Valentines Day Hour Of The Wolf

The ancient Roman orgiastic festival of Lupercalia, was transformed into St. Valentine by Christianity and then into Valentines Day by the English finally to become dominated by commercial American Greeting Card and Confectionery interests in the 19th Century.

The youths then donned loincloths made from the skin of the goat and led groups of priests around the pomarium, the sacred boundary of the ancient city, and around the base of the hills of Rome. The occasion was happy and festive. As they ran about the city, the young men lightly struck women along the way with strips of the goat hide. It is from these implements of purification, or februa, that the month of February gets its name. This act supposedly provided purification from curses, bad luck, and infertility.

LUPERCAʹLIA, one of the most ancient Roman festivals, which was celebrated every year in honour of Lupercus, the god of fertility. All the ceremonies with which it was held, and all we know of its history, shows that it was originally a shepherd-festival (Plut. Caes. 61). Hence its introduction at Rome was connected with the names of Romulus and Remus, the kings of shepherds. Greek writers and their followers among the Romans represent it as a festival of Pan, and ascribe its introduction to the Arcadian Evander. This misrepresentation arose partly from the desire of these writers to identify the Roman divinities with those of Greece, and partly from its rude and almost savage ceremonies, which certainly are a proof that the festival must have originated in the remotest antiquity. The festival was held every year, on the 15th of February,a in the Lupercal, where Romulus and Remus were said to have been nurtured by the she-wolf; the place contained an altar and a grove sacred to the god Lupercus (Aurel. Vict. de Orig. Gent. Rom. 22; Ovid. Fast. II.267). Here the Luperci assembled on the day of the Lupercalia, and sacrificed to the god goats and young dogs, which animals are remarkable for their strong sexual instinct, and thus were appropriate sacrifices to the god of fertility (Plut. Rom. 21; Servius ad Aen. VIII.343).b Two youths of noble birth were then led to the Luperci, and one of the latter touched their foreheads with a sword dipped in the blood of the victims; other Luperci immediately after wiped off the bloody spots with wool dipped in milk. Hereupon the two youths were obliged to break out into a shout of laughter. This ceremony was probably a symbolical purification of the shepherds. After the sacrifice was over, the Luperci partook of a meal, at which they were plentifully supplied with wine (Val. Max. II.2.9). They then cut the skins of the goats which they had sacrificed, into pieces; with some of which they covered parts of their body in imitation of the god Lupercus, who was represented half naked and half covered with goat-skin. The other pieces of the skins they cut into thongs, and holding them in their hands they ran through the streets of the city, touching or striking with them all persons whom they met in their way, and especially women, who even used to come forward voluntarily for the purpose, since they believed that this ceremony rendered them fruitful, and procured them an easy delivery in childbearing. This act of running about with thongs of goat-skin was a symbolic purification of the land, and that of touching persons a purification of men, for the words by which this act is designated are februare and lustrare (Ovid. Fast. II.31; Fest. s.v. Februarius). The goat-skin itself was called februum, the festive day dies februata, the month in which it occurred Februarius, and the god himself Februus.

Robert Esiner in his provocative study; Man into Wolf associates the Lupercalia leather eros and public S&M rituals with the modern phenomena of lycanthropy;werewolfism and vampirism. Which was brilliantly portrayed in the movie the Howling, one of the most under-valued cult werewolf films of the eighties.

MAN INTO WOLF 

AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION

OF SADISM, MASOCHISM, AND  LYCANTHROPY 

In analysing the basic factors leading to sadism and maso-
chism Dr. Eisler draws attention to what he describes as 'a feeble
sympathetic resonance', the lack of emotional response, the
insanity affecting altruistic feeling which forms so large a part
of the constitution some of us describe as the psychopathic per-
sonality. This, however, according to Eisler, is not simply a
throw-back to primeval savagery, for, as he shows, primitive
man in his primeval forest was not a killer but rather a peaceful
creature le bon sauvage. In confirmation of this fact the author
mentions numerous small tribes who have never as yet heard
of or encountered war. Killing and being killed has been a
developmental process whereby the carnivorous, predatory
packs, the ancestors of the hunting and game-seeking tribes,
have preyed on the vegetarian, frugivorous, peace-loving herds.
Eisler elaborates his theme by utilizing Jung's conception of
archetypal race memories. Such memories may be not only
ancestral, but may occur even in the sub-human animal strata

So this valentines day let your inner wolf out.



