Straight man’s hilarious story working at Victoria’s Secret

Christopher Pilny is no ordinary guy.

The humourist and author from Nashville, Tenn. recently wrote a personal account of his experience being a straight man working at Victoria's Secret that is painfully honest and gushing with cringe-worthy revelations.

"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," Pilny writes for Salon of his reasons for applying for the job.

He didn't do it for money. And not even to pick up women, so he says, but rather to "understand" them. After being dumped by a girlfriend and starting to grow "man boobs" he couldn't find a new girlfriend to save his life.

Pilny's essay is chock-full of self-deprecating humour, yet never without a healthy degree of ego.

He describes how he applied for a Victoria's Secret sales job and persisted with the hiring manager for several weeks until she eventually called his current boss for a reference.

"I was working at my university’s student life center when I heard my boss yell from behind me. 'WHY DO YOU WANT TO SELL WOMEN’S UNDERWEAR?' he said, glaring."

Pilny didn't have the balls to tell his boss the truth, of course, and so he pinned his interest on a poor economy, implying he couldn't find other work.

Lucky for him, he got the job -- and during his first week guessed what the customers reaction to him would be.

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"I assumed they would think I was one of three things: a gay man, a pervert or a perverted gay man," he writes.

Yet he wasn't prepared for the stunningly forward and private details about the customers' lives. One woman boasted of her boob job like a mother proud of her newborn baby.

"Another woman told me she couldn’t wear any of our panties because they all, one way or another, got stuck in her butt. That was her exact phrasing: stuck in her butt," Pilny writes.

And perhaps most jarring, an overheard conversation between two female co-workers in which one of them outlines in great detail the vein on her date's penis.

"I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. As a man, you naively assume that every interaction you have with a woman is going to remain in a vacuum...But women, when left alone, get down to the nitty-gritty."

In the end, Pilny suggests that his experience working for the lingerie giant was well worth it.

"Working at Victoria’s Secret didn’t necessarily make me better with women, it simply brought my image of them into a more realistic and startling focus."

It even inspired him to write an ex-girlfriend confessing his love. Too bad for Pilny though, cause she never responded and later got engaged.

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But perhaps most importantly, the job gave him his mojo back.

"I was back to my old self in two months, and dating again in three. The boobs disappeared, too — thank God. But I guess if they ever do make a comeback, I at least know how to fit them for the perfect pushup," he jokes.

Pilny is far from the first straight man to work at a Victoria's Secret retail store, though some work exclusively in the back.

In a blog called Panty Land Man, one guy explains how after his job application at a local restaurant fell though, he desperately applied at Victoria's Secret hoping for any job to pay off his brand new car purchase.

"I do help customers though, and their reactions to seeing a guy working there are quite amusing to say the least. It's even better when they see that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to different bra and panty styles," Brandon writes on his blog.

Brandon also explains how a lot of customers won't give a male employee the time of day. "I don't really get why a guy can't be informed about panties and such, but apparently a lot of people feel this way."

What are your thoughts about straight guys working for Victoria's Secret? Can it be done without a sense of awkwardness?