If you live in Raleigh and you want some love action, the path to the promised land begins with these five words: "How about a back rub?"

That's correct, ladies and gentlemen. You can forget your complicated strategies for seduction, many of which were surely deployed during this recent Valentine's Day weekend. A simple massage will do the trick half the time.

How do I know this? Sadly, not through personal experience. My romantic encounters have tended to result from the reliable combination of pity and alcohol. No, this information comes from a recent survey of the sexual desires of 970,000 ordinary Americans, who were asked what flipped the switch on their love thermostats.

(Caveat No. 1: "Ordinary" may be stretching things a bit. It would be more precise to describe the survey participants as that rare group of people who are willing to share the details of their love lives and sexual preferences with total strangers. It used to be that you had to dial a 900 number and pay someone for the privilege of doing that. Or appear on Jerry Springer. Now you go online and participate in a survey. This sounds like progress to me.)

The survey was conducted by Tickle Inc., which describes itself as an "interpersonal media company." (Caveat No. 2: That means the firm helps arrange hook-ups.) Tickle says it used "Ph.d-certified tests" to capture a snapshot of the lustier side of America -- or at least of Tickle's members, who composed the whole survey group. (Final caveat: "Ph.d-certified tests" is one of those wonderfully spongy phrases that seem impressive until you realize that these nameless educators could have certified that Tickle's tests are total hokum.)

Still with me? OK, let's move on to the juicy stuff.

It turns out that 46 percent of survey participants nationwide said that a massage was the best seduction maneuver. Among Raleigh-area respondents, the percentage was even greater: exactly 50 percent.

In fact, the survey responders in our little piece of heaven surpassed the national average in a number of categories. Our friends and neighbors say that the mere sight of satin sheets is a turn-on (64 percent vs. 60 percent nationally), that they want their bedmate to be wealthy (27 percent vs. 25 percent), that they're attracted to people who are ambitious (25 percent vs. 19 percent), and that they've once dated somebody who reminded them of their mother (25 percent vs. 21 percent).

Boy. You boil down those statistics, and here's what you've got: A significant number of Raleigh residents are carnally indulgent, gold-digging, status-seeking motherdaters.

Whatever image we once had of ourselves is now gone forever. Our civic identity has undergone a wholesale makeover.

I can already see the new city-limit signs.

"Welcome to Raleigh. How about a back rub?"

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