Commentary:
Valentine's Day is a day celebrated throughout the United States. It's a day when lovers celebrate and openly share their observance of caring toward their spouse or age-appropriate significant loved one. As children, Americans share Valentine's Day Cards with their classmates as a sign of innocents and camaraderie of spirit. And if you are lucky, you might get a tiny piece of candy to go with your Looney Tunes or Scooby Doo Valentines Day Card.
Our chat today will endeavor to share the origins of Valentine's Day and better understand that physical sex will never equate to the true meaning of love. So let's begin. According to history.com, "The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred." They are all represented as the true St. Valentine who helped people. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, so Claudius II outlawed marriage for men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius II and continued to perform marriages for men and women in secret. Per historical reference when Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius II ordered him to be put to death. Still, others insist that Saint Valentine of Terni, a bishop, was the actual namesake of the holiday. He, too, was beheaded by Claudius II.
400 A.D. image of St. Valentine
Hence the ideology behind creating a St. Valentines Day compelled an image that represented a sympathetic, heroic male figure who was a pro-marriage in the sight of God Christian. That went contrary to Emperor Claudius II's law where in he wanted all the youngmen coming of age to marry only to serve him and not to marry women or have children. Hence Valentine's Day was utilized as an example of the sacrifices that said St. Valentine endured in the spirit of love.
Bust of Roman Emperor Claudius II, r. 268-270 CE. (Santa Giulia Museum, Brescia)
There's an additional reference per Catholic historians that credits St. Valentine or Valentines who was beheaded around 270 A.D. (A.D.: After Jesus Christ's Death) because he was instrumental in helping "Christians escape harsh Roman prisons," where they were often beaten and tortured, and held in slavery. Hence Valentine's Day was a day to show a higher love that's not fallacious or carnal but a love where one would die for another person for moral reasons. Showing the same type of love that Christ, per biblical teaching, proclaimed to the Church. An intervening of protection and rights via compassion, kindness, and "well-doing." Not one motivated by the flesh per lust or inappropriate behavior as is so represented in so many T.V. commercials and programs today.
Above 6th Century B.C. depiction of Priests of the idol Lupercus performing ritual festival of fertility and prosperity celebrated in Ancient Rome between the 13th and 15th of February
Hence, Valentine's Day was utilized to assist with Christianizing Roman men and women's pagan holiday And what we know about the pagan holiday Lupercalia is that it started with the sacrifice of goats, which represented fertility, and dogs for purification. Priests of the god Lupercus, called the Luperci would take off their clothes and slaughter goats in the Lupercal, the cave that Roman legend held to have been the location where city founders Romulus and Remus were nursed by a wolf. The Luperci would cut the goat's skin into strips and run naked around the Palantine Hill in Rome, striking women with the goat's skin." Per Kresimir Vukovic, a postdoctoral fellow at the Catholic University of Croatia, who studied Lupercalia. https://time.com/5527259/valentines-day-lupercalia/
What does that have to do with Valentine's Day in 2023?
Well, everything. How European masses with whom inhabited the America's long-term cultural belief systems before Christianity can highly influence said target populations on the moral divide between right and wrong. Hence what that ethnic group that by happenstance is the majority within a country thinks is customary can be highly immoral per a different culture or religious order. It's one of the reasons why chattel slavery was so horrible to enslaved Africans and indigenous people. Because raping and murdering children plus men and women was seen as a sin per outside cultures belief system plus those who truly followed Christianity. Unfortunately, slavery existed in North America for over 400 years. Hence certain behaviors introduced as "normal" by early settlers have to be unlearned to this day. President Abraham Lincoln once said, “Nations do not die from invasion; they die from internal rottenness.” This quote was regarding his interpretation of American society of his time's improper behavior towards the most valuable asset of the human race – our children.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7892399/ Informative link from Psychology Today What Parents Need to Know About Preventing Sexual Grooming https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/protecting-children-sexual-abuse/201901/what-parents-need-know-about-sexual-grooming
Above a picture of a wife caught in the act of adultery
So if a person or ethnic populace is taught that the act of sex is love, they will fail in every area where love should be demonstrated, such as in protecting, providing, plus honoring those with whom they think they love. Why? Because they act out in the flesh and not in the true spirit of sacrificial love. Hence the skyrocketing escalation of divorces for example here in America. This type of thinking references an action that can be as inappropriate as being striked by a bloody, smelly goat skin: Yuck, yuck, and double yuck. This erroneous interpretation of love utilizing sex can be seen in how pedophiles or rapists go about inappropriately touching children and other adults who did not want said behavior to be acted out towards them or at them. It's a leant behavior left over from enslavement. Even thou per most studies, molesters, male or female, when confronted by law enforcement, will say that the person "wanted said inappropriate behavior to occur" or because of the "clothes the victim was wearing," worse yet, how the victim "looked at them." Hence justifying their inappropriate behavior because of a warped perspective of the victim's reaction that is uncivilized. More over responses from people can be misinterpreted all the time.
Case and point:
When you tickle a person under their armpits, neck, or tummy, many people are going to laugh. There's always an exception within the group that will not laugh. But on the norm, most individuals, who are human beings, will laugh involuntarily at the touch. That's because that area of said body is sensitive. The fact remains that just because you tickle someone doesn't mean they want to laugh. Or that they want you to touch them. Especially when manipulating people take their unwelcome, inappropriate touching in their mentally ill mindset as permission to proceed with unwanted actions on a person or child. Unacceptable. All flesh. No love included.
With that said, friends' sex ain't love. Sex can be a fun thing to do between two consenting adults. But sex ain't better than love. Thanks for reading my chat. Keep your hands to yourself and keep your legs closed!" Most of all, please continue to support the relaunched Echo N.J. oldest Black-owned newspaper since 1904.
Pictured above Trey Songz with Cara and son Noah 2021
Please enjoy Trey Songz song "Sex ain't better than love"
The Echo Saturday Evening Press "In concern of the Negro"