The Intellectual’s Valentine Day: a day in scientific review

The Intellectual’s Valentine Day: a day in scientific review

Apart from all the mushy-lovey-dovey coverage, Valentine’s Day means a lot of interesting articles. Kipp presents to you some of the best of the web that was posted on this year's Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2012 5:03 by p.deleon

Valentine’s Day: Why Do We Celebrate It? (Hint: Naked Romans)

National Geographic will tell you that Valentine Day traces its roots to raucous annual Roman festivals where men stripped naked, grabbed goat- or dog-skin whips, and spanked young maidens in hopes of increasing their fertility. Ahem, if you are over 18 read on, Spank you very much!

Pucker up: The art of kissing

Kissing wasn’t always the universal gesture of affection. In fact as The Independent points out in this fascinating article: In 1864 a British explorer William Winwood Reade described in his book ‘Savage Africa’ (no judgment there) how an African princess he fell in love with thought he was trying to eat her when he approached her for a kiss. In other cultures, kisses seemed immodest- for instance studies on Finnish tribes note thatwhile naked inter-sex bathing was ay OK, kissing was considered indecent.

St. Valentine, Famed Romantic and Religious Martyr

Did you know the feast of St. Valentine was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496. Some say that Valentine’s feast day is celebrated in February because the church wanted to Christianize an ancient Roman pagan festival called Lupercalia, which centered around fertility and purification, and also took place in February. For this and more read TIME’s article

The Worst Thing About Valentine’s Day

And last but not the least, what is a festive occasion without some cynical and insightful commentary from the Oatmeal. Check out this hilarious illustration of what is universally the most annoying thing about valentines day.