The Elusive Lingerie Dude

Last year, Bob Dylan turned up in a Victoria’s Secret ad, and I’ve been troubled about it ever since. On a possibly related note, a couple of friends recently mentioned their discomfort with “the dudes who seem to be permanently wandering” the larger lingerie departments, who don’t seem to be shopping or accompanying anyone in particular. One was convinced that some stores even put out chairs for them, “to keep them at least from roaming so much.” She’d seen one of these happy wanderers the last time she’d shopped Marshall Field’s downtown. The other said she’d spotted a few at the downtown Target. None of this really rang a bell with me; mostly my visits to Target are surgical strikes, and my occasional forays to Marshall Field’s lingerie section had been pervert-free. Nevertheless, I scratched out a shopping list and decided to investigate.

Marshall Field’s, downtown Minneapolis: I made my way past the children’s clothing, through the party dresses and maternity wear (cruel juxtaposition), past the active wear and into the intimates corner, and sure enough, a middle-aged man with his head tucked was walking quickly to the elevators, shoving a receipt into a crumpled Target bag. I looked for a spot from which to observe, settling near the Hanes thigh-highs. It didn’t take long before I was approached by a sales associate. To establish my plausibility as a customer, I asked her if she thought it was okay to wear hose with sling-back shoes. As we looked for an appropriate pair of sandal-toe hose, I confessed that I was also writing an article, and asked if she ever saw men wandering around the department for no reason. She screwed up her face as if I’d just asked her to smell bad milk.

“Huh-uh,” she said. She stopped to think. “Huh-uh,” she said again. “Except, like, once in a blue, blue moon. Men usually come in who are with someone … ” She trailed off as an Elton John-ish type guy dressed all in black sashayed by and said hello.

“He works here, huh?” I said.

“He works here,” she said.

“What about the guy with the receipt who left a few minutes ago?” I asked.

“He was returning a robe,” she said. I bought a pair of Donna Karan hose that can apparently be worn with sling-backs, and made my way to the escalator.

Field note: Research expensive. Apply for grants.

Victoria’s Secret, Mall of America: A friend agreed to be my research assistant. On a Friday night, we plunked ourselves down on a bench in front of Victoria’s Secret, next to a pale teenager in a black hooded sweatshirt, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets. Men came and went from the store, but most of them were pushing baby strollers (with real babies in them), and each was with a woman. Some couples happily laced hands as they left with those striped bags dangling at their sides. For a good twenty minutes we kept an eye on a man who was pacing in front of the store, looking furtively inside.

“What if the guys who sit on these benches really are just sitting and relaxing?” I whispered to my assistant. “What if they just happened to be sitting here?”

“I asked my husband,” she said, “and he said that any normal guy would go out of his way not to sit in front of Victoria’s Secret, so people wouldn’t think he was a perv.” The teenage boy got up and left. Eventually, the loitering man’s female counterpart emerged from the store, swinging her shopping bags.

Nordstrom, Mall of America: Aha! Spotted. Homo erectus reclined in customer seating, staring at granny panties and gigantic support bras. Playing with cell phone and jiggling leg nervously. Glances at me and my friend. Scratches head and makes phone call as if to appear busy. After call, screws index finger around in ear.

Wife emerges from behind Wacoal display.

Victoria’s Secret, Roseville: I had made the mistake at the Mall of America of identifying myself as a reporter when I’d asked a sales clerk if she ever noticed unwanted male browsers. She told me that she would have to ask her manager before she could answer my question. Her manager directed me to the Victoria’s Secret media hotline.

At Roseville, I talked to the customers instead, and asked two young women who were rifling through a drawer of red-lace demi-cups if they’d ever been bothered by staring strangers. They both said no. “I mean, most of the guys who come in here are with someone and they’re just totally clueless,” said one. “Look at him.” She pointed to a man in his twenties, standing in front of the cash register with the vacant look of someone standing in line at a methadone clinic. From his fingers dangled a delicate beige thong. Both girls burst out laughing. “They have no idea what to do with themselves, so they try not to look at anything.”

It was true; outside of the fitting rooms stood three men, all of whom seemed to be in their early twenties. They all looked supremely bored, even willfully bored, masters in the art of the middle-distance gaze.
I asked one young man holding a woman’s coat and an orange handbag how he liked being in a lingerie store. “I wish they had a place for us guys to sit down,” he said, before his girlfriend emerged and he dutifully helped her pick through a bin of pink polka-dot 32C bras.

My search for the urban lingerie pervert seemed to be proving fruitless. Though, in addition to my earlier Marshall Field’s purchases, I’d now picked up a white T-shirt, a raincoat at thirty percent off, and a pair of espadrilles. Weary and thirsty, I headed toward the food court.

Where were the greasy, salt-and-pepper-haired men? The ones with beat-up tennis shoes, jeans hanging low enough to reveal their cracks, and nylon jackets with “Bear Essentials” embroidered on the back, along with a spirited tableau of Winnie-the-Pooh and friends? Where was the mulleted guy with the windbreaker that said “DAVE College,” shuffling around and fondling merchandise? The pasty bachelor in the brown blazer, who looks just a little bit too long after making eye contact and darts nervously to another display?

I finally found them. At the Apple Store.—Shannon Olson


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.