What do chocolate and hockey have to do with each other? A good question.

They both have to do with sex.

WHY CHOCOLATE IS BETTER THAN SEX

1) We don’t have to beg for chocolate. This proves nothing. We can get sex without begging. Ask Eve.

Let’s just not get like Mrs. Marabel Morgan who wrote “Total Woman.” Wear Saran Wrap to greet your hubby after his hard day at the office. Imagine how sticky you’d feel plastered in plastic!

We didn’t have to beg our brother who maybe wasn’t romantic because we mentioned his faults.

“Gross, Tim, don’t take off your shoes in here, I wrecked my shoulder in volleyball practice.”

“Sorry.”

“Maybe you can rub it?”

“I suppose.”

“We can still watch ‘Basic Instinct’ before the folks get home. I’ll sit in front. Want a creamy or chewy Brach’s?”

“Chewy.”

Timmy never rubbed through Saran Wrap is my point. Just took a chocolate.

2) We can have chocolate in front of our mothers.

3) We can have chocolate while driving. Car sex ties into America’s car culture, the automobile as our extension. OK, Corvettes are more-or-less big red penises, probably driven by guys with little pale ones. The designers -- use to be in Detroit, now in Yokohama -- have this figured out, though I’m not sure how my Camry projects my vagina. Maybe the cup holder.

Overheard in the lunchroom. “So I opened his glove compartment to stash my bra and there was this C one”

4) We can have chocolate on our desks during working hours. Any job needing a neat desktop should be done without either chocolates or sex, however. You file the legal brief and page 231 is a smeared Goo Goo Cluster! You file the negotiated settlement and on page 143 is the opposing attorney’s semen. Chocolate and sex are for after work.

5) We can enjoy chocolate when it’s gone soft. This is a sexist put-down on males when nature abandons them. “Well shit, Ralph, you’ve lost it so I’m going home.” It’s not the end of the world. Teach him a little something about how girls share a piece of chocolate.

6) With chocolate, we can bite the nuts. Hershey’s with almonds is better than plain Hershey’s milk chocolate. And who’d want an Almond Joy without the nuts? We are what we eat, they say. So check out one of those confectionaries that market erotic sweets. Outfits with names like “Russell Stover” don’t, of course.

7) Chocolate lasts as long as we want. Ever held a Milk Dud for the duration of a movie? Good as when you bought it. OK, poor example, as Milk Duds are just chocolate colored. We’ll get to chemicals later.

8) There are more varieties of chocolate. M&M’s figured out that we love variety, blue even. It would be so easy to go a whole year, eating a different chocolate daily. Don’t, though. Kama Sutra has 27 positions, but half appear to be exceedingly uncomfortable, positively injurious.

9) Having chocolate with children is legal. We’re bumped in the stairwells by boys bigger than we are. “Oh, sorry, Ms. Barton,” them scoring a feel.

Any boy whose desk I bend over can see down my neckline. Any male teacher who bends over a girl’s desk sees down hers. But as we eliminated having chocolate on the teacher’s desk in (4), what’s the tie between subsequently mentoring a younger friend and chocolate?

The answer: chocolate-coated mints. What do we see at the checkout? Junior Mints. How do we support the Girl Scouts? Thin Mints keep us thin. A chocolate mint reminds us of a nubile body.

“Mr. Gibson, I know I didn’t do that well on the Algebra test, but wanna’ buy some Girl Scout Cookies?”

“Sure, Kristin. Got those Thin Mints again this year?”

“There’s 32 in a box, so it’s a good deal.”

“I’m sure it is. Run and close the door so your troop doesn’t come in and steal your sale.”

“OK.”

“So why don’t you sit on my knee so I can see this pretty badge here on your vest?”

“Sure, Mr. Gibson. It’s my Cookie Sale Activity Pin. That’s the pin part on the inside there.”

“Kristin, you’re getting to be quite something behind this badge.”

“Our Girl Scout Law tells us to respect authority. So first, how many boxes of Thin Mints do you want? They’re not that expensive.”

I wish Boy Scouts didn’t just sell Christmas trees. I’d buy some chocolate Easter bunnies and ask about his lifesaving merit badge. How does that CPR work?

10) The word “commitment” doesn’t scare off chocolate. What I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t scare off sex either. It’s after sex that he flakes out.

11) Bigger isn’t always better. Ghirardelli doesn’t sell big pieces of chocolate and it’s good stuff. Big chocolate items usually taste like wax. Chocolate Easter eggs come to mind. Small is just a different kind of enablement.

So let’s ask the experts.

1) Ask the chemist.

Brain fluctuations accompanying sexual thoughts could involve some amphetamine-like chemical whose level in our brain goes up when we meet the right person. Phenylethylamine (PEA) might be involved. As PEA is chemically similar to norepinephrine and dopamine, post-romance depressions might involve PEA deficits.

Chocolate is loaded with PEA and we do seem to eat chocolate when depressed. Attempted self-medication? Or perhaps we eat chocolate to enhance our romantic feelings, the focus of a New York Times article.

2) Ask the shrink.

Extra! Extra! Read the advertisement! “An alternative to 12-step! You can reduce almost any type of addictive behavior -- from drinking to sex, eating, and the Internet -- with this practical and effective workbook ... Supported by scientific research, Dr. Horvath approaches addiction as a bad habit, not a disease ... Horvath teaches the consequences (and even possible benefits) of addictive behavior, alternative coping methods, choice, understanding and dealing with urges, building a new lifestyle, preventing relapse. Includes dozens of exercises, self-study questions, guidelines for individual change plans.” (Horvath, A. Thomas, 2003, Sex, Drugs, Gambling & Chocolate, A Workbook for Overcoming Addictions, 2nd Ed, Impact, 240 p.)

3) Ask the writer

To wit, “Mr. Goodbar Snickers as he Kisses her Mounds. His Tootsie Roll in her Milky Way makes a Baby Ruth.” Jeeze! And Holly just used names of chocolate candy bars. No Starburst, thus.

So how about real literature? Take, for example, “Torch Song in Chocolate” by Birthday Nymph. “Together, they draw the chocolate over the curve of her breasts, replacing silk with sweetness. The creamy skin disappears under the chocolate, blending into the sinking line of black silk until the dress rests in a swirl of softness around her hips. She rests back on her elbows as together they pour the still-warm sauce over the muscles of her belly. From bowl to skin it cascades over her body to the worn wooden stage, leaving our nymph as a chocolate-covered birthday treat.”