Valentines Day: A cycnical perspective

In today's society, February 14th is automatically associated with Valentines Day... the day of "love." The problem with this, however, is that the modern day holiday that hallmark and girlfriends alike have managed to capitalize upon has a rather mysterious past, none of which necessarily pertains to jewelry, chocolate, a chubby guy with a bow and arrow, or greeting cards with red hearts all over them. The REAL history of Valentines Day concerns itself more with religious conspiracies and the mating seasons of birds. Yes I said it, BIRDS.
Though much of the holiday's history can be boiled down to speculation, the most common (and logical) starting point for Valentines Day lore is the Pagan fertility festival of Lupercalia. Sordid details aside, after some ritual sacrificing a town's bachelors walked around the streets slapping women on the ass with strips of goat hide dipped in blood from the ritual (it was considered good luck for the women of course) and then all the women's' names were placed in an urn in a giant lottery, the men drew names, and the couples committed themselves to a year full of "fertility rites." But don't worry, those of you who are die hard romantics at heart, the pairing often culminated in marriage, and if not there was always the next year to give another go around the sex urn. So, as I'm sure many male readers are wondering at this point, what the hell happened to that tradition, it sounds a whole lot better than buying stuffed animals and chocolate right? WELL, as can be imagined, once The Church took over this festival was deemed rather inappropriate, and so as were custom during these times in an attempt to "Christianize" the population they created their own holiday in honor of a martyred Christian figure, and enter Saint Valentine... or Saint Valentine... or another Saint Valentine.. (for details on the lives of the many Valentines of Christian lore see this issues Food for Thought section.) Regardless of which Valentine was in fact being honored, however, the issue remained that by 498AD mid February was no longer dedicated to the 15th's Pagan festival, but was instead overshadowed by the 14th's Day of Christian Love. That, and birds were believed to mate in mid February so the French and English figured what the hell nature obviously intended for this to be a month of romance.
And that my friends, is the readers digest version of how Valentines Day came to be. There were no cherubs with arrows spreading love amongst humanity, no earth shattering romance worth being honored by all lovers for the rest of time, hell there wasn't even (to my knowledge) a highly creative man of the ancient world who thought this would be a great way to sweet talk girls into succumbing to the idea of love in order to get them to succumb to other things. It was just the bloody imprints on girls' behinds from sacrificial goat strips, and some horny birds.
Now I for one am not willing to submit my heart's freewill to the behavioral pattern of an animal regularly known for flying without hesitation into anything glass... but come to think of it... that doesn't seem like quite a bad metaphor for love after all.....

If you don't believe me though, do some research for yourself. There's a plethora of sites dedicated to the topic, but I'd most recommend The History Channel's version, because lets be serious here, it's not A History Channel, it's THE History Channel... doesn't get much more official then that.