Over a few dollar-beers at our usual Wednesday night Karaoke outing, my male coworker and I discussed the plethora of heart-shaped lights and cardboard silhouettes of Cupid that hung from the ceiling of ourI heart steak too. typical Chicago dive of a bar.

“A little obnoxious isn’t it?” I said, “I am not looking forward to Valentine’s Day this year at all.”
My coworker, who is also currently single, agreed.

“Yah, me neither,” he said, taking another pull of his Schlitz. “Valentine’s Day is meant for women anyway. Why do you think it starts with a “V”?”

A bit taken back by his logic of equating the letter “V” with vagina, I disagreed.

“I have always put a lot of thought into my Valentine’s Day gifts for boyfriends. It is just as much their day as it is mine. It?s a celebration of love.”

“Exactly,” said my coworker. “That’s why it is for women.”

Buzzed, I shrugged my shoulders and took a long gulp of beer hoping to avoid the battle-of-the-sexes conversation I never seem to win (or think should exist at all.) And then it struck me.

“Whatever, you have Steak and Blow Job Day.”

I explained to my male coworker that for Valentine’s Day, I would be completely satisfied with a T-Bone, a little A1 and some oral sex (of course, not all at once.)

Steak and Blow Job Day is the unofficial holiday created as the male response to Valentine’s Day. It started in 2002 on Tom Birdsey’s radio show out in Boston (although, you will run into many others who claim to be the mastermind behind the idea.)

Urbandictionary.com describes Steak and Blow Job Day as follows: ?Celebrated on March 14th, Steak and Blow Job Day is a holiday for men, celebrated the month after Valentine’s Day — a holiday for women. The idea is simple: no cards, flowers, candy or other whimsical gifts. Ladies (and gay men), you simply bestow your partner with a steak and a blowjob. Not necessarily in that order.

There is even a handy website (www.steakandbjday.com) for the more clueless women to help with not only special steak recipes, but pointers on giving our men head. Hell, you could even order the classy “I heart Steak and BJ Day” t-shirt for the occasion.

Since my inclination is to find the equality in such gender-driven situations, I tried to find a Valentine’s Day website. Sure enough, it exists, www.valentinesday.com, complete with creative gift ideas, romantic poems, and, duh, teddy bears.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but the social structures surrounding each of these holidays sounds a lot like the same logic behind the separate but equal doctrine; let?s give the women a day to celebrate love the way that women celebrate love, and let’s give men a day to celebrate love the way that men celebrate love. But who is defining these differences? And how different are they really?
Not only do these definitions, which are submitted by average people like you and me, reduce men to only caring about their appetites being satisfied (both for food and sex), but it reduces women to only caring about romance. I for one, a self-proclaimed feminist, would LOVE to have someone else prepare a steak for me and follow it up with a little cunnilingus any day of the year.

For me, what is the most frustrating about the evolution of Steak and Blow Job Day, is its uncanny resemblance to men’s general reaction (I repeat, general) to feminism on the whole. Much like the letter “V,” the letter “F” scares men off. They see women’s rights incorporated with the feminist movement as they see romance incorporated with Valentine’s Day and struggle to find a way to relate. Therefore, they reject it all together and create something of their own, or bad mouth the already existing group or event from which they feel unattached.

I understand why Steak and Blow Job Day exists. Just like Virginia Woolf needed a room of one’s own, men needed their own day to explore their needs and wants when it comes to loving relationships. However, like many things that divide gender, Steak and Blow Job Day should be addressed as a step in the progression towards gender equality and harmonious coexistence, not as the be all and end all solution to the problem. Eventually, both men and women should be able to level on February 14th(or any day, for that matter) recognize and fulfill the need for romance, sex and food in one another, whatever the severity of each need might be.

Later on that same night, maybe five beers in, I explained to my male coworker that for Valentine’s Day, I would be completely satisfied with a T-Bone, a little A1 and some oral sex (of course, not all at once.)He shook his head and laughed.

“You are probably the only woman in the world who feels that way.”

I refuse to believe that.