If like me, you spent 87% of your non-work waking life watching porn you’ll probably have come to the same conclusion I have: women look cracking in lingerie. Don’t get me wrong, a totally naked lass is a thing of beauty indeed, (unless it's like, Ann Widdecombe or Jade Goody obviously) but a girl in nice underwear? Mmm MMM. And, unlike some of the things you may bring to the bedroom- butt plugs, ball-gags, your mate Dave – the vast majority of girls LOVE proper underwear. Note that I said “proper”. Spilt crotch panties, G-strings made of sweets and peek-a-boo bra’s certainly have their place, but their place is not the same as a classy matching bra and panties.

So you’ve decided to get your lass some lingerie (Girls! Prepare for some insight into the male mind!) but things are not that simple. Subtly find out her size. Do NOT guess.

Men sizing women’s clothes by guesswork is a road fraught with peril. Peril and perforated eardrums and no sex for protracted periods of time. Get the size too big and she thinks you think she looks fat. Get the size too small and she thinks she IS fat.

Men’s clothes come in Small, Medium or Large. Plus some collar, waist nonsense but basically S,M,L perhaps with an extra X.

Women’s clothes are far more mysterious; Size 8, Size 12, Size 16- what do these things mean? Small? XXXL? What? There was some sort of debate about Size 0 models going on a while back. What does that mean? Are these girls with no thickness? What the hell do they wear? Microfibres? Are they so skinny all they can model is hats? Do they fall down drains when they shower? If they turn sideways do they vanish? I could go on.

And these sizes are not consistent. Do not assume that a size 8 top means she has a size 8 bottom. No, no, no. Check in the pants themselves lest things go terribly wrong.

This is before you even consider the boob-element in all of this. Many, many months of patient teaching and the use of many, many diagrams, pictures and pornographic material have just about got me to the position where I get the whole bra-size thing. Ish:

The number- eg. 34. This number is the size of the lady’s body. The measurement around her chest but not factoring in the breasts themselves. The tape goes around the body just underneath the breasts themselves and then they add 4. Or 5. Don’t ask me why. So if, say the lass’ fun bags swell because of pregnancy, change of medication, a benevolent God or whatever this number does not change. However if the woman gains or looses weight this number can change.

The letter bit- eg. C. This letter is the size of the actual breasts. It ranges from AA to Russ Meyer stupid huge. To make things even more confusing whilst AA is the smallest size and smaller than an A generally a double size is bigger- a DD is bigger than a D. AA's are basically there for aesthetic lingerie reasons or to stop the lass’ nipples poking out through the front of her dress. Such boobs don’t need any external support. There’s something about training bras too; God knows how they work- for when you’ve got a girl with a concave chest? Anyway if the girl you’re seeing is wearing a training bra then you should take a long hard look at your relationship. Then slam your hand into a car door about sixteen times and turn yourself over to the police. But I digress.

And if you don’t know the size, well this could happen:

Some years ago my friend and I went shopping for our girlfriends for Valentines day. We were both about 18 and full of the joys of spring and the joys of actually having girls who let us put our hands on them repeatedly. So our thoughts were the thoughts of any young be-girlfriended man when buying a thoughtful gift.

‘Will this lead to sex?’

‘Will this lead to kinky sex?’

‘Will this lead to us doing some of those things that I’ve read about and don’t entirely understand but I really, really want to do?'

And because we were young and stupid but not that young and stupid:

‘Will this lead to me getting slapped and not getting any sex at all?’

This led us to La Senza, an upmarket underwear store. It being Valentines season the shop was rammed with red and black lacy doings alongside of its normal selection of underwear for women. It being during work time we two students were the only customers in the store so wandered from rack to rack occasionally picking things up, looking at them helplessly and them putting them down again.

‘Look at all these letters. What does it even mean?’ I despaired.

‘I don’t know. I think D is a thirty… something. I don’t know.’

‘Look and some of these even have, like, gel in them. What the hell is that all about?’ I said picking one up.

‘What are we going to do?’ my chum asked.

‘I don’t know.’ I replied. ‘Guess?’

‘We could phone and ask them?’

‘Where’s the surprise in that? Oh, by the way, you know we said that we weren’t going to do gifts and just buy dinner? Well, d’ja mind telling us your cup sizes? Brilliant, Holmes!’

‘We should get something else. Chocolates or something.’

‘No! We said we were going to get them lingerie and lingerie we shall get. We made a pact.’

‘No, we didn’t.’

‘Well we should have done. We will do this!’ I proclaimed waving the gel bra in his face for emphasis.

‘Excuse me, boys.’ We both turned, guiltily to look at a rather severe looking shop lady in her mid-thirties. ‘Can I help you at all?’ She looked at me and at the bra I was flourishing.

‘Uh.’ I looked at the bra and half threw it back on the rack.

‘Um.’ My mate was similarly tongue tied.

‘Well?’ She glared at us, clearly convinced that we were just here to giggle and fondle underwear.

‘See, uh, miss, um, ma’am. We, just, um,’ he floundered.

‘See we want, uh, things.’ I wasn’t doing much better.

‘Presents.’

‘Yeah, Valentine presents for our, uh,’

’Girlfriends.’

‘Yeah, girlfriends but we, uh, we don’t, ah.’

‘The… size.’

‘Yeah, the, of the. How big they need to. Yeah. That’s the thing.’

‘Don’t know the size.’ We I both trailed off and stood red faced and shuffling.

‘Oh right!’ the shop lady’s smile suddenly beamed at us like the sun from a black cloud. ‘Terri, come and help me with these lads.’ A rather attractive girl moved over to us.

‘Now which ones do you want?’ We I pointed out the outfits that we had picked out based on the tasteful-and-not-get-us-slapped-and-yet-still-sexy criteria.

‘And how big is your girlfriend?’

‘Well, we don’t…’

‘Is she bigger than me?’ Older shop lady gestured at her chest. I could feel the stirrings of panic. She wanted me to look at her boobs? What?

‘Smaller than you. A little.’ My mate was keeping his composure better than me.

‘Yup. Smaller. Yup.’ I stuttered.

‘Is she bigger than me?’ Now Terri was indicating to her cleavage. And a lovely cleavage it was too, which didn’t help at all.

‘Uh, very similar.’ I heard myself say as my brain was screaming to run away. As my eyes cast around for anywhere to look but this smiling girl’s chest I saw another attractive shop-girl bearing down on us. What’s wrong with you people? Don’t you have tills to sort? Bras to stack? Panties to line?

‘Hi Marla. These boys want to buy bra sets for their girlfriends but they’re not sure of the right sizes.’

‘Oh well I’m a bit smaller than Terri. What do you think?’

It was horrible, horrible. It may sound wonderful in the abstract but at 18 having cheery helpful ladies invite you to study their chests was just embarrassing. Eventually my chum bought something, promptly phoned his girlfriend and returned to change the size. I settled on a “body” even though it was a lot less sexy than I wanted as I was told by the chirpy (and very pert) Marla that you didn’t have to be as accurate with the sizing for those.

Next year we both bought our partners flowers.

Next Time: Sex games and more porn myths!

-

For more Hapless Adventures check out Part 1 - Start As You Mean To Go On and Part 2 - Get Thee Behind Me.