Arts
Why Would You Take Advice From Mike Tyson's Ex-Girlfriend?
The new book by hip-hop vixen Karine Steffans.
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If you’re unfamiliar with gossip of the rap underworld and don’t read tabloid coverage of Bill Maher, you probably don’t even know who Karrine Steffans is, even though she’s sold three popular books and appeared on Oprah, Bill O’Reilly, and Geraldo. Her first two best-selling publications were juicy hip-hop tell-alls, but with her latest book, The Vixen Manual: How To Find, Seduce & Keep the Man You Want, she has gone from memoirist to relationship guru. The Vixen Manual, which came out in July, has already hit the New York Times best-seller list, and publishing insiders expect it to sell 500,000 copies.
The move to love-advice oracle was a gamble for Steffans. She became popular for dishing the details of her own fleeting romances with celebrities such as hip-hop stars Usher and Ja Rule, rap pioneer Kool G Rap, and boxer Mike Tyson, in addition to Maher. Of Tyson, she writes, “[he] loves the same way he fights: hard and rough. … [A]nd as he proved against Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson is a biter.” That relationship ended with her “covered in bruises and bite marks and vow[ing] to never have sex with him again." Steffans’ longer-term relationships have been major public train wrecks. After she broke up with Maher in 2007, Steffans tried to kill herself. And while she’s currently married to actor Darius McCrary (best known as Eddie Winslow from Family Matters), the couple had a huge, allegedly violent fight last year, the details of which Steffans leaked directly to blogger Perez Hilton.
Her love life is pretty much a disaster. So why are scads of readers paying to get advice on romance from this woman? Some of Steffans’ fans in the hip-hop community want her advice because they see her as a transgressive feminist role model. She violates the hip-hop code of silence enforced by the largely male rap community, explained Hot 97 DJ Minya Oh to the New York Daily News when Steffans' first book was released: “You do your dirt, everyone knows you do your dirt, but no one talks about it.” Jawn Murray, a columnist for AOL's Black Voices, agreed: “We’ve had to listen to rappers brag about their conquests for ages in their music. Karrine is the first female to flip the script and brag about her conquests with actual names.”
In her latest book, Steffans turns herself into the raunchy empowerment guru, serving up her own version of The Vagina Monologues. She encourages her readers to get intimate with their nethers via the age-old experiment of using a makeup mirror to examine themselves “down there.” Then, she asks women to identify whether they have a typical vagina or a “porn pussy”—one that’s stretched from overuse. The illustrations that accompany the explanation include graphic close-ups of each sort of genitalia. She’s not in it to judge, only to categorize. “I think that women are drawn to me because I say things they wouldn’t say, but wish they could. It is refreshing for them to live vicariously through me,” Steffans explains.
But Steffans also promotes a kind of 1950s traditionalism as part of her recipe for nurturing successful relationships. “A little Stepford goes a long way,” Steffans said when I once asked her about that. She advocates that women keep their mouths shut when their man is cranky, always have dinner on the table, and dress and groom like a princesses. “When your man walks through the door, there's a softer, more homebound independence you can show,” she says. “It means you know how to cook and clean, and you don't need someone like his mother (or your mother) to show you how to do so. You can do laundry without [making] his whites pink. He can relax in knowing his woman has mastered her domestic terrain. Just don't look up and find yourself lonely because you were trying to be too world-bound and dominant at home.”
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Comments
@ June11; homemaker or whore?
By: P Starling | Sun, 08/23/2009 - 13:40
Actually, it is precisely what Jo Piazza said: that homemakers and whores both "spend their lives in service to men." It's a vicious statement and one to which homemakers can rightly take offense. The soft Stepford policies that Steffans endorses are ones that promote service to the breadwinner, and so Piazza is right that Steffans' underlying, um, service-oriented ethos is consistent in both her incarnations. But that is no legitimate representation of homemakers in general, who tend to spend their lives in service of the PTA (at least the ones I know) more than in service to any man.
When Piazza identifies the underlying "empowerment" message as just another encouragement for women to cater to men in return for financial stability, she's right. But whether or not Steffans strikes her as a "traditional mom," Piazzo is entirely wrong to suggest that traditional moms practice Steffans' particular brand of subservience-for-money.
