CUPID, n. The so-called god of love. This bastard creation of a barbarous fancy was no doubt inflicted upon mythology for the sins of the deities. Of all unbeautiful and inappropriate conceptions this is the most reasonless and offensive. The notion of symbolizing sexual love by a semisexless babe, and comparing the pains of passion to the wounds of an arrow - of introducing this pudgy homunculus into art grossly to materialize the subtle spirit and suggestion of the work - this is eminently worthy of the age that, giving it birth, laid it on the doorstep of prosperity. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
The difficulty of this protestation is that every possible alternative can be sexually construed, which overshadows all other aspects of love. Every mature, masculine figure is associated with a phallic symbol, and every female representation of love is reduced to a womb.
How many different kinds of life are created by love aside from merely the physical? Romance awakens the soul, and puts the powdered-sugar frosting on it. Romance is more, not less, than sex. Romance implies belonging, knowing, carefully cultivating, and showing deference. It requires self-sacrifice which yields even greater yet more subtle rewards. Ultimately, romance can turn anything common into something beautiful, which is why I am bitterly offended when instead, those who commodify romance turn something beautiful into something common. This travesty is a lonely-man’s mockery of a generous soul’s happiness. Bitterness against a world turned pink for a day is honest compared to the blatant capitalization on or prostitution of life’s finer feelings.
Cupid symbolizes inappropriately because he masks in meaningless signifier a signified only comprehensible to those who have clung to it as steadfastly as they have every other light granted to them.
Or perhaps this is merely the wishful thinking of the emotionally marooned.
