Salon.com > Victoria's Secret

How to fold a thong: A straight man working at Victoria’s Secret

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

"You are the first man I have ever seen working at Victoria's Secret," said a customer walking up to the cash register. I’d hear this a lot over the next year. For a while, I'd tell customers that I was, in fact, the first man to work at Victoria's Secret, adding that GQ had recently named me "The Ponce de Leon of Panties." But seeing as this was my first day on the job, I didn’t have that kind of confidence yet. That would come later.

As a college senior with plans to attend dental school, I never imagined my life would end up this way. I figured I'd graduate college, take the summer to prep for the Dental Admission Test, get into schools, then begin my trek toward normal, civilized life. That's what everyone else was doing in the biology department.

But I had no idea of the turmoil that lay in store. I ended up at Victoria's Secret the same way most men end up on daytime talk shows: I got dumped by my girlfriend; I couldn't get a new girlfriend to save my life; and, to top it all off, I began growing breasts. I now believe my boobs were the result of eating too much soy, which has a high amount of estrogen in it, and has been known to cause such reactions in prepubescent girls. But at the time I didn't realize this as I was simply too busy freaking-the-hell-out. It's one thing, as a man, to feel like you don't understand women; it is another to feel like you're becoming one.

Fast food walkout planned in Chicago

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 01:45:00 +0000

Demanding a hefty raise and a fair chance to form a union, workers in Chicago’s growing fast food and retail sectors plan to walk off the job Wednesday morning. The one-day walkout begins at 5:30 a.m. Central Time, and organizers expect 500 workers from a dozen chains to participate. The work stoppage follows similar strikes by New York City fast food workers and by Wal-Mart retail employees across the country, and marks the latest escalation in the struggle between an embattled labor movement and two industries that increasingly dominate and define the new economy.

“At the end of the day,” Macy’s employee Krystal Maxie-Collins told Salon, “it feels like I’ve done all of this to help everyone else, to help the store, help the managers, help the customers, but it doesn’t feel like anyone is looking out for me.” Maxie-Collins, a mother of four who works part-time for the state minimum wage of $8.25 plus a commission, said she had initially been hesitant about the strike because of the risk of retaliation. But “what we are fighting for, the reason for doing it, kind of overrode the fear of doing it.” “Usually the things that are worth it,” she added, “you have to sacrifice for.”

Is Victoria’s Secret targeting teens?

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Victoria’s Secret is coming under attack for its new “Bright Young Things” campaign advertising a Spring Break-themed line featuring undies emblazoned with slogans like “dare you,” “wild,” “feeling lucky” and “call me.” (Victoria’s Secret doing something tacky? I am shocked, you guys.) More than 2,000 people have signed a Change.org petition for the company to shut down the campaign and pull the collection from shelves. Diana Cherry, the mother of four who started the campaign, wrote in the petition that she was “appalled that Victoria's Secret is aiming its marketing reach younger and younger.” She argues:

Children are not sex objects; children are not things. Middle schoolers are not old enough to make responsible, safe decisions about sex. This marketing sends the message, ‘the younger, the better,’ which harms young girls’ self-esteem and pressures them into engaging in risky sexual behavior before they are ready to make informed, consenting decisions about sex and their bodies.

Black Friday descends into madness at Kansas Victoria’s Secret

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:19:00 +0000

A Kansas crowd appeared to be baying for blood awaiting the Black Friday deals at a Victoria's Secret store. NBC local footage shows the predominantly female shoppers pushing and screaming, while security guards hold them back and a store clerk begs for reason: