by Dr. Susan Block      

Friends, Romans, Countrywomen, lend me your ears,
I cum to bury Valentine’s Day, not to praise it…

Sorry to mangle Marc Antony’s classic eulogy in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, but Valentine’s Day is fake news.

A sugar-coated confection of disinformation concocted by the early Catholic Church, developed by the Victorian greeting card industry, sweetened by See’s candies, polished by DaBeers diamonds and abetted by Amazon, all this overpriced Hallmark-card fakery is based upon a lovely little sexless fairy tale starring the celibate Saint Valentine.

Sexless St. Valentine

As the story opens in 4^th century pagan Rome, mean old Emperor Claudius has made marriage illegal. In a vain effort to restore potency to his weakening imperial army, Claudius wanted fighters not lovers; after all, when you make love, you’re not so inclined to make war. Valentine, a Christian priest who married couples in secret, was arrested and, while awaiting execution, converted his jailer’s blind daughter to Christianity, whereupon she fell in love with him. Then, just after Valentine was executed, the jailer’s blind daughter found a card in his cell addressed to her from “Your Valentine.” Not only was she touched by this loving gesture, but the fact that she could now see the card meant Valentine’s saintly ophthalmological skills had cured her of her blindness.  

What a touching tale of chaste ideals befitting the high holiday of hopelessly romantic love, Saint Valentine’s Day!

But alas and alack (a big lack), the ideal is the enemy of the real, as Capt’n Max says, and in reality, there were several Christian martyrs named “Valentine,” and no evidence that any of them healed a jailer’s blind daughter or composed a farewell card.

However, the ideal is more compelling than the real – as well as more marketable – at  least according to Hallmark, See’s, DeBeers and Amazon, who have worked hard over the centuries to provide the tools for a V-Day fraught with pressure – the enemy of pleasure.

I’m all for relationship romance – and I’ve got the 31-year marital romance to prove it –  but I’ve always felt Valentine’s Day was a bit contrived, like artificial icing on a natural succulent strawberry. The real juicy fruit is in there somewhere, but the sickly-sweet shell disguises, sanitizes and commercializes it beyond recognition.

Later, I learned that deep inside the phony, saintly, sweet Valentine shell is the original, primal, heart-felt feast for all the senses, including your sense of history – with nothing saintly or celibate – about it… 

Lusty Lupercalia: The Original V-Day

They called it “Lupercalia,” the original pagan Valentine’s Day, the holiday of the heart, a big bacchanalian celebration of communal ecstasy, collective sexuality, fertility, purification, the rush of hormones, the howl of the wolf, the crack of the whip and the coming of Spring.

In contrast to the commercialism, artificial sweetness and romantic exclusivity of Valentine’s Day, Lupercalia seemed to be about a more inclusive, less expensive love—on the natural, kinky, consensual, pan-sensual, polyamorous Pan-horns of lust.

The star, namesake and feminist heroine of Lupercalia is the Luper. If you don’t know a “luper” from a “leper,” the former is Latin for “she-wolf.” According to Rome’s foundation myth, Romulus and Remus, the infant twins of the War God Mars and human Queen Rhea Silvia, are tossed into the Tiber River by their jealous Great Uncle Amulius after he assumes the throne of their grandfather Numitor’s kingdom of Alba Longa.

In our Lupercalian theater pieces with the Bonoboville Commedia Erotica Players, Great Uncle Amulius was usually played by Capt’n Max to dramatic effect, reenacting the throwing of Romulus and Remus into the Tiber by tossing a couple of scrunched-up balls of paper in between fluttering blue and green scarves held by lovely ladies roleplaying the waves.

Miraculously, Romulus and Remus are rescued and suckled by a she-wolf – the luper, usually played by the buxom Rhiannon Aarons, topless in a wolf mask –  in a cave they called the Lupercal.

Yes, a wolf suckling human babies sounds pretty bizarre, but compared to other religious origin stories – such as the Christian notion of immaculate conception or the Jewish idea of creating the entire universe in six days – it’s not so farfetched. In fact, there are documented cases of children being “raised by wolves,” who apparently are more adept at parenting than some humans (such as Great Uncle Amulius).

Adding another layer of meaning, the word “lupa” is Latin slang for “prostitute,” making the Luper a kind of “Sacred Whore,” the Great Primal Wolf-MILF of prehistoric Rome. This explains all the suckling. It also harkens back to a pre-patriarchal time when “sex work” was not only legal; it was honored.

