How St. Valentine's mission to marry people got twisted into a greeting card and hookups
Valentine's Day has turned into a parody of what good relationships and love could look like. What would a better model entail?
According to tradition, St. Valentine was a third century Christian priest who was executed by Emperor Claudius the Cruel for marrying young lovers in violation of Claudius’ decree against marriage.
Somehow, Western culture has turned this strange story into the ultimate greeting card holiday full of chocolates, flowers, low-commitment hookups and insincere romantic promises.
Our version of Valentine’s Day provides a glimpse into our broader view of sex, love and marriage. It is full of fine sounding promises and romance, but often lacks deeper meaning and genuine commitment. Most of us still believe in and hope for committed love, but many of us have no idea how to develop healthy, long-term, loving relationships. Here are some strategies for developing healthier ones:
Make sex more special
First, make sex more special and valuable by making sexual relationships rarer. This strategy may be counterintuitive, but it is well known that the scarcer the supply of anything, the more valuable it becomes, and the more people will sacrifice for it.
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Sexual relationships used to be rarer and more difficult to obtain prior to the 1960s. That scarcity made those relationships more special, meaningful, valuable and unique. This view actually treated sex as more valuable than our culture’s current view. Sex – and our sexual partners – are too valuable to treat in a casual, uncommitted way.
Instead, our culture has flooded the dating marketplace with easily attainable, low-quality, low-commitment sex. Unsurprisingly, the value of sex and sexual relationships has dropped substantially. It is no longer as special. Sex has become mundane and our partners easily replaceable.
In contrast, women who wait to have sex within their relationship report higher relationship satisfaction, higher sexual satisfaction and improved communication patterns, according to a Cornell University study. While success in relationships can never be guaranteed, the data shows us this strategy may be wisest.
Avoid cheapening relationships and sex
Second, we should avoid cheapening sexual relationships by replacing them with addictive pornographic substitutes. Even star singer Billie Eilish recently discussed how exposure to pornography starting at the age of 11 destroyed her brain.
Billie Eilish is right: Porn is inflicting serious harm on America's children.
Pornography addiction is common. Viewing these images can result in unrealistic expectations concerning our body, our partner’s body and sex itself. In turn, this habit can lead to eating disorders, unfair sexual expectations upon our partners and general relational unhappiness. There are few things more harmful to a relationship than comparing our partner to an endless number of digitally enhanced, perfect looking 20-year-olds acting out unrealistic and fake sexual encounters.
How did we get here?
A few generations ago, society embraced a shallow view of sex and oversimplified its complex, multifaceted reality. We started acting as if sex were mainly about pleasure in the moment while ignoring its longer-term implications like bonding in committed relationships, deeper life meaning, reproduction or anything else. This pseudo-scientific philosophy – stemming from the chauvinist Sigmund Freud – dominates our universities, our entertainment and our culture. This view is no longer even defended, but its truth is simply assumed as a starting point in many discussions about sex.
Finding a better way
Accordingly, many in our culture teach that sex is just a matter of pleasure in the moment. When new couples believe this myth, it is no surprise that they struggle to bond, trust and commit within lasting relationships. We mislead these couples by telling them they can have sex with many short-term partners without consequences. This view of sex is subtly dehumanizing, because it treats the most human, personal and intimate matters in an impersonal, distant way.
Bad ideas like the shallow, short-term Freudian view of sexuality lead to bad consequences. Pornography addiction is common, even among teens. Marriage rates and birth rates are low. Sexually transmitted infections are common.
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The remedy for bad ideas is to replace them with better ideas. We are not just individuals but part of a larger whole. Our individual identities are shaped in part by our relational bonds.
We should stop reducing the value of sex to pleasure, and we should seek to make our sexual relationships rarer and marked by committed love. We should return to the real values of Valentine’s Day by recognizing the multifaceted complexity of our sexuality and saving it for someone who would be committed enough to us to risk their lives by marrying us, even in defiance of a homicidal tyrant like Emperor Claudius. Commitment – not chocolate – is the true Valentine’s value.
Eric J. Silverman is associate professor of philosophy at Christopher Newport University. He is author or editor of five books, including "Sexual Ethics in a Secular Age" and "The Prudence of Love." He is an internationally recognized expert on issues in ethics (especially those related to love), medieval philosophy and philosophy in popular culture. The views in this op-ed are his alone and do not represent any institution. He can be reached at ProfEricJSilverman@gmail.com