In my few months as an ex-pat in America, I’ve been introduced to several new festivals and holidays. My girlfriend brought another to my attention recently, and couldn’t understand why my reaction fell somewhere between unease and dismay. What problem could I possibly have with ‘Steak and a Blow Job Day’?
Well, let’s start with the name, and the implication that the tastes of men can be summarised so. The corollary, as the website makes clear, is the idea that women’s interests can be equally easily rounded up; ‘gifts, flowers… baubles’. Of course, it’s just a name, not an order for how the day’s got to be marked, but names are important.
Now, on the day’s point. It was conceived – and presented to me – as a reciprocal measure for all the expense and attention that should be lavished on one’s dearest on Valentine’s Day. Wonderful. It’s still possible, perhaps, to celebrate Valentine’s Day without endorsing the idea that the festival, and by extension your relationship, is about commercial exchange, in which a man seduces a woman with wealth, and she, the junior partner, yields with sex and food. But that possibility is nullified if you create and celebrate a corresponding festival that formalises the exchange of commodities and reifies the idea of such exchange as the basis of heterosexual ‘partnership’.
Finally, about the people endorsing this day. I could just about laugh it off if they were mostly men, mostly reactionary, mostly middle-aged, mostly rather sad. But instead, my girlfriend proudly described it as an ‘underground’ holiday of which she and her (girl) friends were enthusiastic advocates. ‘Underground’, I suppose, connotes young, hip, liberal, free-thinking. If this is indicative of how (American) women who would describe themselves as such think about their relationships, we return to a depressingly pervasive thought; feminism still has a long way to go.
