Valentine’s Day destroyed by sexism and creepiness – and that’s a real shame
Valentine’s Day was painful (for me) at the mixed Hampshire boarding school where I attended sixth form. A number of pupils were designated “Cupids”, and tasked with gathering up all the cards, gifts and roses deposited in secret overnight and hand delivering them to the other pupils – mainly girls – over breakfast. The result was that the girls everyone fancied had huge piles of roses and gifts; middlingly fancied girls had smaller piles and a certain number had nothing – and all could see who had what. I was generally in the third category. It was traumatic.
But if Valentine’s Day was too rich in significance back then in the late Nineties, it’s gone to the other extreme now. In fact, I can’t for the life of me imagine how today’s lusty folk – stunted and frustrated by the relentless merry-go-round of dating apps – are going to mobilise any romantic expression, or coax any pleasure out of mystery at all, come February 14. After all, romance and the gestures that go with it have been steadily killed off by a combination of the illusion of excess choice online, which has bred callousness and disappointment, and the rise of sexual wokeness.
In a climate in which every dating profile is a mini lecture on how “open” someone is sexually, enumerating their kinks, their ethics, and (increasingly) their commitment to “ethical non-monogamy” (having several partners at
once), it’s hard to see how anything like the wide-eyed desire to lavish hearts and chocolates on a woman has a chance. At the very least, the chocolates would have to be vegan, and in the post MeToo climate, there’s always a risk that any gift, especially one from a secret admirer, will be seen as sexually inappropriate.
Valentine’s Day was always a bit trite, sure. But however much I suffered at school come that mid-February day, morosely eating cereal beside my meagre or nonexistent pile of tokens, at least there was excitement and promise: this, I figured, might just be the year the boy of my dreams appeared from the woodwork. I carried this school-era sense of promise through to future boyfriends, who were gently encouraged to observe the day. Most were against it, calling it cheesy, but eventually they came round and I’d get my nice dinner, champagne, choccies, the odd bit of jewellery. I reciprocated heartily. It made me happy.
Now, though, the unfortunate culmination of online dating and rampant bedroom-based gender politics has turned the celebration into something sexist and creepy, rather than heartfelt and glorious. In a world of increasingly noisy egalitarianism, choccies and flowers don’t stand a chance. And what a shame that is.