Let’s show the patriarchy (and capitalism) where they can stick it.
Valentine's day is upon us and the topic of love is ubiquitous. Even if you wanted to, you can't escape the pink hearts, gender normative clichés, and doe-eyed couples.
Or can you?!
Whether or not you plan on buying someone a giant Vermont Teddy Bear (which, according to their commercials, has the power to turn women into sex maniacs), this Valentine's Day can be the most amazeballs ever.
How? Follow these foolproof tips on how to commandeer the holiday for yourself and be your own freaking Valentine. Choose your own special, unique, subversive way to celebrate!
Let’s show the patriarchy (and capitalism) where they can stick it. No shopping required, except for the sacrificial animals.
Are you the old-fashioned type?
Be a true traditionalist and celebrate the February 15th festival of Lupercalia instead, like the Romans, because, really, how cool were they?
Go to a cave, and while doing your best fake party laugh, sacrifice a goat and a dog. Skin them, strip naked, and then run through the streets looking for women to whip with the animal skins.
Don’t worry, it’s not gross: Apparently the ancient ladies were into this even more than Vermont Teddy Bears.
(Caution: this may make women fertile, if the gods are pleased. For this reason, I will personally be avoiding all naked men running through the streets in February... as at all other times.)
In the mood for romance?
Have a mating lottery!
That’s right, a mating lottery — also courtesy of our friendly, frisky Romans.
Do Valentine’s/Lupercalia right. Take off the pressure of society’s expectation to find your soulmate and, instead, get a group together, write your names on pieces of paper, and literally just pull a name out of a jar to get a new lover until the heathen Bacchanalia the super-Christian holiday of Saint Valentine’s Day has run its course.
Now that’s a real return to old-fashioned values!
More of a holiday purist?
Burn a Christian at the stake. [Editor's note: Please don't do actually this. It's wrong, and stuff.]
This is really what Valentine’s Day is all about, after all — don’t let Hallmark fool you with their clumsy distractions of cutesy cupids and rhyming couplets.
We celebrate this day to commemorate not one, but two (possibly three?) dudes, all of them named Valentine (themed execution?) whom Emperor Claudius II killed on different February 14ths in the 3rd century for reasons not exactly confirmed. Apparently no one has gotten over it.
Celebrate women!
Somewhere along the way, Normandy perhaps, there was also something called Galatin’s Day.
And because Galatin (which apparently meant “lover of women”) sounds like Valentine, people got confused and started thinking Valentine’s Day was about love. But that’s great, I mean, I love women too.
Let’s make this National Love Women Day instead! We’ll run around telling women how great they are and how much they deserve income equality! Now that sounds like a perfect evening.
Feeling frisky?
No one ever said you had to have just one Valentine. After all, there are tons of St. Valentines — about 12, in fact, plus a Pope.
So, feel free to pull a move or two… or 12. After all, Momma said you gotta shop around… until you find what you want.
Then, probably stop shopping around. Just some advice.
Romance, schromance
Feeling stung? Lost your buzz with dating?
This Valentine’s Day, focus on one of our current patron saints' other areas of expertise — bees! (Betcha didn’t know one St. Valentine was a multitasker; along with bees, he is also the patron saint of epilepsy. Totally related).
Take up beekeeping! Make tea with honey! Draw a picture of a bee! Pretend to be a bee!
Whatever you do, help St. Valentine do his freaking job as a patron saint (he’s slacking) and save the bees! They need our help.
Feeling bummed about gender normative mating rituals?
Think Valentine’s Day is a commercialist conspiracy? Never fear — you don’t have to depend on convention or a lover for that rush of butterflies in your stomach.
Science says that feeling we get around a special someone is largely caused by the brain producing dopamine, aka, “the brain system of romance” (I know, I know, I love talk like that too: swoon).
And guess what? You can get a dopamine fix all kinds of other ways, like slaying your inner critic or taking a step towards your dream job. DIY!
Of course, if you love Valentine’s Day as it is, that’s totally cool too. You can be a rebel with a cause, a rebel without a cause, or a rebel of love — whatever your style, this V Day, give yourself some Valentine’s love and just bee yourself.
Unless you can be Beyonce. Then, maybe be Beyonce.
