Why write about Valentine's Day?

When this feature was originally proposed, some of Flak's editors cried "Treason! Valentine's Day has already been done to death!" A hundred other publications, they said, have done cavorting, tongue-in-cheek looks at the holiday that makes us hurt, even as it makes us laugh.

But Valentine's Day should not be trifled with. It's an emotional dragon, and other publications have done little more than shoot balsa-wood arrows at its iron hide. We have a sharpened lance. We are aiming for an eyeball.

Because, all joking aside, Valentine's Day makes us hurt. Like no other holiday — except maybe Guy Fawkes Day, if you happen to be a British anti-royalist — Valentine's Day is cruelly wrought to extract emotional pain from its miserable celebrants.

The dark beauty of Valentine's Day is that it disempowers us as human beings. It puts us at the mercy of other people's capricious whims. Whether we're male or female, it grabs us by the proverbial gonads and puts the following question to us: "Are you good enough to be loved — really loved, by someone who will go all out for you? Did they prove it to you?"

To Hell with that. Read on.

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown
by Bob Cook

The V-Day Conundrum
by James Norton

DIY V-Day Sabotage
by Alethea Allarey

The Saudis Are Right
by John Gorenfeld