First published February 13, 2006
VALENTINE'S GIFTS ALWAYS WELCOME
The opposite sex enjoys receiving presents, despite what a new survey says
By CORMAC GORDON
According to a new report, that splashy women’s magazine Cosmopolitan has had it right all along.
So do all those late night “Sex in the City” reruns I watch while waiting for the West Coast basketball scores.
What women want in this world is love — and nothing else.
At least that’s what one pre-Valentine’s Day study indicates.
Harris Interactive conducted a poll recently in which they interviewed 195 women in the United States. The results say that more women, in fact a majority of women, would rather have sex for Valentine’s Day than receive cards or chocolates or flowers.
That sexual satisfaction is better than jewelry. In fact, the way the numbers fall indicates that they think it’s better than just about anything.
Imagine that?
“Just give me love,” is the new battle cry of the 21st century woman.
To which I respond, when did all this come to pass? And why didn’t anyone bother to tell me? Did they think it would be too big a shock to my system?
And more to the point, can you really rely on these findings?
Because the way I’ve been trained, gifts count.
They count a lot, in fact.
Prior to their arrival, they are discussed, hinted at and anticipated. When given, they are inspected, appraised, weighed, considered and measured. Great meaning is attached to them.
Is the gift too little? Is it too much?
Was the process by which the gift was selected sufficiently time-consuming and the cost of its purchase appropriately dear?
The ultimate question seems to always boil down to, what does this particular gift on this specific occasion really mean?
What message does the gift convey?
That’s the normally vigorous vetting process that I have come to know. And I’ve come to think of it as a women’s natural way of doing business.
On occasion I have gotten the idea that a gift may have been less than what was thought to be appropriate. Or that it was somehow lacking of the proper style. Or that it missed the mark in some other important way.
That can lead to disappointment, as has been my experience.
And disappointment may have something to do with this sex thing they’re talking about in the survey.
But no one has ever hinted to me for a minute that gift-giving was disappearing as part of the male-female back and forth.
In fact, I was so floored by the news that I called Wagner College philosophy professor WALTER KAELBER (photo, left), who I figured was used to considering such weighty matters.
Unfortunately, while the professor is both learned and wise, he also happens to be 62.
Like me, an old coot.
And he was as shocked as I was by the results.
“Maybe chocolates or jewelry isn’t their thing,” he offered of the women who cooperated with the survey. “Maybe they’re shoe people. There’s a little Imelda Marcos in every woman, you know.”
Because of my over-50 status, some would say I shouldn’t be the person commenting on this.
But I figure that even a guy with a hairline that’s disappearing faster than Oprah’s credibility as a book critic can have a thought or two when it comes to something as universally discussed as sex.
After all, it’s not like I fell from out of a tree, as my children would have you believe. Or that I was born old and paunchy and boring, which is what I am now.
I’m a real person, even if I am a card-carrying member of AARP.
For instance, I’m pretty sure that from the age of 13 until 20 I thought about little else but girls — them and the National League standings.
And Beyonce Knowles and Charlize Theron haven’t slipped completely under the radar on me.
So I have a pulse. Which makes me as qualified as the next guy, I guess.
Hey, are George Clooney and Harrison Ford the only old men who have answers on the subject?
And I’m with Professor Kaelber.
This survey they’re talking about had to be a bad sample group. Or someone tabulating the responses must have used a broken calculator.
Women like gifts. It’s genetic. And I don’t believe for a minute that they’re going to give up the art of receiving baubles and bangles and flowers. They’re not like men, after all, all serious and somber.
A golf magazine released its own poll recently. In it a majority of men surveyed said they’d gladly surrender sex for a prolonged period for the chance at a tee time at Augusta National, site of The Masters.
Now that sounds like a solid, scientific effort to me.
Not like this bogus sex story they're floating on the eve of Valentine’s Day.