Valentine's Day: Love, Romance, Rape or Culture-Violation

Image via hercampus.com

Love is in the air. It's that time again -- it's Valentine's Day, also known as Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine. I never intended on writing this post at all until the controversies revolving around this celebration that arose several days ago. I'm all up for love, so I love Valentine's Day. It's a rosy day filled with all sorts of cheesy romantic stuff. However, Cambodia has somehow condemned this celebration.

There are many stories explaining the origins of Valentine's Day, so I guess I was unable to find a reliable source about how it began, but one of the most famous stories, according to Wikipedia, was about Saint Valentine of Roman states and how he was "imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire. According to legend, during his imprisonment, he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius. An embellishment to this story states that before his execution he wrote her a letter signed "Your Valentine" as a farewell." It wasn't up until the middle ages that romance was associated with Valentine's Day when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

Cambodia, however, has its own definition of the celebration. In Khmer, the celebration is called "songsa" meaning the day of lovers. That's where it gets complicated. It's become a day when only lovers give gifts to each other. As time goes on, it has become a day when lovers supposedly have sex for the first time -- according many, it's a day when men convince their girlfriends to "give up" their virginity. Students skip classes to go do their deeds.Valentine's Day has a bad stigma associating with it all of a sudden.

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It might be due to the rise of social media, but this year, I have seen photos of people holding up signs, saying "We're Cambodians. No Valentine's Day." That confused me. Why on earth are we linking the celebration with our nationality? It does not make any sense. Then I read articles about how Valentine's Day is ruining our culture and tradition because it's not ours. I tried to hold back my tongue, but at this point, I have got to say something -- damage control if you will. 

First of all, I find the idea of "not accepting something new because it is not part of one's culture and tradition" is absolutely absurd. We are currently living in a world that is increasingly becoming more globalized. We have reached a point where we are only separated by six degrees of separation. Besides, haven't we all been influenced by each other at one point or another? I'm pretty sure one culture is a collection of fragments of various other cultures. Culture itself is a product of habits which is being practiced for a long period of time. It's not like a nation is created and the culture is part of the package deal. It's a gradual process and it always changes and evolves.

The second issue is how people have this belief that Valentine's Day makes young people have sex. Let's just toss aside the fact that a celebration DOES NOT make two people (or more) have sex. If lovers want to have sex, condemning a celebration won't change their decisions. In case you haven't already put two and two together, let's remember that people can have sex any day of the year. Saying a single celebration corrupts and makes lovers have sex is like saying alcohol makes people become abusive. It all comes down to choices. If one person decides to abuse someone, they will do it regardless of whether or not they have any alcohol in their system.

Image via womensenews.org

Not only that, but due to that misconception, a lot of young men think that it's the day when their girlfriends should "love" her virginity to him. Suddenly, their girlfriends' virginity becomes a possession of theirs that they have to claim on Valentine's Day. The result of that is increased number of non-consensual sex. 

Vice published an article stating, "A worrying proportion of Cambodian men think it's OK to use Valentine's Day as an excuse to rape their dates. In fact, almost half of the young men who responded to the study said they would be willing to engage in sexual intercourse without their partner’s consent on the 14th of February. The report, authored by Tong Soprach – an independent public health specialist – drew upon 715 interviews with males and females, aged between 15 and 24, in Phnom Penh. Obviously the sample size was pretty small, but that's still a lot of guys who are all too happy to admit that they'd be up for topping their Valentine's off with a night of non-consensual sex."

The point that I'm trying to draw here is that we can't make people's decisions for them. You can't tell someone to not do something and not explain the reasons behind that. It reminds me of an experiment called "5 monkeys and a ladder." You can read the full experiment here: Wisdom Pills -- 5 monkeys and a ladder

Instead of telling kids that having sex is wrong or violating our culture, why don't we try explaining the consequences of their choices to them and leave them to make their own decisions? How is sexuality destroying one's culture? Because what the culture says? Why are women under more pressure regarding this issue? Because that's the way it has always been said and done? 

Why can't we just enjoy Valentine's Day and feel the love? Maybe we might even get struck by cupid's arrow. Happy Valentine's Day!

“The most damaging phrase in the language is: ‘It’s always been done that way.'” ~ Grace Hopper

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/meaning-of-valentines-day-lost-in-translation-minister-warns-77761/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/12/the-country-where-valentines-day-is-the-most-dangerous-day-of-the-year/
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/cambodia-valentines-day-rape-consent-phnom-pen
http://www.wisdompills.com/2014/05/28/the-famous-social-experiment-5-monkeys-a-ladder/