Tender Traps : Hidden Meanings May Be Lurking in Some Valentine’s Day Gifts : <i> On this Valentine’s Day Eve, the Hot to Shop team offers a special edition of its weekly advice column, with tips for mastering this the romantically risky holiday. </i>

Are you strategically prepared for Thursday’s Big Day with the perfect gift, one you know will transport your sweetheart into unbridled ecstasy? Or will you whip into your local 7-Eleven on the way home from work for some Red Hots, Beer Nuts and a card that says “I WuvYou”?

Have you really considered the latest preferences, styles and whims of your beloved? Or have you merely assumed that he can always use another dress-for-success necktie--or that she always falls for flowers, even those dilapidated roses hawked by teen-agers on street corners?

As gifts go, Valentine’s Day is the year’s most emotionally loaded holiday. We’re not going to tell you who has the best deal on red silk boxer shorts, but we hope to provide something we think is more valuable: tips for choosing the precise gift that will win your Valentine’s heart.

Why go to all the trouble in the first place?

“There is one important consideration for Valentine’s Day gifts. You are sending a message about the kind and the degree of your love for someone else,” advises Toronto anthropologist Grant McCracken, author of “Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities.”

As McCracken sees it, Valentine’s Day is a far more dangerous consumer ritual than other gift-giving holidays. On most occasions, just about anything goes. But on Feb. 14, McCracken warns, “we have a very limited set of acceptable gifts.”

In other words, you might want to forget the Ginzu knives.

But watch out, too, for candy, perfume, flowers, jewelry and other presumably “safe” gifts. According to the experts we surveyed, not even traditional gifts are foolproof these days. As Los Angeles psychotherapist and author Daphne Rose Kingma puts it: “Some people would read candy, flowers, lingerie and perfume to mean ‘Sweeten ‘em up. Make ‘em smell good. And drag ‘em off to bed.’ ”

However, the experts offer the same formula for choosing a sure-fire hit: Take the time to find out what the person truly wants and give it to him or her. Above all, don’t fall into the trap of giving what you would like to have or what you would like another to receive.

Beyond that, what pitfalls might you unwittingly encounter when choosing a gift? Which gifts are right for which people? What are the hidden meanings lurking behind the traditional offerings? What follows is a look at some of the tried and not-so-true categories . . . and what the experts have to say about them:

Do You Really Want to Get Her That Bustier With Tassels?--Women’s lingerie and men’s underwear may be the trickiest gifts, even for those in long-term relationships.

Jonathan Kramer, La Jolla-based co-author of “Why Men Don’t Get Enough Sex and Women Don’t Get Enough Love,” points out that “if a man wants to turn a woman on and have a better sex life, then what he ought to be doing is turning her on emotionally and letting her know she feels loved. But men don’t think that way and tend to go for physical turn-ons such as lingerie, so there may be a breakdown.”

Many women, of course, adore lingerie, Kramer allows. But a man will almost always appreciate a gift of sexy underwear. “If a woman gives a man underwear, the man will definitely receive it as a sexual message: ‘We’re going to have a good time sexually.’ That’s probably what a lot of men want to receive. But the woman should know that the man is going to assume that she’s interested in ending up in bed later on.”

Roses Are Red, Violets Are Cheaper--You can say it with flowers, but be careful--you might send the wrong message. Red roses express love, but give carnations or mums and you may register on the cheapskate end of the floral scale.

“I think flowers make more of a statement when you do it on an ordinary day,” says Joy Davidson, a Los Angeles marriage and family therapist. “Granted, it’s nice to get flowers, but it’s easy, you can tell your secretary to do it. But it could be different if it was a special kind of flower that held meaning for (the recipient). Or if a dozen exotic orchids were specially flown in.”

Adds Robert H. Phillips, the Long Island, N.Y., co-author of “Love Tactics: How to Win the One You Want”: “Flowers are very sweet, basically an innocent, traditional gift. The stereotype is of the guy who gives the gal flowers, and she makes him a well-prepared meal, which works fine unless she’s allergic to flowers and he’s obese and on a medical program for weight loss.”

With This Ring, I Thee, Uh . . . Date--”Jewelry implies seriousness,” Phillips says. “Within a marital relationship, it might be perfectly fine. It certainly makes candy and flowers pale by comparison. In a non-marital relationship, jewelry speaks the language of commitment. Rarely do you have people exchanging jewelry unless they feel the relationship is heading down a serious path.”

