OK, so Christmas is on the way and then shortly following that it’s Valentine’s Day, and to be honest birthday presents are always tough, so surely lingerie is always a go to gift that can never fail. However, there’s actually a lot for you to take into account before heading down to your local Anne Summers, because if you get this wrong you could be looking at the wrong end of a relationship backlash of monumental proportions.

Firstly, if the relationship has only just begun - i.e. if the first date was only last Saturday night – then you might want to rethink lingerie as a gift of choice. In fact, if gifts have already come up after such a short amount of time, one of you is probably crazy. Either that or it’s just a more experimental relationship that you have, in which case you could probably get away with whatever you want. However, most women would probably run like the wind if they were handed sexy underwear after just a few dates.

So, for the rest of you, you’ve made it past the awkward zone, so now you’re into the "lingerie could work well as a present" stage (it’s in all the romance text books). However, the problem now is gauging whether or not your partner would appreciate romantic underwear as a present. If they’re devoutly religious (e.g. you’re dating a nun or transvestite clergyman) you might get a look of disapproval if you handed over a lace basque & suspender belt. To make sure you’re all clear, drop the topic into conversations every now and again to see how the other half reacts. If at any time you get a slap (note: distinctly different to a spank) you can probably guess that the only lingerie you’re likely to get away with starts with long and ends in johns. If, on the other hand, you’re met with any kind of positive response (like a lap dance at the mere mention of a silk camisole) then you’ve got the green light to romantic lingerie heaven.

However, the leg work isn’t over yet. Depending on your own personal taste, you also need to be able to gauge correctly the type of lingerie gifts to get. If you hand over a gag ball, furry cuff links and a riding crop and get them thrown back in your face, it’s probably because she’s not into that sort of thing (alternatively, it could just mean that sort of thing is what she’s into, but that she expects you to do the donning. Good luck with that). This puts you back on the research front. A questionnaire is probably not the best approach (Q1: On a scale of 1 to 10 how kinky would you rate yourself?), but a few chats should give you an idea of what she’d like. Using one of her magazines is probably a good way to bring it up. There’s always lingerie in them, so you can just ask what she thinks of it.

Ok, so that covers the basics, but one last tip is that if you are getting lingerie, you should probably make sure you don’t send it to her parents house for Christmas. It makes unwrapping slightly awkward.