?  This foundational issue is present in the Gospel of Luke, Mary is told she will conceive a child, her response is not immediate consent but confusion:  How can this be, since I have no relations with a man (Luke 1:34).  The angel Gabriel explains to Mary “the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”  The Greek word for “overshadow” (ἐπισκιάζω) can imply an enveloping, even overwhelming, presence. Womanist biblical scholar Wil Gafney rightly notes how troubling Mary’s lack of explicit prior consent is. Her subsequent declaration, “Behold, I am the doulē of the Lord,” is often softened to “servant,” but the Greek term δούλη specifically means “enslaved person”. This frames her acceptance not as a freely negotiated choice, but as consent within an irrevocable power dynamic. The divine will has already been set in motion; her “yes” follows the fact. We are asked to see this not as coercion but as faithful submission because the perpetrator is God.

This narrative finds a stark and illuminating parallel in modern pop culture, specifically in the television series Xena Warrior Princess, which engages with non-consensual divine pregnancy not once but twice, drawing a disturbing distinction based on the perceived morality of the deity involved.  In Season 3’s episode “The Deliverer”, Gabrielle is violently impregnated by the evil god Dahak; the scene is framed as a supernatural rape: she is overpowered on an altar, “overshadowed” in a terrifying, violent way, which results in the birth of the destructive Hope.  The horror of this non-consent is unambiguous because the deity is evil, and the child is a force of chaos.

However, the show replicates this pattern with its hero in Season 5, and here the lack of consent is overlooked by the narrative and its audience. After her crucifixion and resurrection, Xena discovers she is pregnant in the episode “Animal Attraction.” She is bewildered, insisting she has had no recent sexual activity.  Gabrielle’s attempt to find a rational explanation, humorously suggesting recent encounters with Hercules or Ares, is particularly telling.  This moment highlights Xena’s own certainty that conception through normal, consensual means was impossible. Although I wish Ares or Hercules (preferably Hercules) had been Eve’s father, that connection would have made the convoluted and awful storylines of Season 5 and Season 6 feel more justified. This makes the eventual revelation in “Seeds of Faith” that the “father” is her slain, tormented nemesis, Callisto, reborn as an angel, an even more profound violation. Xena’s pregnancy was orchestrated by celestial forces using the essence of her greatest enemy.

While not physically violent like Dahak’s assault, Xena’s impregnation is a profound metaphysical violation performed without her knowledge, permission or any possibility of her willing participation.  Her acceptance reads to me not as retroactive consent but as a complex karmic resignation. She is already pregnant, possibly still grieving the death of her son Solan and rationalizes it through the twisted karma she shares with Callisto  (They give to each other, what they both took from each other), and because the child, Eve, is later found out to be destined for a “ good purpose” ( The Twilight of the Olympian gods, which I am still not sure was a good thing. Eve is later hunted down by Zeus and the other Olympians) and because her conception involves a “good” deity, the violation of Xena’s bodily autonomy is narratively overlooked and accepted by the audience. The problematic paradigm is clear: if the deity is good, the ends justify the non-consensual means.  This brings us to a powerful cultural synthesis, found in the Christmas folklore tradition of my island, Saint Lucia. In the  Saint-Lucian Masquerade, there exists the figure of Mary Ansèt, the forever pregnant wife  of  Papa Djab. She  embodies a duality: a creolized  reflection of the Catholic (European, French) Virgin Mary and a haunting  representation of  enslaved  African women who endured forced pregnancies and brutal realities. Mary Ansèt,  perpetually carrying a child she  never births, becomes a folkloric vessel for this traumatic history. She directly mirrors the slave language of Luke, connecting the biblical Mary’s submission to the historical subjugation of Black women’s bodies under colonialism. This figure challenges us to see the virgin birth trope not just as theology but through the lens of power, conquest and stolen reproductive agency. So, the question is, should we continue to gloss over the lack of consent because the deity is “good”?

The consistent thread from the Gospel of Luke to Xena to Saint-Lucian folklore argues powerfully that to gloss over it is to sanctify a dangerous paradigm. It teaches that the sacred ends can justify assault and that the bodies of women, whether biblical, mythical or fictional, are acceptable vessels for plans they did not design. Re-examining these stories is not about dismantling faith, but about applying a consistent ethical lens to our most sacred tropes.  It asks us to sit with the discomfort of Mary referring to herself as doulē without romanticising its lack of agency, to acknowledge Xena’s violation amidst her redemptive arc and to hear the resistance encoded in figures like Mary Ansèt.  This Christmas, perhaps a more profound reflection lies in seeing these stories clearly and in recognising that we should demand, in our future narratives, sacred and secular, that the lack of consent should never be accepted!

Princess O’Nika Auguste is a Saint Lucian writer, feminist, and body protester. She is a Master of Research student at Dublin City University, where her work focuses on intersectionality in Biblical literature, specifically examining gender, consent, bodily autonomy, agency, ethnicity, childhood, and migration. Her analysis also engages, to a lesser extent, relevant Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman contexts. You can follow her on Bluesky and Instagram at @onikaprincess.

Recommended Readings

Koet, Bart, and Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte. “The Annunciation Narrative (Luke 1: 27-38) Read in Times of# MeToo.” Biblische Notizen 192 (2022): 91-103.

Frederick, June “ Traditional Masquerade of Saint Lucia: Characters and Costumes Music and Dances” https://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Masquerade-Saint-Lucia-Characters/dp/1953747027

French, A.L Dawn, “Caribbean Legends: Myths. Folklore and Traditions” https://www.lulu.com/shop/a-l-dawn-french/caribbean-legends-myths-folklore-tradition/hardcover/product-rmrgy9g.html?

Gafney, Wil. “Did Mary say me too? https://www.wilgafney.com/2017/11/26/did-mary-say-me-too/

Greek word ‘δούλη’ (female slave) http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=dou%2Flh&la=greek&can=dou%2Flh0&prior=h(&d==h(&d=Perseus:text:1999.01.0155:book=Luke:chapter=1:verse=38&i=1

Greek word ‘ἐπέρχομαι’ (come upon, overshadowed, etc.) http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=e%29peleu%2Fsetai&la=greek&can=e%29peleu%2Fsetai0&prior=a(/gion&d= Perseus:text:1999.01.0155:book=Luke:chapter=1:verse=35&i=1#lexicon

Relevant Episodes to watch of Xena the Warrior Princess and Hercules the Legendary Journeys

Xena Warrior Princess 1995-2001 produced by Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert

Season 1

Calisto

Season 2

Return of Callisto

Intimate Stranger

A Necessary Evil

Season 3

The Deliverer

Gabrielle’s Hope

Maternal Instincts

Sacrifice

Sacrifice II

Season 4

A Family Affair

Season 5

Fallen Angel

Animal Attraction

Seeds of Faith

God Fearing Child

Amphipolis Under Siege

Looking Death in the Eye

Livia

Eve

Motherhood

Hercules the Legendary Journeys 1994-1999 produced by Sam Rami and Robert Tapert

Season 3

Surprise

Season 4

Armageddon Now: Part 1

Armageddon Now: Part 2

Season 5

Faith

Descent

Darkness Rising

Let There Be Light

Redemption

Revelations