Joy Davidson agrees: “When the relationship has a permanence to it, the gifts reflect it. In the beginning of a relationship, you might give someone chocolate or flowers, which are perishable.”

Eau de Swill? You Shouldn’t Have!--Perfume is a predictable--and often pricey--gift. And, Phillips says, it’s also a safe gift, but not too safe: “Perfume probably falls into the same sweet-nice-innocent-gift category as candy and flowers. But it may be one slight step above it in terms of expressing intimacy.”

And because perfume and after-shave often last a long time, timing is critical.

“They’re nice gifts if you don’t give perfume or after-shave all the time,” says Davidson, who is a consultant for Playboy Videos. “And it’s not nice if you don’t know what he or she wears, or if the person has six bottles of the stuff in the bathroom. It’s OK if you have reason to believe that, at this moment in time, perfume or after-shave is going to have meaning to the person.”

Candy Is Dandy, but I’m on Nutri System--Giving candy may seem innocent enough, but a gift of sweets may be loaded with more than sugar.

“Some women are offended if you give them candy,” Kingma says, because they feel it’s an expression that their man sees them as having “a housebound-chocolate-covered-cherry type of life.”

In Davidson’s view, many people have a love-hate relationship with candy, especially women.

“Women love to get candy but they hate to get candy. If a woman struggles with her weight or eats a very healthy diet, she may think this is a way of him discounting her feelings. And if he knows she’s struggling with her weight, she may also feel he’s trying to sabotage her efforts,” she says.

Who might candy be well-suited for? Suggests McCracken: “It’s good for people who are in the middle of a longstanding relationship. Chocolates contain a hint of sensuality.”

A Loaf of Bread, a Jug of Wine, a Stretch Limo and Thou--If there is one gift that appears safe and sure to satisfy men and women at any stage of a relationship, it is a night on the town.

In fact, it may work transformational wonders on women who work in the home, advises Ellen Kreidman, the El Toro-based author of “Light Her Fire: How to Ignite Passion and Excitement in the Woman You Love” and “Light His Fire: How to Keep Your Man Passionately and Hopelessly in Love with You.”

“Every woman looks at her home as a place of work--the wash needs to be done, the kids need to be taken care of,” Kreidman says. “When you take a woman out of her home, she’s a different woman.”

But because restaurants and hotels are typically full of lovebirds the evening of Feb. 14, how do you make your night on the town different?

“What would be really nice is for the person who’s making the date to either take the bull by the horns and make all the arrangements--or say, ‘I’m going to take you out on the town. You call all the shots,’ ” Phillips recommends.

Promise Him Anything, but Give Him NBA Playoff Tickets--How should women buy for men in a Valentine’s universe dominated by frilly, lacy, smelly stuff? Even women who love to shop may see buying for the men in their lives as a treacherous task. On Valentine’s Day, the risk factor is magnified a hundred times.

“I think we tend to think that gifts are given by and wanted by women, but men are actually very touched and moved by gifts when women have the sensitivity to discover what is the truly meaningful gift for a man,” says Kingma, whose most recent book is “True Love: How to Make Your Relationship Sweeter, Deeper and More Passionate.”

“In fact, I think that men are often far more touched by a really perceptive gift, because in our culture men aren’t permitted to bring out their desire for gifts the way women are.”

Jonathan Kramer suggests that in addition to a gift that reflects a man’s desires, a card expressing appreciation of his success might be deeply appreciated. “In terms of the words on a card, a lot of men want to know that the woman is proud of him, that she sees him as being successful in some way,” he observes. “‘I love your strong arms may not mean as much to him as, ‘I’m really proud of the success you’ve achieved in the last year.’ ”

What if the recession has left you broke this year? You’re in luck, because, according to the love doctors above, Valentine’s Day is the holiday when the old, it’s-the-thought-that-counts cliche rings especially true. Indeed, they say, if the thought’s not there, you may as well forget the gift.

“It isn’t really the gift,” Kreidman explains, “it’s the thought behind it. And it doesn’t have to be extravagant. A husband could go to the supermarket and buy a few of his wife’s favorite magazines, wrap them in a big bow and say to her, ‘I just want you to spend tomorrow in bed, reading these and relaxing.’ That could mean so much to her and it costs so little.

“People really want to have their love proved in some tangible way, but love really has to be verbalized every day in a small way.”

Perhaps with “I Wuv You” spelled out in Beer Nuts.