Happy Valentine’s Day! Love is in the air, grocery stores are decorated with gaudy red and pink hearts, and couples pretending to be happy are floating around on cloud nine because this is the only day of the year their partner actually pays attention to them. If scenes like this make you sick, you’re not alone. Like many others, I view Valentine’s Day as more of an excuse to stuff my face full of chocolate rather than an actual holiday with any real meaning.
Valentine’s Day isn’t for everyone. Most people probably don’t even consider it a real holiday; they see it as a lucrative cash grab for candy companies looking to sell more tooth-rotting sugar. Others consider Valentine’s Day a slap to the face for those who are perpetually single. However, for those who still want an excuse to party but find that Valentine’s Day doesn’t resonate, I present to you an alternative: Lupercalia.
What is Lupercalia?
Lupercalia was an ancient Roman fertility festival tracing back as far as the 6th century BC. The date it’s usually celebrated is February 15th, but the Lupercalia festival itself was a three-day event, with the two leading up to it considered feast days. A goat and a dog were sacrificed for the feast, and the skins were used to create thongs that naked men ran around town with, whipping women. Being hit by one of these thongs was supposed to make a woman fertile. Many sources call it a violent ritual, but that isn’t necessarily the case anymore.
The name “Lupercalia” comes with a whole story. According to legend, Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome were sentenced to die by their uncle, an ancient king named Amulius of Alba Longa. Not that the twins did anything wrong—they were infants. Amulius was punishing their mother, who had taken a vow of celibacy. She claimed she was raped, but blaming a victim for their abuser’s actions isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, so Romulus and Remus were sentenced to die by drowning. Fortunately for the boys, the servant assigned to do the killing wasn’t a complete psychopath. Instead of tossing them into the river like he’d been ordered to, he placed them in a basket and floated them down the river. The boys were rescued and cared for by a she-wolf who lived in a den at the base of Palatine Hill, where Rome was eventually founded. When the twins were older, they named the den Lupercal, which is where Lupercalia got its name.
As for where the association with fertility comes from, you got me.
Lupercalia Now
Although the Christian church outlawed participation in the Lupercalia festival, replacing it instead with Valentine’s Day, Lupercalia is once again seeing a surge in popularity. The Satanic Temple has adopted it as one of their observed holidays, though they’ve changed the meaning somewhat to adapt to their own beliefs and practices.
For TST members, Lupercalia is more a celebration of individuality and bodily autonomy with a focus on sexual liberation and reproductive rights than a fertility rite. How it’s celebrated depends on the Satanist—it’s a holiday celebrating individuality, after all. TST Houston recommends doing some solo rituals, meditation, reflection, and running through the woods to get in touch with your wild side.
For me, my Lupercalia is going to be somewhat muted this year. Aside from financial issues that make me a little too anxious to do much of anything fun, Lupercalia isn’t that big a deal for me. My fiancé and I are a little more privileged than others when it comes to who we are “allowed” to love—we’re both cisgender and heterosexual, and he passes as white—aside from his visible disability, it doesn’t raise any eyebrows when I introduce him to my friends and family. Since we’re considered society’s “default” when it comes to romantic love and relationships, we don’t see the need for any big, over-the-top parties or rituals.
That’s not to say we don’t observe either Valentine’s Day or Lupercalia. We typically do a combination of both, with both the 14th and 15th being feast days. The 14th is of course dedicated to our relationship; usually, we have a date night, plus some sexy fun times later in the evening.
The 15th is where things get a little wilder. While we are aware of our privilege, we still have things to celebrate. We both grew up in a Christian environment, and that can get restrictive regarding sex and relationships, as we all know. We both grew up being told that if you have sex before marriage you’re a bad person, and that if you live with your partner before getting married you’re a bad person. And if you dare to have sex for any other reason than to consummate your marriage and reproduce, your ass is going straight to hell!
For us, Lupercalia is about shedding those arbitrary rules that we grew up with. While those rules may work for some, they are a hindrance to us and our relationship. Instead, we celebrate our freedom to fuck and enjoy our lives together without a piece of paper declaring us husband and wife. We celebrate our freedom to take steps to ensure our fucking doesn’t result in unwanted spawn running around, and we celebrate our freedom to actually enjoy our fucking!
When I first started learning about Lupercalia, I honestly thought it was just a Satanic version of Valentine’s Day. As I’ve grown as a Satanist and learned more about the holiday, I know that it’s more than just an edgy version of the same thing. Plus, it’s a great alternative for those who don’t like the lovey-dovey nonsense of Valentine’s Day.
Playing With Demons 