What do a beheaded music lover, a teenage runaway, a dragon-slayer, and a girl who just wanted to stay single have in common? They all became virgin saints — whether they asked for it or not. In this episode, we unravel the lives (and afterlives) of St. Agnes of Rome, St. Cecilia, St. Margaret of Antioch, and St. Margaret of Cortona — four women whose stories were polished, rebranded, and passed down as holy templates of purity and pain. There’s a lot of uncomfortable questions about control — especially over young women’s bodies, choices, and legacies. These weren’t passive martyrs - they were messy, complicated figures whose real power may have been in how inconvenient they were. This week, we’re peeling back the gold leaf to ask: Who gets remembered as a saint — and what did it cost them?   Sources:  Elliott, Dyan. “The Bride of Christ and the Milk of the Virgin: An Example of Marginalia as a Source for Women’s History.” Signs, vol. 14, no. 2, 1989, pp. 252–268. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3174397. Bitel, Lisa M. “Body of a Saint, Story of a Saint: Creating a Sacred Past.” History of Religions, vol. 30, no. 2, 1990, pp. 116–140. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1062951. Lochrie, Karma. “Between Women: Imagining.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, vol. 4, no. 4, 1998, pp. 523–556. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41678197. Hollywood, Amy. “Virginity and the Invention of Heterosexuality.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 10, no. 1, 2001, pp. 1–32. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3704550. Petroff, Elizabeth Alvilda. “Women and Mysticism.” Mysticism and Spirituality, vol. 1, 1986, pp. 113–135. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40339263.