Nurtured on wolf’s milk, Romulus and Remus grow up strong – maybe a little too strong. They are, after all, sons of Mars and wolves – not Venus and bonobos. So, pretty much as soon as they can walk, they go off and assassinate their Great Uncle Amulius; fair enough, considering he tossed them in the Tiber, but unfortunately, the killing continues.

Having assassinated Amulius and given Alba Longa back to their Granddad King Numitor, the twins go down the road a few miles to build their own city on seven hills. Life is good, until they fight over a fence – or maybe, you could call it a wall.

Then, as now, such man-made barriers to movement can be huge sources of contention. So, as Romulus is doggedly building his wall – Remus jeers at his construction and even jumps over it, just to show how ineffective his brother’s great border wall is. Then, in a fit of humiliated sibling rivalry reminiscent of the Judeo-Christian Bible’s Cain killing his brother Abel (hotheaded fratricide being a recurring theme among both pagans and monotheists), Romulus kills his brother Remus.

A born politician, Romulus professes to greatly “regretting” the killing of Remus, but doesn’t lose much sleep before founding the city of both of their dreams which he names Rome, after himself, conveniently forgetting his beloved bro.

Otherwise, the great imperial capitol we all know as Rome would be called “Reme.”

Nevertheless, the spirit of Remus lived on in a Roman college fraternity, the Luperci Fabii, as did that of Romulus in the Luperci Quintilii. Here is where mythology turns to history – or at least not-so-fake news – and wild communal celebration.

Februa of Pan

Every Ides of February, these two tribes or fraternities of primeval “frat boys” – the Lupercii Fabii and Quintilii – would meet within that dark, womblike cave of the Lupercal where the Luper (meaning both “she-wolf” and “whore”) once suckled their twin great-great-grandfathers. Here they would sacrifice a goat, honoring the goatherd god Lupercus, a spin-off of Faunus, the Roman name for the great Greek Lord of the Wild, that horned and horny old goat, Pan.

I call Pan the “Patron Saint of the Bonobos,” since their Latin classification is Pan Paniscus, and they are the horniest apes on Earth, humanity’s closest Great Ape cousins, the Make-Love-Not-War, female-empowered, male-nurturing, sharing, caring, peace-through-pleasure-loving bonobos. Moreover, Valentine’s Day is their holiday too, and it’s called World Bonobo Day.

Meanwhile, back in the Cave of the Lupercal, drinking the sacred wine, the Lupercii would shirk their togas and laugh ritualistically – as well as, I’m sure, spontaneously, considering all that sacred wine. Then they would mark each other’s foreheads with the goat’s bright red blood; talk about “blood on your hands” – and your head!

Then the more sober among the Lupercii cut strips from the goatskin, making some into loincloths and others into those notorious leather whips they called februa. Yes, it’s from the same root as February, the last month of the old Roman year, a time for spring cleaning and new beginnings. According to Ovid, februa translates to “the means of purification.”

Thus equipped and rather drunk, the Lupercii would leave their cave, laughing and howling like wolves as they raced through the hills and towns, wielding their “means of purification,” their sacred februa whips, gaily whacking the willing behinds of villagers and farmers, many of whom were women (also probably a little drunk), looking for luck, love and perhaps a baby. The ancient Romans believed that such gentle whacks ensured fertility, which is not as scientific as an IVF clinic, though Lupercalia probably did whip the local populace up into a sex frenzy, resulting in a November baby boom. Men would also raise their butts or put out their palms for a smack. All were welcome to receive the smack of good fortune that the gods bestowed upon the people through the lucky, lusty, laughing Lupercii.

With Pan, Lord of the Wild presiding over all that whipping, laughter and purification, the Lupercalia often got rather wild, releasing steam from life’s labors – like Valentines, candy or even diamonds never do. All in all, it was a little too steamy for the early Catholic Church which squelched Lupercalian enthusiasm by not only making it illegal, but by turning poor, horned, horny Pan into the Devil.

The rest is Satanic history.

The Lupercalian Beauty of a Heart-Shaped Booty

With Lupercalian celebrations outlawed, the early Christian fathers plunked the more chaste and Church-friendly St. Valentine’s Day down on the same date, the Ides of Februa, forbidding the whips of luck and lust, but appropriating the vivid color of goat’s blood smeared on human skin as its signature shade – red.

