"Aren't we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? You know… the birth of Santa." (Bar...
"Aren't we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? You know… the birth of Santa." (Bart Simpson)
Member since:29.08.2002
Reviews:271
Members who trust:802
Although I don't know what whoopee is exactly, I do know that I'm all for making it. My thanks to the lyricist Gus Kahn for reminding me of this delightful pastime, whatever it may be, and even greater gratitude to him for implying that every season provides a reason for indulging in it. I'll second that emotion, as another lyricist once said.
Recently, I wrote a review in which, for want of anything more persuasive on which to base my argument, I analysed the dates on which Ciao members had posted both "happy" and "sad" reviews. This was done in a desperate attempt to prove that people do not necessarily turn gloomy as autumn darkens towards winter. Autumn being one of my favourite seasons, I didn't want to believe ill of it. And, with only a little statistical sleight of hand, that's what the numbers showed.
"Maybe you should count the top ten turn-on ops next and find out when we are friskiest," suggested Susan 1967 in her comment on that review. Not having any better ideas myself, I seized on her stimulating suggestion, hence this review. I have no hesitation in posting it under this heading, because the season in which people are at their friskiest is definitely going to be among my favourites, whichever it may turn out to be.
There are far too many things in life that are easier said than done, and acting on Susan's suggestion turned out to be one of them. I looked in vain for "Top 10 Turn Ons" or "10 Things that Really Turn Me On" under Member Picks. Could it really be that no one had proposed them to Ciao, or even "10 things that Excite my Romantic Instincts", "10 Most Attractive Features of the Opposite Sex" or "10 Things that Leave Me Gagging for It"? Maybe no one ever felt it possible to keep such numbers down to 10.
Individually, I could remember several admirably frisky reviews from particular female members, but I felt I couldn't just count these, to avoid all sorts of bias. For example, I have no doubt that male members were equally frisky, this being the way of male members, but I personally was unlikely to have remembered their reviews as vividly as those of their female counterparts. To avoid bias, I had to go for whole topic categories not just individual reviews.
So, as a start, I selected topic categories that focussed on appropriate aspects of human relationships, including as many as possible to ensure a substantial sample. The relevant Ciao categories tended to focus on the process of getting together with a view to friskiness, colloquially known as dating, rather than on friskiness itself, but they were a start, and so I started with them. They were: -
Member Advice on: - - Dating - Online dating - Pulling - Attracting women* Internet dating services Member Picks: - - Top 10 chat up lines - 10 things a person needs to do/not to do to have a successful date with me - Top 10 things not to do on a date
* (Note: there is no category 'Member Advice on Attracting Men', a topic on which women evidently need no guidance.)
The last two categories may have negative aspects, but at least they were about dating, showing that people's minds (or hearts, or whatever) were on the relevant subject. Allocating months to seasons as in the previous review, this produced the following break-down:
No surprises, you may say, so far as the winner is concerned. It was Tennyson who drew attention to what a young man's fancy turns to in Spring, although, being a Victorian, he used the euphemism "love", and omitted to mention that women's fancies might turn in the same direction. Anyway, Spring is when the sap is just one of the things that rises without aid of Viagra, its very name being an acronym (for Seasonal Priapism Results In Nymphomaniacal Gagging-for-it).
Having given Spring its due credit, let us notice that Autumn is also pulling its proportionate weight, and if Autumn comes, can Winter be far behind? On those dark, cold, early-to-bed nights people do not want to rely solely on their hot water bottles.
If there was a surprise here, it seemed to me to be in the poor showing of Summer. A fall-off in friskiness during the Summer months seems contrary to personal experience and anecdotal evidence, although I suppose you never can tell who's merely boasting. Alternatively, perhaps people are too busy doing it during those warm summer evenings to find time to write about the experience.
As a crosscheck, I decided to look at the question from a slightly different perspective. I spend so much time in the Café that I sometimes forget Ciao's product categories, but then it occurred to me that when people were feeling frisky they might also be thinking of how to avert unwanted consequences. I therefore checked out reviews for Condoms. I could have included other contraceptive products such as the coil and pill, but I was a bit daunted by the number of reviews involved (people seem to love writing about these things). In any case, they tend to imply long term planning, whereas friskiness implies more spontaneity, for which a condom is better suited. However, with spontaneity in mind, it did seem appropriate to add in reviews for the Morning After Pill, with the following results: -
Spring is still way out in front, but at least Summer is at least beginning to stir and show signs of living up to its own acronym (Sensual Urges Meet Many Erotic Responses). Autumn, by contrast, is rather detumescent. Perhaps, if people haven't decided by then which condom they prefer they're never going to, or maybe they're just exhausted after their exertions earlier in the year.
Or maybe by Autumn they've already moved on to connubial bliss and have such things sorted out between them. This idea seemed worth a further check so I had a look at reviews about marriage. There are fewer categories here, but I did find: -
- Member Advice on Getting engaged - Member Advice on Marriage - Member Advice on Remarriage - Member Advice on Wedding Planning - Top 10 Wedding Venues
Okay, so these figures don't quite make the case for Autumn as the season for getting hitched, or even for writing about it. That accolade goes to Summer, but there is a clear pattern of the focus shifting from courtship to marriage as the year moves on. The sexy season of Spring drops out of the reckoning once tying the knot comes into the reckoning, while Autumn replaces it among the front-runners, explaining the acronym After Unrestrained Tupping Usually Marriage eNsues.
Not always, of course, and to take the nuptials back out of the equation, I also had a look the results for "Do you Believe in True Love?" under Current Debates, and found that the running order was similar: Summer first, Autumn and Winter joint second and Spring virtually nowhere. A cynical old friend of mine used to quip that "love is what replaces sex after the menopause", but it looks like his timespan was far too long. "After the end of Spring" would seem more accurate.
Two peaks, then, in Spring (nine months after the high season for writing about marriage, which suggests that the modern world is more conventional than we have been given to suppose), but even more markedly in Autumn.
The statistically astute among you will have noticed a seeming discrepancy here with an earlier finding. Spring is also the high-point for reviewing condoms. So how come by Autumn we're writing about preparing for the baby's arrival? I admit it doesn't quite add up (though I did consider going back through the condom reviews to see how many initially positive ones were revised a few months later with complaints that the products hadn't worked as satisfactorily as was first thought). Interesting though, isn't it? And it does confirm the findings of my previous review: that Autumn is a season for thinking of happy events.
What about poor old Winter, then? Doesn't it win anything? Well, I couldn't find anything in the sphere of relationships, but no other season can beat it for "10 All-time best Children's TV Programmes". And maybe on those frosty nights when the kids' attention is glued to the telly the parents can slip away for a bit of how's-your-father, and maybe how's-your mother too, a practice immortalised in the acronym: While Ice-bound Nippers Televisualise Elders are Rampant.
So, as we could have guessed all along, every season has something going for it in the relationship stakes, and therefore has a claim to be my favourite, especially as I have personally been through all the relationship stages itemised above.
Sep 23rd, 2004
(Sep 29th, 2007)
exceptional by (32%):
very helpful by (68%):
