Beltane is a deeply misunderstood holiday, from the horror of “The Wicker Man” to Jonathan Coulton’s humorous “First of May,” to the sexy pictures of scantily clad humans spinning fire at the festival in Scotland, it would be easy to view Beltane as nothing but random sex with strangers outdoors around a campfire, a holiday dedicated to lust and hedonism and the baser of our human needs and instincts. And that would be a mistake.
It’s hard to miss the fact that the dominant culture in the United States has deeply ingrained contradictions and inconsistencies around reproduction, sex, and love. Women are at once supposed to be sexy and inviting desire, but if we actually give into it or enjoy it with too much relish, we’re sluts. Men are supposed to be strong and virile, but miss out on the opportunity to enjoy real intimacy because they are discouraged from seeking a real understanding of how emotions work. In general we’re supposed to keep sexuality out of polite company. It’s considered too much, too raw, too lewd for regular conversation, and should be treated as dirty. Couples are encouraged to be each others’ everything, even though it is both practically difficult and somewhat unfair to ask any one person to be responsible for meeting all their physical and emotional needs for the rest of their lives. We tell women they should aspire to motherhood, even judge them harshly when they don’t make children their whole…