SEE:

A Little Eros For Valentine's Day

 Passover Song



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LUPERCALIA VALENTINES DAY

HAPPY LUPERCALIA

One Good Thing: The Left Hand of Darkness showed us that the greatest romances in life can be friendships

Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1969 sci-fi tour de force can still teach us something about human connection.

By Muizz Akhtar@muizz_akhtarMuizz.Akhtar@voxmedia.com  Feb 13, 2022,

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The cover for the 1969 version of The Left Hand of Darkness.

 Walker & Company (NYC)

This story is part of a group of stories called

Recommendations from the world of culture we think you should check out.

Not everyone celebrates Valentine’s Day — some folks will opt to celebrate Galentine’s or Palentine’s with their friends instead. Nowadays, more and more people are reconsidering prevailing ideas of who the significant others in our lives should be — particularly by choosing lifelong relationships with friends, as chosen family, and by radically challenging the accepted norms of intimacy and romance (notably in queerplatonic relationships).

Indeed, what if our biggest romances were not with romantic partners, but instead with our best friends? In The Left Hand of Darkness, famed novelist Ursula K. Le Guin depicts just such a possibility through the relationship between Genly Ai and Therem Harth rem ir Estraven.

What we think of as “romance” is usually just a story about two people (typically cisgender and heterosexual men and women) falling in romantic love, and entering into an exclusive (and often sexual) romantic relationship (particularly marriage). This narrow conception of romance in society is known as amatonormativity. As Rice University philosophy professor Elizabeth Brake argues in her book Minimizing Marriage, we are all pressured to pursue amatonormativity in our own lives. This happens at the expense of other relationships, such as our friendships and our relationships with ourselves.

The Left Hand of Darkness fundamentally challenges amatonormativity. The story is premised on Ai, the Earth-born protagonist, attempting to get the planet of Gethen to join the Ekumen, an intergalactic alliance. Through his envoy mission to build connections and trust with the human-like Gethenians — including one Gethenian leader in particular, Estraven — Le Guin asks: What if an entire society was built without formal marriage, child rearing, or relationship roles? What if we had profoundly deep yet non-romantic relationships outside the binary roles of “man” and “woman”? Over time, Ai realizes that he must let go of his preconceived notions on gender, sex, and relationships in order to really understand and communicate with Estraven.

The Left Hand of Darkness, a sci-fi tour de force — which grapples with topics like first contact, nationalism, Taoist philosophy, and prophecy — is, at its core, a story about connection, and the difficulty of communicating and building relationships with other people. The story’s poignancy comes from Ai and Estraven working through mutual misunderstanding and cultural and linguistic gaps to build a relationship of profound trust, acceptance, and love. It’s been over 50 years since the book’s release in 1969, but the romance between Ai and Estraven continues to serve as an inspiration for becoming intimate beyond amatonormative ideas of soulmates and marriage, and has lessons anyone can strive for in their own relationships.

Initially, Ai is unable to connect with and trust Estraven, because the latter, like all Gethenians, is androgynous; neither “male” nor “female” as humans from Earth are assigned at birth. (Note: Le Guin uses “he/his/him” pronouns to refer to the Gethenians because at the time she wrote the novel, she felt they were “genuinely generic.” After facing much criticism and self-reflection, she later came to have second thoughts about that choice.) As Ai notes over dinner with Estraven in the very first chapter:

“… I thought that at table Estraven’s performance had been womanly … Was it in fact perhaps this soft supple femininity that I disliked and distrusted in him? For it was impossible to think of him as a woman … and yet whenever I thought of him as a man I felt a sense of falseness.”

It becomes apparent that Ai has a serious sexism, misogyny, and homophobia problem, and this directly gets in the way of his job of communicating with the Gethenians and gaining their confidence. Writer Charlie Jane Anders observed that “[Ai is] curious and open-minded about everything, except for the huge areas where his mind has been long since closed.”

