Marilyn Manson playing Valentine’s Day show

The god of desire bears firearms.

At least in Marilyn Manson’s forked-tongued songbook.

“Cupid Carries A Gun” on the nocturnal rocker’s latest record, “The Pale Emperor,” an album that scalds and seduces in equal measure.

Desire has always loomed large in Manson’s catalog — and life, in general.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he claimed that he gets it on with his woman friend at least five times a day.

Wow.

It’s a wonder the fella has the time to paint his face and scream into knife-shaped microphones.

Considering Manson’s carnal bona fides, how fitting is it that he will performing in Las Vegas on Valentine’s Day?

In honor of the occasion, let’s count down Manson’s five most, uh, romantic tunes and see what we can learn from them about those pernicious affairs of the heart.

Your love life is about to get some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, hombre.

5. “Slutgarden”

We called up the folks at Moon Valley Nursery for tips on how to grow a slutgarden of our own and they had precious little helpful advice.

Thanks for nothing, plant nerds, why don’t you make like a tree and … go do some tree stuff.

Blessedly, there’s Marilyn Manson to address the topic on a song that’s tender — like a fresh bruise — at least in places.

“I can’t believe that you are for real/But I don’t care as long as you’re mine,” Manson sings to the object of his affection on this electro metal striptease from “The Golden Age of Grotesque.”

Awww, and then comes the Hallmark moment.

“I never believed the devil was real,” he confesses, “but God couldn’t make someone filthy as you.”

Hear that?

It’s the sound of her clothes hitting the bedroom floor.

4. “Pretty As A Swastika”

Compliments are essential to a healthy relationship, as one needs to continually reaffirm to his or her partner that they have, in fact, remained shagworthy.

And really, is there a better method of testifying to one’s beauty than by equating it to a symbol of mass genocide and blind demagoguery?

OK, maybe just one way: with some sweet-ass poetry.

“I want to smash into your face, like a plane, and drown in between your legs,” Manson purrs on this “High End of Low” hip shaker.

Take that, stupid, stupid Baudelaire.

3. “Wight Spider”

Manson, he’s no clingy dude.

“I’ll possess you/ But I don’t need you to be another one of my possessions,” he sings on this lurching death waltz from “The High End of Low.”

In other words, his love comes with no shackles, no restraints.

This Anti-Christ Superstar does not come coated in emotional Velcro.

And neither should you.

2. “Pistol Whipped”

Marilyn Manson’s not afraid of showing his lady his devotion — or borrowing her fishnets.

“You’re a little pistol/And I’m pistol-whipped,” Manson pants on this hot-and-bothered industrial R&B window-fogger from “Born Villain.”

The song is about dominance and submission.

And Manson likes it both ways.

“I wanna have your ache/And beat you, too,” he sings, giving voice to the sentiment that kept Ward and June Cleaver together all those years.

1. “Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)”

This is Manson’s most starry-eyed tune, gooey as a Hershey’s bar left in the burning depths of hell.

Manson sings of being a schoolboy with his heart in a vice, and he sounds like one as well, crooning his way through the chorus as if he was drunk on love instead of his preferred absinthe.

The song is an ode to one of Manson’s former flames, actress Evan Rachel Wood, she of the titular eyewear.

“I don’t mind you keepin’ me/On pins and needles/If I could stick to you/And you stick me, too,” Manson tells her.

Who knew he was such a big ol’ softy?

Earlier in his career, on the song “Coma Black,” Manson likened his heart to a tiny blood clot.

This tune proves that it’s a bit bigger than that.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow on Twitter @JasonBracelin.