Our Fair Lady Goes Shopping

How do T/Vs shop? Not the way I did. I went purposely disguised as me: with dabs of testosterone behind each ear, like a walking male gonad. T/Vs either will shop in full drag (if they look gynecomorphous enough--which is to say, seldom, seldom) or will let wife/ girlfriend front for them. Or even their mother.

John/Joan, at the age of 12, bought his/her first bra by counterfeiting notes from Mom: Please give Johnny a 40 DD Maidenform. I am sick and can't get out. Forty double D? Poor young John-- he could've sublet space in it to another T/V or used it for a change apron. So back to the bra boutique: Please give Johnny a 38 D Maidenform. I am sick and can't get out. "This went on through five bras, plus all my paper-route money," John/Joan told me. "The salesgirl must've thought Mom had some kind of terrible wasting disease. They got smaller and smaller."

Most T/V men--those who live in Akron or Ogallala or any of eight Springfields--purchase through mail order. After all, a Yokeltown negligee emporium might well be owned by someone on the bowling team. T/V people have to be as clever, as sneaky as angel-dust pushers. Not only do they cross-dress, they cross-address, too; phony name, phony P.O. box. "Several mail-order houses ship on consignment," says John/Joan. "I'll send away for dozens of items, using 'sister's' name, and have a real home fashion show. Then I U.P.S. back what I don't want."

These frill seekers represent a considerable pink-market underground commerce. Ari guesses that more than half of Lane Bryant's oversize femmewear trade is done with T/V men. I can believe it. I mean, what kind of name is Lane, anyway?

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Want to know the prime biological difference between men and women? Wrong again, Dr. Raunch. It's foot size. Just try hustling ten-and-a-half EEE Tinker Bell pumps. Then try stepping out in them. I've heard that some T/V men amputate their little toes to improve fit. Well, as the old Chinese joke goes, "No need for amputate--it fall off next week anyhow." If you can walk even that long in lady feet.

I was shown a lot of Aunt Jemima-style orthopedic coal scows and no respect. Lord Byron brand, I think they were, with a cutout in the top for your best bunion to peek through. After 11 no-gos, Foot Saver on 34th Street saved my pro-tem womanhood--if not my tender self-esteem.

"D' you have open-strap shoes in ten and a half triple E?"

"What style does your ladyfriend desire? Then I can tell you which floor to look on."

"It's not for her. It's for me."

"Downstairs."

"Which section?"

"Downstairs. Down. Go down. Down."

"Ah-----"

"Down. Down. Down."

Humpf. Guess he didn't want Deirdre to queer his main-floor walk-in trade.

My Playboy editor didn't want me giving advice ("Our readers don't do that sort of thing," he said), but I insisted. There are always a few guys who want to get into their girlfriends' pants literally, I said, and where else can they get this kind of information?

So here: One, remember to wash your feet--women don't wear white sweat socks while shoe-sorting the way you do. Two, take along some Peds. I didn't. It's hard enough lock-picking your foot into broadwear without sweat friction to boot--and a shoehorn won't work on open-back ballroom slippers. Three, look forward to exquisite mortification.

The Down, Down, Down floor manager gave me one Ped as though it were a sloppy-third Trojan. After that, severe moral glaucoma afflicted the entire staff. Deirdre was less visible (and less welcome) than nerve gas. My shame was succulent: One lady customer blindfolded her four-year-old son's eyes; my girlfriend began to sob and laugh like a shell-shocked Boche at Passchendaele. I bought this rather sexy black-strap pair--straps were the only hope for my iguana-shaped feet--with a three-inch lift. Finally, expect lower back pain within 24 hours. The human foot wasn't meant to walk downhill on flat surfaces--otherwise, God would've made earth at a 45-degree angle. And He'd have rested His arches on the seventh' day.