Estraven, meanwhile, is a steadfast ally to Ai in his mission of connecting Gethen to the Ekumen. At great personal sacrifice, he supports Ai throughout the story, although the latter does not realize this until much later. Estraven has difficulty conveying his intentions because of Gethenian social codes that Ai does not fully comprehend. On top of that, Ai communicates with Estraven in ways that come off as arrogant, obtuse, and even insulting. Estraven eventually realizes that “[Ai] is ignorant of us: we of him.”

Due to said ignorance, Ai ends up in a prison farm. Estraven saves him from certain death and the story reaches its climax as the two must traverse a massive, glacial tundra to escape back to Estraven’s country. It is here, hauling a sledge, gear, and themselves across hundreds of miles of Arctic desert for months, that the two work through their long-held misunderstandings and begin to truly understand one another. Particularly, as Estraven works to communicate in ways easier for Ai to grasp, Ai realizes that he has to curb his gendered views and masculine insecurities to get closer to Estraven. When he gets sick or exhausted, Ai learns to appreciate Estraven’s concern and not take offense to it, as well as be more honest about his own limits.

And it is during their shared sub-Arctic isolation that Ai finally comes to see Estraven as he had always wanted to be seen:

“Until then I had … refused [Estraven] his own reality … he was the only one who had entirely accepted me as a human being: who … [gave] me entire personal loyalty, and who therefore had demanded of me an equal degree of recognition, of acceptance … I had been afraid to … give my trust, my friendship to a man who was a woman, a woman who was a man.”

What’s profound about Ai and Estraven’s relationship is that they get closer as they get past amatonormative norms of what it means to be intimate. Although worn down to the bone, they learn to communicate more in fewer words, overcoming many close calls on the ice through mutual trust. Strikingly, while there is sexual tension, they choose not to have sex with one another, and — contrary to everything we have been taught about romance — that actually makes them trust each other more:

“For it seemed to me, and I think to him, that it was from the sexual tension between us, admitted now and understood, but not assuaged, that the great and sudden assurance of friendship between us rose: a friendship so much needed by us both in our exile, and already so well proved in the days and nights of our bitter journey, that it might as well be called, now as later, love.”

The book’s title is emblematic of their relationship, as they transcend thinking of the other person as an unintelligible alien and instead come to view one another as a friend and partner — as their left hand. And through their romance, Le Guin explores a world beyond the constraints of gender and sex, as well as beyond the cultural limitations we impose on our relationships based on those things. As Ai realizes at the end of the story, true connection comes when we not only adjust to another’s world, but also unsettle our own bodies and realities to make room for that world.

Ultimately, The Left Hand of Darkness teaches us that we are each alien to one another — inhabiting a vast, unique cosmos in space that others can barely hope to comprehend when crossing paths. But in the deep expanse of that cold darkness, simultaneously, always, exist the infinite bright stars of possibility to build true connection and warmth.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin is available everywhere books are sold. For more recommendations from the world of culture, check out the One Good Thing archives.

The State of Sexual Union, 2026

Susan Block

 February 20, 2026

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If you’re too busy or overwhelmed by life or AI to listen to my sixth annual State of the Sexual Union address (2026), delivered live 2/14/2026 on Active Radio hosted by Hartley Pleshaw on WCAP-AM 980 – now available for your aural edification – here’s my single-word 2026 prescription for our very sickened society: Therapy.

We need it. I need it, and I’m pretty sure you do too.

Last year’s State of the Sexual Union (2025) was subtitled the Year of Living Precariously. This year, we have fallen off the Cliff of Precarity into a Sea of Slop and Slime. So, 2026 is our Year of Needing Therapy.

Grief’s a Bitch

I need therapy (and yes, I’m getting some, thank you) primarily because I’m grieving for my beloved husband Max who passed away on May 13, 2025 after a terrible stroke that shattered our world.

