The Great Christian Porn Star
Mary Magdalene is often nude in religious paintings. Is it “art”?
Published in
7 min readApr 3, 2024
When I grew up Christian, I was told pornography was very bad. Now I see the religion not only liked porn — but had a favorite porn star.
It’s like finding your father’s porn collection—except it’s your Father in Heaven. Let’s look at Christianity’s NSFW depictions of Mary Magdalene.
In many Christian paintings, you can always tell which woman is supposed to be her.
As the art historian Daniel Arasse puts it: “Mary Magdalene is beautiful: beautiful breasts, beautiful arms, beautiful thighs, and her hair is always clean, shiny, and voluptuous.”
The set-up is that she was very sexual, a prostitute, but very, very sorry for it. It was the porn that Christian men were allowed to have.