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God, God, God. Oh-oh-oh. The piercing, ripe embarrassment of it all. After three hours of bra shopping, I broke out in this runny nervous rash around my left eye. T/Vism is grim enough, but suppurating T/Vism is--gag. Yet, degradation and shame and pus aside, I've had more trouble buying high-rise pants for my low-rise crotch. No one blew me away with Mace; no one screamed. It was a waste of time memorizing my lawyer's phone number.

I tried Saks, Bloomingdale's and both Lord and Taylor. I arrived around ten A.M. before the floor traffic had built up. I thought extravagant: I avoided feeling up those slightly defective (only one cup) bras on the Reduced table. A pervert is a pervert, but a cheap pervert is déclassé. Miss Rakin at Saks was austere, yet helpful; I recommend her. I had my chest set on a $45 Christian Dior honey bun in eggplant shade. Unfortunately, my garden was too large for eggplants.

"Uh, I like this off-purple thing. I'm looking for a forty B."

"I'm afraid we only have forty B in minimizer bras. Your wife will find they give very good support."

"It's for me. Not my wife."

"Well, they'll give you very good support. Here."

"Uh. Can I try it on?"

"Sure."

"Really? Yes? Which way is the dressing room?"

"Not in the dressing room. I can't let you in there. Right here. Take your jacket off right here. You can hide behind that potted fern if you want. It only has two fronds, but. . . ."

A mannequin is outraged; she makes O with her plastic mouth. Damn Vassar women, you meet them everywhere. Imagine standing buttondown-shirted, tied and bra'd in front of six women in Saks's lingerie department. I've had dreams like this before, where I have to speak at the P.T.A. lunch and suddenly I'm pantsless, with a tonking cowbell on my clapper. Minimizer bra? I wish it'd minimize me out of here. The fit is perfect, but now it won't come off. My fingers are doing a Polish civil-defense drill. Old Johnny Quick Flick, who popped Barbara Gerstadt's 24 A open with one hand in the sixth grade, can't even take advantage of himself now. Snopp! My right cup goes off, a Roman catapult sling. But--guess what, Elfreda?--no one is in the slightest bit interested.

"We get one or two T/Vs a month," Miss Rakin told me. "They're very well behaved. Though in another store where I worked, they would sometimes come in dressed as women and demand to use the dressing room. And when we'd say no, they would get very huffy and indignant."

But when it came to dresses, there was no hassle whatever. Deirdre liberated the dressing room at all three department stores. As long as no flesh is flashed, the salespeople don't care. They don't get a commission on prudishness. At Saks, I bought this charming mauve-gray knitted suit by Marc D'Alcy for S150. The typical interchange went thus and so.

"D' you think this will fit me?"

"Ha, that bag would fit anyone."

"Oh? [Voice break] Would it be-- heh--all right if I tried it on?"

"Certainly. I'll go back and find an empty room for you."

"You mean you don't mind?"

"Oh, no. I think it's marvelous. I come from a very liberal family. Sexual distinctions are old-fashioned and silly. Why should anyone mind?"

"Why? Oh, why? Yes. Why?"

Want to know what the ladies' dressing room at Saks is like? Like the men's dressing room at Barney's, Dumbo. What should it have, a bidet? For once, at least I didn't need to get my legs shortened.

•

Time for the final touch--lipstick. Did you know they never wipe off or shave down the tester sticks in a department store? Mouth after mouth; great way to pass your lip chancre around New York. Although the lady in Bloomie's cosmetic department giggled and blew a cake crumb at me, no one said boo when I spread Wild Cinnamon and Barbizon Bronze and Botticelli Blush on my mouth. Deirdre finally chose, yes, Au Chocolat. Which made us look like we'd been eating a boiled Ring Ding.

In conclusion, I must say I was astonished at the lack of sales resistance. Ralph, my bail bondsman, is still waiting for a call. In New York, anyhow, almost no one will be shocked or offended when some guy asks for the bridal department. So, if you can stand much inner mortification, go buy yourself a nice trousseau. Me, I'm glad this article is over.