Grief is a bitch, Brothers and Sisters, Lovers and Sinners. And no, I’m not talking about Erika Kirk. Well, not really…

I’m talking about the deep loss of my Great Love. Essentially, the State of My Sexual Union is grieving. Even when lovely things happen – a hug from a friend, flowers blooming in our Bonoboville garden, a lick from our sweet dog, a colleague composing a beautiful song for us – I still grieve, wishing Max were here to experience them with me.

If the State of Your Sexual Union is that you too are grieving, and even if you’re not, I imagine you could benefit from some therapeutic counseling… at least this crazy-making year of government-issued assault, kidnapping and very bad sex.

Trumped Up Trauma

Whether you’re an innocent victim, a vile perpetrator or *just* an observer watching (and maybe filming) your neighbors getting tackled, beaten, shot and even murdered by Trump’s ICE Ammosexual Incel Army – or perhaps you’re *just* reading about powerful people doing awful things in the Epstein Files – you have been traumatized much of this year.

It hasn’t only been a year, of course. We the Peoples of America (including the Americas that Bad Bunny so boldly and accurately listed) and most of the world have been under assault by the narcissistic and sociopathic proclivities of our so-called *leaders* for centuries. But the most recent assault by the billionaire class (usually the main assaulters) is the subject of my State of the Sexual Union (SOTSU) 2026. Though it includes politics, war, finance, art, the environment and more, it is, to a great degree, a sexual assault.

“The Noblest of Warriors”

My SOTSU 2026 went live early Valentine’s morning, since this year, sadly, I had no Valentine keeping me in bed. Hartley indulged me for a few minutes as I mourned my sweet Valentine, saying his name(s) Pr. Maximillian Rudolph Leblovic Lobkowicz di Filangieri, aka “Captain Max,” aka Mickey and more, and singing his praises as my truly amazing husband of 33 years, friend of 40, lover, co-host, producer, publisher, butler, my witness and a great, inspirational Free Speech freedom fighter whose only firearm was his powerful voice.

Hartley joined in on the eulogizing, letting his listeners know that Max was “the noblest of warriors… at the front lines of Free Speech struggles… and a lot of people who’ve never heard of him owe him a great debt of gratitude.”

That warmed my broken heart, and provided a good point to declare, as I had at our Max to the Maximus, “by the powers vested in me as Mayor of Bonoboville,” that Max’s birthday, November 8^th, be celebrated in perpetuity as “Free Speech Day.” Mark your calendar – Sunday, November 8^th, 2026 – to exercise your freedom to speak out about something important to you, or support somebody else’s.

As V-Day was dawning, I then told the story of Lupercalia, the original, ecosexual, communal, Pan-centered and rather kinky Valentine’s Day, as well as the more recently ordained World Bonobo Day, honoring the Love Apes on our High Holiday of Love, our kissing cousins, the bonobos (Pan paniscus), who have long inspired Max and my love for each other, for Bonoboville and for this lovely, crazy-making world of ours.

Epstein Slime & Slop

“This is what so many people have been waiting for all year,” Hartley told his rapt audience as we returned from commercials, “for Dr. Suzy to bestow upon us the State of the Sexual Union (SOTSU). It couldn’t come at a more appropriate time.”

For the past five years, I’ve delivered my SOTSU after the President does his State of the Union (SOTU). This year, I decided to do mine before him, feeling no need to let that lying blowhard go first. All recent U.S. Presidents could reasonably be called war criminals. But the current occupier of the now garishly gold-plated Oval Office has poisoned this past year with words and actions so cruel, dishonest, narcissistic, self-serving, racist, misogynist and simply obnoxious, it’s abusive to the spirit of our country, including our sexual spirit. If anyone in the current U.S. governmental circus of clowns, thieves, fixers, scammers, cover-up queens, close relatives and ammosexual sociopaths had a pinch of integrity, Predator Donald J. Trump wouldn’t even be delivering SOTU 2026. He would be in therapy – mandated by his warden.

And yes, “Predator Trump” suits him so much more than “President”… Indeed, the State of the Sexual Union 2026 has been grossly stained by his “best friend’s” magnum opus: the Epstein Files, and no matter how much he whines, “No one cares,” “I’m exonerated,” “the stock market is through the roof,” or “He stole my masseuse,” that damn stain, like Lady Macbeth’s damn spot (“Out damn spot!”), just won’t come out.

