Full disclosure: This piece was dispatched two days after we gathered for the much anticipated 2026 Men’s Conference; where yours truly is a keynote speaker. In case you are wondering what that is, you are not in the club and thus this information is not for you. Also, Happy Valentine’s Day! We hope you have a wonderful time putting on a cheesy celebration of a love that should really matter as much as the other 364 days of the year but usually does not seem to. We hope your audience is entertained.
As one of the biggest proponents of the Men’s Conference and the value it adds to the boy child, I know precious little about this Valentine’s Day fad. It clashes with our annual Men’s Conference so I have never really participated; choosing instead to revel in the wisdom that comes from the conference. But I heard that the day is about romance. Or so the capitalists behind it and the misty-eyed mini-cupids say.
We, the old fashioned types still believe in loving our people with small, affectionate acts everyday; as opposed to some grand one day pretense covered in red roses; all in the name of romance. Some of our conference attendees have confessed to having indulged in the charade but they quickly realised that romance, especially in Uganda, is a fantasy from which the shege on Love Street rudely awakens you.
For some of us, sitting in a restaurant full of couples dressed only marginally better than Father Christmas and sipping wine while pretending to deeply care about each other, because it is February 14, is not our ideal way of spending an evening. It sounds like an ill advised capitulation to peer pressure built up by a love industry that wants to sell greeting cards, flowers, chocolate and gifts.
How the love industry somehow managed to market a pagan Roman Fertility festival built around whipping women and priestly defiance as a day for peak romantic celebration is a thing of marketing genius. The paper I am presenting at the men’s conference is titled: Fighting the tyranny of the love industrial complex. We need to put an end to this peer pressure-driven, commodified romance marketed on the premise that if you are not in it, you are a sad incel. We stand in solidarity with those men who feel pressured to do last minute flower shopping and booking high-end restaurant tables just because they want to prove their devotion to people they already love.
Allowing commerce to come in the midst of what should be a deeply personal choice of celebrating people we love on our terms sounds like inviting capitalistic intrusion to our bedrooms. What kind of human thought up the idea that love is about handing out heart-shaped balloons, hastily arranged flowers and teddy bears?
We are all about surrendering to love and celebrating its numerous possibilities but we refuse to do it on the timetable of capitalism and its insatiable appetite for driving rank consumerism. To us at the Men’s Conference, Valentine’s Day is as much about love as international arms trade is about peace. Miss us with that jazz!
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