and if you want to burn yourself, remember that I love you

[fitz_clementine]

1. Man, nobody has to like Valentine's Day, and I get a lot of the reasons why people don't (consumerism, the erasure of spiritual and religious aspects from what was once a holy festival, general tackiness), but I enjoy many aspects of it! And I am, wait for it, dating a woman! Even though I am also a woman!  And we are into the tackiness, let me

Comments

[fitz_clementine]

Wow. Thank you for listening; I'm not sure that I was being terribly articulate, or terribly fair to you (especially now I've gone back and re-read that post a couple of times), but...yeah, okay, I'm just going to stop at "thank you." I'm so glad you're the kind of person who really values opinions that differ from her own and takes them into account. :)

The commercial marketing around Valentine's Day is truly obnoxious, and I can understand being annoyed by it, or even getting angry about it. I don't want to seem like I'm totally brushing off the existence of a toxic consumer culture or media culture by saying "just ignore that stuff and make up your OWN traditions!!" because it can be impossible to ignore, and because I'm sure a lot of people genuinely are made to feel worse about themselves on Valentine's Day if they're gay, or single, or divorced, or asexual, or not in a traditional kind of romantic relationship.

(Though, as mentioned in my post -- kinda-sorta-- consumerism and heteronormativity are everywhere in U.S culture all the time. I mean, romance novels are pretty dang heteronormative and heterosexist-- though I'm not saying that to make you feel bad about reading them or liking them! Just putting it out there. Advertising is ubiquitous, and basically every holiday that can be used to sell or promote a product, will be. There was a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day blowout sale on household appliances at a store in State College a little while back! Shameless.)

And, of course, if almost all of your personal associations with a particular holiday are negative ones, you aren't going to like it, and you aren't going to like being reminded of it! I'm sorry that your Valentine's Days have sucked.