A Slight Change in Wording

It’s time to say what is surely on the hearts, tips, tongues, lips, and toes of everyone who has encountered the shameful farce of Valentine’s Day:
Is Western Culture this desperate?
The answer, in case you want to skip the diatribe below, is yes. Congratulations. You may now go home and bump the mattress with your spouse (pre-sexing not endorsed on this blog) or nuzzle with your puppy and pretend it’s a significant other. (Cats are naturally unfazed by feelings of amorous delight, so attempting to show them affection may result in your disembowelment. Keep away from the feline.) If utterly desperate, one may seek solace by dry humping the corner of the couch. It will, however, only make you feel more embittered and dirty, not to mention disgust your roommate(s). On second thought, don’t hump the couch.
We live in an age where fetid feelings of infatuation pass as meaningful. We came to believe that our emotions were tantamount to reality, and since the height of emotional consumerism is Valentine’s Day, our belief in the power of the V has since reached epic proportions.
What if Valentine’s Day was renamed as Vagina Day? There you have a cut-and-dried, no-nonsense holiday without a hint of remorse or obfuscation. Coming from the perspective of a male, who is required by law to pamper and cosset the lust of his life within an inch or two of hers, Valentine’s Day boils down to one thing–a social exchange of goods for service. Economically speaking, at its basest point, the gettin’ it on makes the gettin’ of chocolates/ flowers/ candy/ cards all worth it. Guys don’t care about the flair and circumstance. They don’t need or want the cards and candy. But they really appreciate the physical exchange that may take place after the end of a long and emotionally exhausting day.

From a female perspective, I can see how Vagina Day might not be the popular alternative to what is traditionally “their” holiday. So in a bid to make things more equitable and satisfactory to the fairer sex, I propose instead the following:
No Expectations Day. Defining it as a Day will instill the proper attention it warrants (very little), and the ones who deserve it will receive their love in heart-shaped boxes. The ones who need it will have to work through that need to get to the root of their feelings. The ones who don’t need it will simply accept what happens, because they are not coddled by simpering commercialization of romance anyway. And they will find themselves on the receiving end of their partner’s truest expression of appreciation and devotion, uninfluenced by the possibilities of mattress olympics.
For those who don’t have love in their life, the day will pass like any other, their expectations unchanged from the day before. They will seize the moment, the Day no longer having the power to constrict their happiness.
And for Western Culture, a subtle redefinition of what it means to be in love may occur. At the very least, it will convert those cynical enough to write anti-Valentine’s Day screeds every year into suspicious but acquiescent fellows and ladies.
May that be so. For now, Happy Anti-Valentine’s Day.