Happy Lupercalia to all

According to legend, in about the 7th century BCE two infants named Romulus and Remus were abandoned in the woods. They were saved from starvation and death by a she-wolf named Lupus who took them back to her cave and suckled them. The two boys survived and went on to become the founders of Rome. In honor of Lupus saving Romulus and Remus, Romans created a festival called Lupercalia which was celebrated every year on the ides of February. (The "ides" in the old Roman calendar is the middle day of each month, or the 14th of February.) Lupercalia was eventually celebrated throughout the Roman Empire.

The annual celebration of Lupercalia began when the men of the city, town, or village would gather at a cave outside of town to prepare themselves. If no cave was available at some other convenient place. At the cave men would slaughter and roast goats, drink copious amounts of wine and tell manly tales. They would feast on goat flesh, and fashion whips out of the goat hides. When they were well fed and well drunk the men would adorn their naked bodies with a few straps of goatskin and head into town.

Meanwhile the women would prepare themselves with baths, fragrant oils, and presumably some quantity of wine also. When they heard the shouting and singing of the approaching men, the women would run naked into the streets, bend over, and turn their naked behinds toward the approaching men. Men would run through the cities or towns, and upon finding a woman would lash her with the goat skin whip until her behind was good and pink, or give her a good fucking before moving on to the next woman. The whole celebration of Lupercalia would be described today as a drunken S&M orgy in the streets. In those days, men knew they were men, and women knew they were women. The difference was celebrated, not obliterated.

As you might guess, the Christians who took over control of Rome and most of Europe after the decline of Imperial Rome were not so fond of drunken debauchery and public S&M orgies. But a really good pagan festival is hard to stop, especially one as debauched and fun as Lupercalia. It took more than a thousand years after the fall of Imperial Rome for Christian authorities to stop the public whipping and fucking on the ides of February. Like the other old pagan holidays Christian leadership substituted a Christian reason for the season. The whipping was said to be done for Christian penance instead of to arouse sexual pleasure. In some nunneries whips and flagellation on the ides of February continued for several centuries after the public fornication had been ended. Saint Valentine was claimed as the reason for penance on the ides of February instead of in honor of Lupus the she-wolf. Public display of reddened female behinds became stylized pink "hearts." Today we still celebrate the sanitized Christian substitution for a really fun holiday.

Happy Lupercalia to all of my faithful readers. It’s a shame we can't have a really fun drunken debauched S&M orgy in the streets to celebrate.