How to quote my param in a single step?

[ChaoZ Inferno]

Hi,

I am having a slight problem whereby I need to quote the individual params of my cgi 
string.

I need to configure 2 steps in order to retrieve the params of my cgi-string and then 
quote it in ' '

my $sex  = $q->param("sex_question");
$sex  = qq('$sex');

print "$sex";

Result : 'male' or 'female'

Is there a simpler method to quote and retrieve the params in a single step?

I tried :-

my $sex = qq('$q->param("sex_question"));

and it's giving me some errors.

Kindly advice pls.

Thanks!