You may have noticed that Valentine's Day is approaching. Actually, when I say "you may have noticed," what I really mean is "you may have had chocolate marketing crammed down your throat in the last two weeks."

Valentine's Day is one of the year's biggest marketing pushes. Only Christmas can top the level of marketing frenzy that Valentine's Day engenders. Every retailer is crossing their fingers and shouting "VALENTINE'S DAY" as loudly as they can, in the hopes that you will buy things. I should know - I used to be involved in the process (more than this I cannot say).

Chocolates, mostly. Anything which could be even remotely chocolate-ized has been. Any given newspaper or news agency has been running one chocolate related story a day, every day, for the last two weeks. (And diamonds, of course. I recently saw an ad for "chocolate diamonds," diamonds which are brownish in color, and was impressed by the marketing double hit. )

Let's be honest. Chocolate deserves better, and so do we. What's driving the marketing push is the perception that WOMEN LOVE CHOCOLATE GIVE THEM IT. This statement isn't untrue, of course. But women like a lot of things, don't we? We like expensive shoes, and new televisions, and anything from Anthropologie.

But understanding this requires a certain level of sensitivity to nuance. And no one ever accused the (predominately male-dominated) advertising world of possessing "a certain level of sensitivity to nuance."

Sure, Valentine's Day is for chocolate. But what about the rest of the year?