Read at your own risk
Lately I'm on a mission to update my underwear. I'm about to be married, so I'd like a collection that's moderately more exciting than what I have at the moment. (Although marriage is the impetus, this hasn't much to do with my future husband; I'd just like to feel sexy.)
So I went to Victoria's Secret last weekend. This was a mistake.
While Victoria's Secret isn't my favorite, I do have to acknowledge the quality of their product; I got a pair of VS undies once as a Secret Santa present in college and they're comfortable and have held up well. And I thought, well, all the hip young twentysomething women shop there, don't they (except you, you still wear Hello Kitty on your ass), and exciting underwear is their stock in trade, let's give it a try.
I have always found underwear shopping to be a profoundly uncomfortable experience. It was uncomfortable with my mom providing moral support as a teen, it's uncomfortable alone at 25. And Victoria's Secret is one of the most intimidating places to shop for underwear ever. You wanna talk body image issues, there are scantily-clad, heavily-airbrushed women all over the walls, staring balefully at you from behind a mask of sexyface, as all models seem to, pointedly reminding you that you aren't this attractive and perhaps purchasing whatever product they're hawking would be a tiny step in the right direction. But to make it even worse, everything in VS is tacky and overdone and frightening. Especially with regard to honeymoon apparel. They offer swimsuits for a new bride with "Mrs." and "Just Married" Bedazzled over the boobs and butt. I admired a pretty satiny robe before discovering it had Bride written on the back in rhinestones that would make me sparkle like a gorram Cullen. I think I actually made a noise when I dropped that one. I feel ambushed with wall-to-wall sexuality, like everything in this store is designed to paint sexual availability onto me like spackle. Why is a new bride such a sexual object? Isn't she only supposed to be one to her partner? Why should her sparkling butt announce her status to everyone else on the beach? And why am I such a prude?
Also, it feels like no underwear, ever, is cotton. Are the underwear manufacturers of the world in league with the drug companies to raise yeast infections by 150%?
I finally find something I like, and there's a five-for-some-reasonable-amount-of-money sale, so I start hunting for acceptable colors. At this point I've retreated so far into myself that my head is practically halfway down my shirt. This seems to telegraph to the available salespeople that I need some sort of assistance, because I get about five in the span of twenty seconds ambushing me from different directions asking if I need anything. (Where were these people coming from, anyway? Had they emerged like earthbound spirits from the walls at my approach? Did they pop out of the drawers every time I opened one to search for the right color of polka dots?) My underwear shopping experience was rapidly getting worse with all the unwanted attention, but every time I was thus accosted I could only awkwardly stammer "I'm just looking" while clutching several pairs of underpants in my hand. Good job, me.
I think I'll buy online.