Honestly, My AI advisor advised me to “take the high road” and not soil myself by even mentioning Epstein in my SOTSU 2026. But that would have been rude, as right out the gate, Hartley asked me to address it as “the number one story in the world right now.”

It’s my SOTSU, but it’s Hartley’s show, so I had to respect that. Also, he’s right. Being “America’s #1 Sexologist,” as he so kindly calls me, it was incumbent upon me to address the Epstein variant of the virulent Billionaire Mind Virus (BMV), as part of the “therapy” I was prescribing for us all.

And with that, Hartley gave me “the floor,” slippery with the noxious “natural and unnatural” secretions of the Epstein Files. I pulled on my rubber Power-Booties and stepped through the mess (some of it), trying not to slip and fall on my proverbial ass, as so many have and still are doing.

And oh, what a mess it is.

For most of us, discussing, scrolling through or even just thinking about Epstein and the malevolent powers that he represents triggers grim memories of past traumas or paralyzing fears of future ones. Most of us also have deep, heart-wrenching empathy for the survivors who are coming forward to tell their stories or who were mysteriously killed before they could – or after they did. No wonder we all need therapy.

Zuck Cucked by Epstein

I did manage to refrain from (much) gossiping about the “Who’s who,” “What’s what,” or “Who did what to whom” of the Epstein Files. I can’t say I wasn’t tempted, but it is so difficult to tell facts from fantasy, or AI slop from real-life slime, and I didn’t want to step in that particular kind of mess.

Though I must confess I did snigger a bit over one name (over 300 times) and distinctive face in the Epstein Files: Mark Zuck the Cuckerberg – my thirsty nerd nemesis who unjustly deactivated my Meta accounts last year – was and still is an integral part of the Tech Bro branch of Epstein’s swamp, one of a handful of leaders of the expanding Censorship Industrial Complex, all suffering from variants of the BMV.  Epstein’s snapshot of their “wild” 2015 dinner shows a clear sideview of Zuck – so thoroughly cucked, he’s seated right beside the disgraced (but still toxically potent) old bull himself.

Ammosexual Incels & Kidnapping Kink

A pro-bonobo man who loves women, Hartley expressed alarm at the expanding ranks of misogynistic, Trump-adoring incels (“involuntary celibates”). I assured him that some are harmlessly pathetic and just need a good dominatrix (a kind of therapy!). More concerning are the “ammosexual incels” channeling their much-denigrated sex drives into wielding phallic weapons of various kinds – which is often all it takes to get a good-paying job assaulting people with ICE.

Trump’s well-known taste for assault extends into many sociopathic directions, but on SOTSU 2026, I focused on his kidnapping or “grab ‘em by the pussy” fetish for capturing people for sexual or political purposes. This is on appalling display in the kidnapping of American citizens and visitors by Trump’s ammosexual ICE army, and even geopolitical actions, such as the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife – in addition to the sordid nonconsensual kidnapping events described in the Epstein files.

Usually, Trump’s kidnapping hijinks are just for sadistic *fun* (eww!) – at the victims’ expense – or to make a political power point or entertain his more bloodthirsty fans. But sometimes it spills over into murder… Whoops, as Epstein would say.

Have I mentioned Trump should be in therapy – supervised by his prison director?

Pro-Bonobo Therapy for All

We the People also need therapy; though not in prison (there are many kinds of counseling and other treatments), and yes, the billionaires should pay for it, as the essential mental health component of Medicare for All. It’s time.

After all, our compromised leaders and their filthy rich donors’ aggrandizements, appetites, kinks, inadequacies, delusions and bottomless desires for domination have been the lethal power behind our collective trauma. Such is the State of the Sexual Union 2026.

As I write this, Epstein files keep dropping like cancer-laced stink bombs, and ICE – though seemingly routed from brave Minneapolis – is continuing its nonconsensual kidnappings around the country. Many peoples are being threatened. Not sexy!

