Why only book one date on Valentine's Day when you can party with enough people to fill an art gallery? Get your mind out of the gutter; this is a celebration free of social taboos. Well, mostly free.

Hotcakes Gallery presents "Heart Pounder," which features a variety of artists exploring the anything-but-monogamous relationship between love, sex and art. If you need to ask the question, "is that what I think it is?" at some point during the show, yes, it is probably what you imagine it to be.

Some of the elements used in the show are innocent upon initial examination, such as origami and latch hook rugs. However, one doesn't need to look too far in order to determine the inspiration — popular risqué magazines.

"Everybody sees love in a different way," explained gallery owner Mike Brenner. "You need the raunchy elements but also a beautiful appreciation of the human figure. Once you put it together, it becomes love."

An all-ages Super Party/opening night is slated for the 11th.

"I didn't want (the show) to be too dirty," Brenner said. "It's a neighborhood (located in Riverwest). There's stuff that pushes it, but with a sense of humor."

The fact that Hotcakes is only celebrating its second year this month does not hinder Brenner's choices of exhibit selections.

"Because I'm newer I can take more risks," he said.

Truly, there is something for everyone at the show. Those looking for a relationship are inherently bound by the artist/audience relationship, which, must like its romantic counterpart, be left up to interpretation. Want a more traditional date? Brenner is auctioning himself off three times during the run of Heart Pounder, rendering him "nervous" based on some people's already imagined ideas of a date with him.

If you hate the commercialism intertwined with the holiday, there will be valentines in the gallery courtesy of Jeremy Maxwell, but they are meant for prostitutes. In addition, nothing is more underground than emerging artists are, though Brenner's intent is not to draw attention away from the holiday.

"People dismiss love and relationships too often," he said.

Here's a preview of some of the artists involved so you don't have to guess like you do with the giant box of chocolates and end up with the nasty coconut crème.

The idea for the show began when Brenner found Whitney Lee over the Internet, as he finds many artists.

"She wanted to do an erotic arts show and we built a show that was based around that," Brenner said.

Her latch hook rugs — which depict Playboy playmates — are simply "sex for sex's sake," as she stated in her artist's statement. Now that Brenner had the floors covered, all that was left was the walls.

Jesus Ali's soft cover book and Brian Dettmer's carved books should lend an inviting hand, though both have different takes on women. Ali's book is a work-in-progress that is trying to answer why his relationships fail. The women in Dettmer's work are clearly fictional, based on their proportions.

Annushka Peck is literally a resident artist as she lives in the apartment behind the gallery. In her statement, she asserts that Valentines Day usually ends up in false intimacy, as does pornography — so she uses "pornagami" to convey this feeling.

"(The 'Pornagami') looks really elegant, but you have to bend over with your ass in the air looking at this elegant object on a little satin pillow," Brenner said.

Not every piece is trying to push the proverbial envelope. Some artists choose to represent love in childlike images that "depict a romantic version of the human form," Brenner said.

In the end, Brenner ended up with more material than he could feature, but he is still trying to work in some 1950s sex-ed films some time during the run of the show.

For a man who began with the mission for art to appeal to young people and not be too "hoity-toity," as he phrased it, this exhibit is sure to drive the point home.