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Love is in the air!
Oh, shit, no, that’s pepper spray.
This is our first print issue in the new year, and 2026 came at us all hard. It took three days for the Trump administration to invade another country, bomb them, and capture their president. It took seven days for immigration enforcement to kill someone on the street. And that was only the first time. As we close this issue, this year has been a scary, infuriating, galvanizing 29 days.
Meanwhile, we still have some beloved February traditions. Every year, we send out a survey to our readers, asking them to tell us everything we want to know (and they want to tell) about their sex lives. And we invite you to send us your valentines, to publicly declare your love for, well, anyone. It’s our annual love letter to all you horny freaks out there.
But this year, we wondered, could Seattleites find that loving feeling through the rage of this past year? Are people still fucking in an autocracy?
Thousands of you answered our sex survey, and we’re thrilled to report that yes, you all are still fucking. You’re fucking on ferries. You’re fucking in (several) Taco Del Mar bathrooms. You’re fucking at Archie McPhee. Those of you who definitely didn’t vote for Trump even report being pretty satisfied with how much you’re fucking (the Republicans weren’t so lucky). Your kinks have stayed steady—uninfected by the chaos around us—and blessedly few of you are trying to fuck ChatGPT. We salute you.
And then when we asked if you might want to write a little love letter of your own, hundreds of readers sent us valentines. To your tumblr mutuals-turned-lover. The fiancé you met at someone’s divorce party. Your pets. Your friends. Your crush on the Route 60 bus. The person you’d quit your job for all over again.
We still have a touch of Trump in our Love & Sex Issue, courtesy of the MAHA mission to convince women that hormonal birth control is poison, and that tracking their cycles is their best option for managing their fertility. (It’s not. But it is a very good way to push their “we need more babies” agenda.)
But, really, this issue is about everything that we are in spite of them: the dirty little freaks they’re so afraid of.
Love,
The Stranger
COVER ARTWORK
Concept and photograph by Billie Winter
This Issue Brought to You By
All of MoPOP’s many folds
The Mountain Goats’ 2002 song “No Children,” specifically the line, “You are coming down with me / Hand in unlovable hand.”
Pet axolotls named Warp and Weft
Connor Storrie’s Russian accent
ICE being brought down by none other than ice
Fighting the urge to doomscroll by spending 25 hours cross-stitching an oversized can of Diet Coke
Megan Carter punching Britta Curl in the face
Neighborhood cats
Being mistaken for a top
Jerking off to Mike Solan’s resignation
The cystic pimple that I have had for two-plus months that still has not gone away
The furious screams of Barbs everywhere
Your mom, who sends her regards after our night of raucous lovemaking
Your dad, who watched
The word “raucous”
Pony sweat
A Zoom call I didn’t know how to end, so I’ve been here for 57 hours now
Anthony Fucking Keo
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Stranger Staff
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