There is no wrong time to Lupercalia! That being said, this is the latest we’ve ever Lupered, and we’re grateful to you revelers who have stayed fully costumed, all goat-girdled and wolf-breathed, until we could make our grand entrance. Io Pan! Let the oils flow.

Lupercalia 2020 was our last major collection before the whole world changed, seemingly overnight. One great hurrah, a love-fest with hugs among friends and fans, and then within weeks we’d all retreated behind screens, behind masks, lips forsaking lips, skin forgetting skin. First we experienced loneliness in advance, looking out across the great expanse that lay ahead, with no clear end in sight. Then we experienced it acutely in the present, as more plans disintegrated and opportunities slipped through our fingers.

Gradually our loneliness became a dull, constant ache, unattached to any person or event or time period. It sputtered in the background as we endured uprisings, fires, floods, ice. It has driven some to strange caprices; passions have flamed and great loves have grown cold. Some gambled everything in exchange for secret visits, hidden encounters. Even the most isolated have indulged in unlikely forms of interconnection, reaching across abysses of vast digital emptiness and finding immediacy, kinship, even eros. And if you can’t reach out and touch someone… well, the economy sucks but it’s still free to touch yourself.

For my part, I’m not thinking much about romantic love, though it is love in all its myriad forms that is getting me through this terrible time, and I’m not really thinking about sex because pandemics rate pretty fucking high in my personal top ten least-sexy environments.

(Although a porny flip book of plague doctors in flagrante delicto would actually be REALLY FUNNY now that I’m thinking about it…)

While I am as preoccupied with the recent terrors of the world as everyone else, no trials or tribulations will ever keep me from making dick jokes, and I have always and will always love the over-the-top ribaldry of shunga. As evidenced by this update, my love of chocolate has only gotten more pronounced over the past year.

I hope this year’s scents bring you some joy, some laughter, and a little respite from sorrow.

2021 needs Lupercalia more than ever: may it serve as an acknowledgment of everything we’ve lost or repressed. May it remind us of everything messy and loud and human that cannot and will not be constrained – all the parts of us that long for the scent and sound and smell and touch of other humans. May it remind us of all the things that keep our blood pumping, all the sloppy, absurd joys of lust and love, and all the joy, sweat, and sighs that wait for us in the future.

May we all keep foolishly, doggedly (wolfishly?) trying to cross the void that separates us. Someday, we will be able to embrace again.