Since its Roman inception Valentine’s Day has ranged from a celebration of sexuality to a plea for purity

The development of Valentine’s Day into the orgy of commercialised sentimentality we know today has been a long process, with Roman paganism and the poets of the middle ages both making a contribution to the day’s current associations with romance, love and sex. But the reclaiming of the day by fundamentalist Christians to further the agenda of the religious right has added a new chapter to this long history…

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