Like most “Christian” holidays, St. Valentine’s Day was conveniently pasted on top of a far-older pagan tradition, borrowing some of the elements of the indigenous celebration so as to convert the unholy heathens to the new-and-improved religion, Christianity. They could still celebrate elements of the original holiday, but with a new Christianized explantion and new, less randy interpretation.

Here’s what National Geographic says:

“The lovers’ holiday 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, said classics professor Noel Lenski of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“The annual pagan celebration, called Lupercalia, was held every year on February 15 and remained wildly popular well into the fifth century A.D.—at least 150 years after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.”

Those clever early-Christians were marketing whizzes, don’t ya know.

I’m not sure who brought the red teddies into the equation, but I’m sure that the ancient Romans would’ve loved the addition of lingerie to Lupercalia.