In all the combustible confusion of fact with fantasy and criminality with authority, these don’t seem to be Democrat vs. Republican, Liberal vs. Conservative issues, not this year anyway. “It’s really not about the Red or Blue, it’s just folks like me and you,” is my SOTSU 2026 paraphrase of my wonderful Counterpunch colleague David Rovics – who recently played a fantastic private concert in Bonoboville with his band, the Ministry of Culture (including the lovely Kamala Emanuel), that we’ll release soon.  I was especially touched that David composed a rather catchy new AI Tsuno song entitled “Captain Max, Dr. Suzy and the Bonobo Way.”

And yes, there’s still pro-bonobo goodness in the world, and it’s my fervent SOTSU hope that the make-love-not-war, female-empowered, male-nurturing, sharing, caregiving bonobos can guide us through all this Epstein and ICE slime and crime. The “Epstein class” has captured, censored, deactivated, demoralized and de-eroticized us, putting some eight billion humans and gazillions of other precious life forms under the greasy thumbs of a handful of neoreactionary, sociopathically thirsty rich guys (and a few gals).

Don’t Let the Creeps Kill Your Vibe

Over this Year of Needing Therapy, we’ve all been kidnapped – some of us literally, most of us mentally – by the Trump/Epstein/ICE/Zuck/Zionist/Palantir/PayPal Mafia of Creeps.  That’s a extremel hyphenated adjective, but we now find ourselves in an extreme kink relationship that, for most of us here on the bottom, is inarguably nonconsensual and gross – and that’s part of what turns these creeps on.

I could have had a little fun roleplaying that scenario in less grievous times. Instead, I tried to focus SOTSU 2026 on how we can heal from the Epstein files as they pour forth, demolishing our trust in these creepy leaders and systems – which may be good – but also in each other, which is sad. Unless you too are a sociopath, the stories that emerge from these files are a major turn-off, making some of us lose our own healthy appetites for sex and even love.

As a sex therapist who firmly believes that good sex is vital to our mental and physical health, I encouraged my SOTSU audience not to let the evils of our deeply disturbed rulers destroy us “as good people and as sexual beings.” This is easier said than done, but it’s my hope that we can remember that while people – especially the powerful ones – can make a mess of just about anything, including sex, it’s been proven time and again that good sex is far more likely to heal than harm.

In its healthy form, consenting adult sex builds connection, lowers stress, boosts confidence and tends to make you nicer to be around. A little good sex puts you into a better mood and, if more of us were having it instead of scrolling through slime, slop and manufactured outrage, society might be in a better mood too.  A partner is great (and I miss mine) but not necessary so, I added, “make love to someone you love today… even if that someone is you.”

Farewell Dr. Jane Goodall

Just before the sign-off, it occurred to me that we really should say goodbye to the late great Dr. Jane Goodall, and in that moment of synchronicity, Hartley did just that. RIP Dr. Jane Goodall, a giant of primatology, ecology and love, who sadly passed away shortly after Max. One of my favorite nicknames was “Jane Goodall After Dark” (thank you Tom Quinn).

Dr. Jane made her mark by studying common chimpanzees, but she was a great friend of the bonobos. When I sent her The Bonobo Way, her assistant Chris Hildreth messaged me that she “loved it.” That’s a lot more than I can say about another celebrity (whom I did not name) who had said that he feared he might be misunderstood if he endorsed such a sex-positive book, and now… he’s in the Epstein files.

That guy definitely needs therapy, but honestly, so do we all. The architects of this mess should get theirs in prison. The rest of us just need a couch and some kind of caring counselor (with or without a license, depending on our needs) who can help us untangle whatever we’re dealing with – as individuals and as a society – in this sanity-testing Year of Needing Therapy.

It’s also the Year of the Fire Horse, said to be a time of intense transformation and courage. May we all be brave as fire horses in resisting fascism and transforming tyranny into community. May we go bonobos, give what we can and get what we need.

God and Goddess bless America – all the Americas – and the world.

Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sex therapist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and horny housewife, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For information and speaking engagements, call 626-461-5950. Email her at drsusanblock@gmail.com