8 Ways to Sunday

Ah, Valentines Day. From your humble beginnings as a blood-and-guts fertility ritual in ancient Rome — young maidens lining the streets to get smacked around with pieces of flayed goat skin — you’ve become an ultra-modern $12 billion annual corporate juggernaut: young lovers lining up at florists and gift shops to get smacked around with cartoonishly blood-red hype, hearts, and marketing schlock. You’ve come a long way, baby.

This is for my fellow single people who must suffer through today’s crock of a holiday. If you’re sick of the cards, the hearts, the teddy bears and balloons, the fucking red everything everywhere, and all those commercials trying to convince you that you’re somehow defective for not happening to have a romance going in the month of February, then you may find these links a welcome respite from the insanity:

• ABC News: Singles Brace for “Black Monday” — This story mentions some people after my own heart, hailing from New York City it’s…
• The Black Hearts Party — For fifteen years, these dedicated souls have thrown an anti-Valentine’s party where the dress code (black) is strictly enforced. They have an amusing manifesto which begins: “We the Black Hearts Party are waging a war of sanity. No longer shall we suffer to be the hapless prey of Cupid or the pawns of St. Valentine. Firmly we stand, against the army of fluffy white teddy bears that advance marching lock step from every convenience store and gas station…”
• Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About — Feeling sorry for yourself because you don’t have a significant other to snuggle on this V-Day? Read this excruciatingly detailed — and often hilarious — list of arguments and start feeling liberated instead.
• MSNBC: Here’s Wishing You a Happy Valentine’s… Even though it’s a day of bad breath, heart disease and death — The title speaks for itself. A run-down of informative statistics and dire historical events from past V-Days that prove once and for all that this holiday is evil. Amaze your friends!
• ABC News: Lawmaker Shuns Valentine Candy, Cites Slavery Fear — West African cocoa plantations where the raw ingredients for Valentine’s Day candies are harvested are notorious for using forced child labor. Yum, tastes like exploitation!

And Finally, a History Lesson

The Catholic Church counts no fewer than three Saints Valentine from its early history, none of whom did any stand-out work in the area of romance. If it’s named after any historical religious figure at all, Valentine’s Day probably gets it’s moniker from Valentinius, an influential teacher of Gnostic Christianity who was quite the eyebrow-raising horndog in his day.

The enthusiasm that Valentinius expressed for the “bridal chamber” and its associated conjugal bliss would’ve ensured that the Church wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. Far from a “saint,” Valentinius was part of an obscure sect reviled by the mainstream church as heretics. Ironically, considering his apparent ardor for amour, the sub-sect of Gnostics that took on his name believed all mater to be evil — especially the human body.

A holiday about romantic relationships named after a horny and morally conflicted preacher? St. Swaggart’s Day, anyone?

(Props: Bibi’s Box for pointing me toward the ACME Candy Heart Maker)