[sebbie]

Part LXVI

In this holiday season of gift giving, I oftentimes think about opening presents and getting things that were unexpected. Too, being a horny lad, I guess that somewhere deep in my mind was the idea that I could get a present that would somehow make me “feel good” down there. But that was not going to be the royal blue swim brief I really wanted, however.

One year I did get something I thought was “special" in this regard, however. It was one of the then newly available nylon underwear briefs for guys---silky smooth and golden in color not white. Oddly enough this came from an aunt and uncle not my parents. I was, in a word, delighted.

Still, there was other stuff on my “list” of fond “desires” that I was never able to obtain until I got older, and more or less out on my own.

From the perspective of economists, is an interesting process. The giver tries the best he (or she) can to find something that the recipient would “enjoy”. In the case of buying clothing for a horny male recipient or gift receiver, the term “enjoy” could take on a very special and unique meaning.

Economists talk about dead-weight loss in gift giving. No item purchased by another is going to quite provide as much satisfaction (utility) as if the gift had been picked out by the recipient. (Hence the increasing popularity of cash as a gift). This loss in satisfaction economists call dead-weight loss, which measures the extent to which the recipient thinks the gift is in some way unsatisfactory relative to what the recipient would have chosen for himself. We would all feel better during the holidays if we each only got the gifts we really wanted, but that is impossible given that another person is picking the item.

Experiments have been conducted with young people as subjects passing out different candy items at random in a classroom setting. Skittles, Milky Way bars, Nerds, Reese’s peanut butter cups etc. Then each student is asked to assign a number from 1-10 on how much they like the item they received. In one experiment involving 10 students the average score was about a 5, for a total score of 50 out of 100 possible points (10 students x 10 point maximum score). So the dead-weight loss in this example is 100-50 = 50.

Then, the students were allowed to trade items. For those who got some candy item they really did not like the incentive to trade for something they did like was greater, whereas for those who gave what they got initially a score of 10 would have zero incentive to trade with someone else. After trading, the items were rescored and the total was now 85. So everyone ended up being better off by trading by 35 points even though still not to 100 or a 50 point gain. Allowing people to trade gifts with each other after opening seems to allow everyone to go home at least as happy as they were if not significantly happier, not by buying more gifts and spending more money, but merely by allowing for the possibility of swapping.

OK, I talk at length about various items each of you might (or maybe not) “enjoy”. And, since that is a possibility, you might appreciate receiving each item as a holiday gift. So, what I want you to do is rank each of these items on a 10-point scale 1-10 based on how much you would appreciate getting it as a gift this year.

The items are
1. Royal blue swim brief size 30 (USA)
2. Package of 6 tighty whiteys size SM
3. Skimpy Swimming thong that reveals maybe too much 28-inch waist
4. Pair of thong underwear for men in navy blue (SM)
5. Compression shorts and short sleeved compression tee both MED
6. One-piece wrestling singlet in forest green size MED
7. Old school athletic supporter without a cup size SM
8. Old school athletic supporter with a cup that appears to be a bit too small to be able to hold me
9. Pair of navy blue running tights size SM
10. Pair of extra skinny PacSun® jeans with a 32-inch waist

So we also have 10 different items for you to put a score of 1-10 on each as to how enthusiastic or unenthusiastic you would be on finding this in a package with your name on it. Maybe you are too big to wear a size 30 swim brief. Well, just factor that into the score you give the item. One of the tricky parts of clothing as a gift is the sizing issue. Getting the wrong size is a common issue in gifts of clothing.

I need scores or a response from as many of you as possible. Be sure to rank all items from 1-10 with 10 being the most desired and 1 the least.

If I can get enough responses I can do a dead-weight loss calculation for each respondent. There are 100 maximum points for a guy scoring every item a “10” But you won’t likely do that. Instead you will like some of these items better than others and maybe some not at all (as in a score of 1)

If we get a number of responses we can think about assigning these gifts to respondents at random and then allowing everyone to do some trading in an effort to make everyone better off and no one worse off.

To be continued…