Putting the fun back in Valentine’s

Readers will no doubt by now be aware of my innate cynicism for today’s commercialised pollution of historical traditions. The astute blog regular will already be predicting what follows to be nothing more than another spiteful attack on the bastardisation of the harmless modern Valentine’s Day.

And you’d be right.

Admittedly, it hardly seems fair for me to cast aspersions on what is one of the less intrusive holidays in the contemporary calendar year. Sure, we manage to buy and send over a billion Valentine’s cards each year (not a bad feat considering most of the world doesn’t recognise the holiday), but so what? Indeed, besides the obligations on men and women to spend money on non-value-adding commercialism for their partners (in, might I add, a gender-equality-defying 2:1 ratio), and a subconscious esteem-battering for the ‘single-and-looking’ subsection, February 14 hardly makes a blip on society’s radar. And yet, admittedly at a professed “anti-Valentine’s” party last night, I was a little shocked to discover that not one party-goer could answer my pop quiz question on the true origins of Valentine’s Day correctly.

(Yes, I am a real hit at parties.)

To be fair, there probably isn’t too much harm fostering from this acceptance of the corruption of the holiday’s traditional origins. Who am I to judge a moderately intoxicated cross-section of Canberra who believes Valentine’s Day came about because “Some Saint got stoned for getting married”; “A whole bunch of people got massacred in Greece”; or “Wasn’t it something to do with Jesus and a wedding?”. Franky, most people today don’t really care, so long as buying the Hallmark card gets them out of a night on the couch, and I don’t blame them. But, for a society living in the ‘enlightened era’ of scientific discovery and the search for truth, surely this sort of ignorance  should be dissuaded.

So here’s my two cents’ worth on the topic, though I wouldn’t quote what follows in any argument that attempts to get you out of your commercial Valentine’s obligations. Trust me on that.

Valentine’s Day doesn’t have anything to do with a Saint at all (though there were several Saint Valentine’s), or even anything remotely Christian. Nor could it traditionally be called a festival of romance (at least not how we interpret the word). In fact, we have to head back in time to ancient Rome, and specifically the three-day, hedonistic fertility festival of Lupercalia to see the first origins of today’s soppy excuse for buying chocolates.

Rather than bunches of flowers and the soft crooning of Michael Buble, the ancient Romans knew how to start a Valentine’s party. First, sacrifice a few goats, maybe a dog or two, and smear the blood over all the young men in the village (romantic, huh?). Then, eat a big meal with lots, and I mean lots, of wine.  Next, once you’re all well and truly trolleyed, rip up the skin of the bloody carcasses and mold them into thong-like whips – and then take off all your clothes (doesn’t sound like any Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had…).  Remember, so far it’s still just the men – the women are off getting sloshed and nude elsewhere. Finally, time to really get this party going: grab your bloody, animal-skinned thongs and run screaming, drunk and naked through the village streets, whipping any woman you come across with your thongs. Don’t worry, the women are actually trying to get hit: each strike of the whip is meant to enhance the woman’s chance of becoming pregnant. Plus, everyone up to and including the town Mayor is doing it, so you’re hardly going to get called up on your chauvinistic debauchery. In any case, now that the ‘official’ ceremony is out of the way, the villagers can all relax and settle down to enjoy the rest of the evening’s ‘unofficial’ frivolities.

So next year, when you feel pressured by society’s standards of romance to oblige in the mid-February festivities, feel free to explain to your gift-expectant partner that today’s holiday is a crude misrepresentation of an ancient and sacred celebration of fertility and love, and that if he/she really wanted to share an intimate remembrance of the true Valentine’s Day tradition with you, you’re going to have to get a goat.

Or, of course, you could just buy a card.