Another V-Day symbol that I consider to be Lupercalian in origin is the “heart,” which looks less like the cardiac organ than a set of well-whipped, “heart-shaped” buns.

Since I first learned about Lupercalia in 2008, Capt’n Max and I have celebrated the Feast of Saint Valentine by transforming our “Womb Room” into the womblike Cave of the Lupercal, inviting fabulous FemDoms, kinksters and friends to whip each other with februa floggers and act out the comic, erotic tale of the Great Suckling Wolf-Milf of Prehistoric Rome.

There’s no pressure to be *in* love (though it’s great if you are), but lots of opportunity to feel the love, enjoy the lust and partake in the inclusive, bonoboësque and sensual sense of community, resurrecting the ancient flogging fest from the annals of prehistoric Rome to the anals (and heart-shaped asses) of modern times.

We’ve made a few important departures from history. Unlike the old Roman Lupercalia, we always have had at least as many ladies whipping the menfolk as vice versa, plus same-gender and gender-fluid whacking. Unlike the ancient Romans, we have always been scrupulous about consensuality.

Also, marking people’s foreheads with goat’s blood is a little too unsanitary; so I would use red lipstick, and when we act out the Origin Story, rather than killing his brother, our Romulus just whacks our Remus’ butt.

What’s with all the whacking?  It’s fun!  It’s safe sex. As the ancients attested, it can be an act of “purification.” And if you stick to the buttocks, it’s difficult to do damage – especially for us human apes with our nice fleshy butts.

It’s also the Bonobo Way – and World Bonobo Day!  Though bonobos don’t make februa, they do occasionally whack each other’s butts with branches as part of their erotic play.

But it’s more than that.  If love is going to hurt—as it so often does, better to have your buns beaten (consensually) on Lupercalia than have your heart broken (badly) on Valentine’s Day. 

It’s also better than spending your Valentine’s evening getting all dressed up like in Victorian finery, going to a Valentine-themed restaurant, and then sitting at a table for two, each of you looking down at your cell phones. I took a photo of a lovely couple doing just that on V-Day at Clifton’s.

More Humane than Humans

Winding up the Valentine origin story on this show, the live comments go loopy (Lupey?) for Lupercalia. “Love all the history,” says Leanne. “A heart-shaped booty is a thing of beauty,” chimes in Deeznuts.

Max expresses amazement that folks are buying their Valentines (or more likely themselves) $3500 “Vision Pro” headsets – guaranteed to isolate you from your Valentine and everyone else. The digital commercialism of love and every other aspect of life is spiraling out of control.

Calling in on Callin for Valentine Seasons Beatings is mellifluous SUZY award-winning Maria, aka “Smiley Red Herring,” sharing her Lupercalian fables and singing us an especially romantic rendition of another timeless Beatles tune, “I will.”

We don’t have time to talk much about it this show, but soon, we will be taking Mark Zuckerberg and META to arbitration. Thus, we are heartened to see Senator Lindsay Graham, whom we don’t usually agree with about much, speak for us, as well as millions more when he said, “Mr. Zuckerberg… you have blood on your hands.” Of course, so does Genocide Joe.

As another Beatle sang from his marriage bed, Give Peace a Chance! Stop the killing in Gaza, now spreading like a bloody wound to Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Are we nuts? Or just so in bed with the war profiteers that we’re now less humane than nonhuman animals? Maybe the wolves and bonobos and even the goats have something to teach us – that we’ll never learn from Hallmark, See’s, DaBeers or Amazon – this Valentine Lupercalia Bonobo Season.

Make Kink Not War, and give The Bonobo Way (yes, you can get it on Amazon!) for World Bonobo Day, Valentine’s Day, Lupercalia or even Chinese New Year!

For inspiration, check out
Lupercalia 2020, Lupercalia 2019, Lupercalia 2018, Lupercalia 2017, Lupercalia 2016, Valentine Lupercalia Bacchanalia 2015, Lupercalia 2014, Valentine Lupercalia Rising 2013, Valentine Lupercalia 2012, Valentine Lupercalia 2011 

© February 3,  2024 Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sex therapist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and horny housewife, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For speaking engagements, call 626-461-5950.