Occupy Valentine's Day?

Valentine’ s day is just around the corner and already we can walk into any store and be bombarded with pinks and reds. I can admit to the fact that I was once brainwashed into liking and enjoying the materialistic aspect of this “holiday”, however I think my view on Valentine’s day has evolved a bit more. My position on this “holiday” is rather mixed. While I am in a relationship, neither one of us feels pressured to cave into the commercialization. But we can both appreciate it as a day to celebrate (all kinds of) love and friendship.

I recently stumbled on a blog post on feministing.com (link here: http://feministing.com/2012/01/26/occupy-valentines-day/) that takes the Occupy ideology and applies it to Valentine’s day. “The language of occupying gives us a critical moment to radically re-envision the kind of world we want, romantic and otherwise.” This re-envisioning of Valentine’s day includes battling against commercialization, heteronormativity, and exclusion. Why is it that this “holiday” is one that limits the appropriate and authentic ways to express love and affection? No one should have the ability to police the relationships of others and determine whether or not certain relationships are valid or invalid. The blog post advocates for us to “Occupy Valentine’s Day” because “Celebrating love is a beautiful thing but shouldn’t depend on if we are in a relationship or not, our sexual orientation, our class background, our citizenship status or our marital status.” I know I’m not going to buy into Valentine’s day celebrations, but I think I can hop onto this “Occupy Valentine’s Day” wagon if its intentions are real.