Pump the brakes, Cupid. And put some pants on.
The mythical god of attraction and desire needs a reboot. Possibly some sensitivity training.
Long before the internet and social media, in the days before streaming and TV and big-budget blockbusters and pop culture was transmitted through glossy magazines shared like a venereal disease at a music festival, the god of love and desire was portrayed and accepted as a winged male preying on lovelorn victims with arrow in hand.
Ancient art depicts him lurking in shadows, waiting to pierce a young maiden’s breast with an arrow that would make her bosom swell with desire for a potential suitor.
In other words, Cupid was a hit man of sorts. Employed by a beseecher who prayed the hardest or made the biggest offering he was a hired gun who would track down a woman (usually) that caught a man’s attention and accost her with weaponry that would alter her mindset and make her swoon with desire.
Cupid was a creepy stalker.
And mythical of course.
But the imagery and idea of a male figure forcing a woman to like him lingered through the centuries. Even today.
Especially today, Valentine’s Day.
In-store promotions will feature cutouts of the cherub pointing to candies and drinks and trinkets that are sure to intoxicate your loved one with love and desire.
But in the age of relative enlightenment maybe we rethink our mythical figureheads.
Maybe the New Cupid should be depicted as a multi-hued androgynous being that approaches men and women and boys and girls cautiously and respectfully and chats with their target without ever piercing them with an arrow.
Maybe Cupid 2020 walks around with a cell phone and on that cell phone are pictures not of a potential lover but of the person they’re chatting up. But the photos are not the typically posed casual selfies most people take in public with friends.
These pictures depict the traits and characteristics of what makes each person lovely.
Maybe the new Cupid convinces people to love themselves and to share that kindness and love with people around them.
And pants. New Cupid wears pants.