To Kelto
By: june11 | Sat, 08/22/2009 - 21:36
Re Kelto: Relax. That is not, in any way, what Jo Piazza is saying. Only a shallow reading would derive whore = housewife from that. Piazza is trying to draw at least a thin road from sex with superstars to homemaking, and in both cases a woman's actions tend to follow the wants and needs of men. Your interpretation is incredibly simplistic.
Gross ...
By: Mizz.Givens | Sat, 08/22/2009 - 20:29
I think this woman is misguided and, yes, disgusting. She does not represent Black women at all. She may represent whores of any color, but she does not speak for me, or any other Black women I know. I hear no self-respect, no modeling of appropriate behavior, no regret for the actions that gave her the nickname "Superhead." She should be ashamed of herself.
To Jo Piazza
By: keito | Sat, 08/22/2009 - 00:01
"Both the whore and the homemaker spend their lives in the service of men."
Wow, you really know how to hurt. I read that sentence and felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. I can't believe you compared me to someone who sells sex for money because I'm home taking care of our baby rather than going back to work.
Being a stay-at-home mom does not equate to being a whore. How dare you belittle me and my choices? Your insulting comparison only makes things worse for women. You owe a very large number of people an apology.
TIME FOR A BOOK BURNING!
By: teaspoon | Fri, 08/21/2009 - 17:18
"OH MY GOD! A woman that has had more than ONE sexual partner WROTE A BOOK about relationships! Round up the family values crowd and boycott now! She is a single mother, and obviously black, and this is not OK! Since Sex & the City and Cosmopolitan caused all young, impressionable white girls to become promiscuous whores, this ONE SINGLE BOOK will replace all black female role models and cause EVEN MORE black girls to become single mothers!!"
Seriously? If there wasn't a niche for a book like this, it never would have been published. Oh, and she wasn't the first woman to promote serving your man's every physical need at his beck and call. Ever read "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands"? Oh, but that author was white. Maybe that's what this article is all about.
Karrine
By: lillyblu | Fri, 08/21/2009 - 15:55
women that will buy this book are the same breed of women hooked on Steve Harvey.women raised in a single parent households/without a father..if you were born in the seventies, you are from a broken home and don't know any better.
Really?!
By: sugadoll84 | Fri, 08/21/2009 - 14:14
I'm sorry but the article title has it partly right. Who in the world would take advice from this woman? Why does she keep getting book deals? And lastly, why would someone like me (young, single mother, African-American female working) want to take advice from a woman, not, a girl who has the nickname "Superhead"? Really...Are you serious? She is the last person to be giving advice to the general public. To me, personally, I find her to be the equivalent of trash, lowest rung on the ladder. Thank goodness I don't support her by buying her books. I feel sorry for the publishers who believe she should keep writing.
Another worthy voice of feminism!
By: Murasaki | Fri, 08/21/2009 - 12:48
It's important that we all remember *twitch* that everything another woman does is a unique choice *twitch* to be celebrated, because every woman is the expert on her own life and needs *twitch*, and that an instructive, informative book to other women on reaching success as she defines it is a legitimate contribution *twitch* to the advancement *twitchtwitch* of women.
Oh, screw it. *starts chainsaw*
A mistake...and a different perspective
By: teezebaby | Fri, 08/21/2009 - 09:57
One correction: As far as I'm aware, she has never been married to Darius McCrary. He admitted as much in recent interviews. That was a publicity stunt, all made up to promote sales of her book and drive traffic to her website. Her current claims of having two kids and being married to someone she's been with "for years" (her words) are bogus (I believe) What man in his right mind would be with this chick for years while she's sleeping with everyone under the sun? And where did she come up with another kid? Unless she adopted one, which is another area of concern if the adoption agencies are now that desperate.
Also, before writing, did you check out 'Kiss and Tail: The Hollywood Jump-Off', a documentary just released this summer with interviews from the many men and women Karrine mentions and exploits in her books? They give you some of the real background to this "woman" (I use the term loosely).
Link to trailer for film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EPu6YkKjxE
http://www.amazon.com/Kiss-Tail-Hollywood-Jump-Off/dp/B0026IQTQ8