The origin of Valentine’s Day was pretty much a weekend swingers party crossed with a beheading. In honour of the goddess Juno, young women would put their names into a basket to be randomly drawn out by virile young men, who would spend the next two days “making the romance explosion” on the lucky girls’ stomachs. Named the Lupercalia Festival, the holiday would begin with a sexy animal sacrifice and ritual flagellation. After killing a goat and dog, the young men would tear through the streets, whipping women and crops with the flayed hide of the goat in order to promote fertility (now that’s what I call foreplay!).

Obviously, those fun-sucking Christians were none too pleased about all of this frivolity, and when the Christian church gained power, they did their usual thang whereby they took a pagan holiday and transformed it into something entirely different. On February 14th, a Roman priest by the name of Valentine was beheaded by the Roman emperor Claudius II for performing marriages, which were banned at the time (according to Claudius II, married men made poor soldiers). Sending a note to a woman you wanted to get jiggy with under the name “Valentine” started to become a thing, which is probably where our lukewarm Hallmark card tradition originated.

So if you really want to celebrate Valentine’s Day properly with your loved one, then I suggest that you ditch the servo flowers/overpriced dinner/nearing-expiry liqueur chocolates/lame card and get them to instead whip your trembling loins with a dead goat. Kickin’ it Roman style never felt so erotic!