This week, Amazon.com declared Alexandria, Va. the most romantic city in the United States. What is romance? According to Amazon, it's derived from Amazon sales figures for Barry White CDs, romance novels, romantic comedy DVDs, and "sexual wellness" products. Sex ramps qualify. When Alexandria is ranked number one in something, and Miami is ranked number two, you know a freaky confluence of buying habits is at work here.

Andrew Beaujon, Washington City Paper Managing Editor and Alexandria resident, agreed to explain some of the stranger elements of Alexandria's romantic subculture.

Why do Alexandria residents love Barry White so much?

Andrew Beaujon: Alexandrians don't have a lot of big men to claim as their own. The confluence of walkable communities and extreme type-A personalities mean that most men here are slight, thin, and think it's acceptable to walk around in polar fleece year-round. Barry White's voice exudes a girth and confidence that's simply not available to most people here—you just know he never had a cell phone clipped to his belt or talked about the Democrats' midterm chances in bars.

How many Barry White CDs do you own?

AB: I just have the greatest hits.

Since the romance calculation includes the number of "sexual wellness products" Alexandria residents have bought through Amazon, "romance" in this context actually means that a higher proportion of your neighbors shop for their sexual fetish accessories online. What's with that?

I think it's a simple matter of Amazon Prime being the kind of deal that appeals to overscheduled and over-REI'd residents of this small city. I am a member of Amazon Prime but have never bought anything that interesting from it. Last purchase was a charger for my wife's Nikon D-60 battery.

Alexandria came in first in Amazon's romantic calculations. Arlington came in seventh. Alexandria: more or less romantic than Arlington?

You need only look at the difference between our nights out. The classic Arlington date night is beers at the Quarterdeck, followed by a slice at Marinos and a three-way at the Highlander. No one from Alexandria has ever had a three-way.

A new sex shop has opened up on King Street in Old Town Alexandria, and ABC News is simply shocked!

"With its cobblestone streets and row houses, Old Town Alexandria, Va., is known for quaint colonial charm," write reporters David Wright and Jenna Mucha, before immediately shattering their idyllic tableau: "The newest boutique on King Street, then, tends to stop people in their tracks. La Tache sells unique adult novelty items"—such as lingerie, lotions, and sex toys, oh my.

Lotion and cobblestone? It can never be!

If this is such a Big Fucking Deal, why is it that Wright and Mucha the only ones who seem to care about this clashing-of-worlds? The two Old Town residents ABC News could find to interview—anonymously!—about this frightening new retail trend appeared to not give a shit. At all:

But the really interesting part is that in Old Town, the neighbors don't really seem to mind.

"It's certainly different. As long as it doesn't attract undesirable people," said one resident.

Another who lives nearby said she doesn't mind, "as Queen Victoria said, as long as it doesn't startle the horses."

Wait a second—that's the interesting part? That nobody cares? And that the suggestion that anybody did care was purely an invention of ABC News? More interesting, I think, is that between two news reporters, nobody could get "a resident" to say a quote as inflammatory as "It's certainly different" on the fucking record.

Photo by Afghan LORD.