Video hoes. Perhaps the most notorious of monikers, the most objectified of women, the most coveted of positions for some teenage celebrity worshipers.
Karrine Steffans’ New York Times bestseller on her life as a “video vixen� is—unsurprisingly—a very quick read and a titillating tale of her brief relationships with various hip hop big hitters (JaRule, DMX, Ice T, Kool G Rap, Usher, Bobby Brown etc.) and famous athletes (Shaq). It falls short, however, of the cautionary tale that Steffans’ purports to want to have created.
Granted, Steffans is revealing about her abusive childhood, starting in St. Thomas with an absent father and a violent mother, followed by a devastating gang rape when she was still a young woman in Tampa. Much of this early section is so painful, and I’m afraid, will echo what many a reader has experienced in one way or another.
And the pain, as is so often the case, leads to numbness. Steffans spends much of the rest of the book describing how she learns to use sex to get the money she needs to support her lifestyle and, rarely, her son. She gets fairly graphic while describing how she got the nickname “superhead�—um, she gave lots of blow jobs—but stays obtuse when it comes to truly exploring the depth of her emotional experience of these sexual encounters.
My guess is this is because she was so damn numb. Unfortunately, she continues to be. What she claims is a book meant to deter young teenage girls away from the video vixen lifestyle instead seems to glorify it. The last chapters hint at how horrible she thinks that time in her life was in retrospect, but it is a band-aid attempt to turn a salacious tell-all book into an uplifting tale. It just doesn’t work, despite the fact that even Al Sharpton has thanked Steffans for her strength.
The only paragraph that struck me as truly reflective was the following:
I was also in love with love and all the stories I had heard and read about it. I needed it so bad that I settled for a love of my own creation and imagination too many times. In my heart, I have loved them all, and it is clear to me now that none of them had ever loved me.
Your thoughts?
Next week: "fun book August" ends off with the heavyweight champion of fun, I Love Female Orgasm by Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller
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I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for Karrine because I just don't believe her. It's terrible to say, but I honestly don't believe her stories of abuse. None of it rang true to me when I read the book. No matter what events in her life she was describing, there was always the WORST possible outcome, from her alleged gang rape to her relationships with men and her mother to her labor. I also agree that the book is not a cautionary tale at all. She is still doing everything she was doing before: sleeping with (often married) male celebrities so they'll take care of her. Her newest book is going even further and naming more names and detailing even more sexual exploits. This is not a woman that anyone should be looking up to and I can't even feel bad for her because I think she's a liar.
I'm going to agree with Babygirl on the point that this "cautionary" tale stuff is bullshit, especially considering Steffan's second book which only further details her exploits in from what I understand even more graphic detail.
Considering I'd seen early interviews with Steffans about her beliefs in being a video girl she'd always thought this was going to become a model or an actress from doing videos and then cold hard reality set in and now she's left to peddle her wares through tell all books. Mind you I don't feel sorry for all the guys she slept with either who now find their dirty laundry being aired but as far as she's concerned I think she realizes that she has to play the game and play the victim card in order to sell these stories of sex because we all know unless a woman has been abused she wouldn't normally have sex for pleasure or lots of multiple partners and she needs to get sympathy from somewhere lest she just be branded an opportunistic slut and dismissed.
This is only a cautionary tale is you come to th ebook already wired to read her life story from the point of view that this lifestyle isn't glorious. The sad part is that most young girls based on what society is feeding them will only read this as a "if you only do this you too can succeed in life, just watch out for these bumps" tale. I read the book a while ago and I think its a great case study for looking into what helps drive women to these types of self exploitation, but th eother people I know who read it just thought she was a slut. Its needs some primers to go along with it like bell hooks, Feminist Theory.
Oprah had her on- to talk about the objectification of women in the rap industry. Will she have her back on the show after the 2nd book shows that she is NOT a champion of exploited women?
Karrine is using the same 'tools' that she claimed were being exploited by so-called powerful men. She sat on Oprah's couch and acted like a victim. Is this the next step in battling you abusers: voluntarily use the tools that you said they were exploiting, but air everyone else's dirt?
BTW- anyone that messed with her AFTER the first book is an IDIOT!
I hope this isn't too off topic - it's more in relation to the book's cover than anything else.
Does anyone have a name for the type of expression she has on the cover? Pouty, parted lips and half closed eyes? I was trying to write a paper this weekend referencing that look in movies/advertising but the closest I could find was talking in much more general terms about how the asthetics of pornography were becoming more mainstream. I really want to focus on *that look,* though, 'cause it drives me up the wall (or maybe I'm just going crazy because I know someone, somewhere must have discussed it and I just can't find it!).
moriath: Check this link out, it might help you on the names of the expressions they have women make for advertising. I think it's what Marjorie Ferguson would call the "sexual gaze." I'm not an expert on this so anyone feel free to correct me.
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze11.html
Dude, she obviously wasn't cut out to be a professional writer. I don't think we can just assume that she's making up tales of abuse, however. I mean, non-profits that have done studies have found that more than half of sex-workers, for instance (like prostitutes and strippers), were abused as children. So there is some correlation between a sexually abusive childhood and the way women might deal with sex in adulthood. I go with the numbness theory.
moriath, I've always heard that look called "come hither" and that style of eye makeup and look called "bedroom eyes."
I don't know much about this woman because hip hop gossip (which is what she is mostly associated with, true?) isn't really an interest of mine. I'd be more interested in reading a book or study interviewing a large number of "video girls", people within the industry and black women about women's role in the music industry. There was a documentary on Vh1,of all places, based on that premise and it was extremely interesting. It better explored why women are attracted to the video industry, how they are treated for being involved with it, and how the "video vixen" image effects normal black women's self image and people's perceptions of black women.
It seems like this is only marketed as a cautionary tale because people think it SHOULD be...but why? It's not appealing to me, but many women would be perfectly content partying, dancing in music videos and sleeping around with famous men. UltraMagnus already elaborated a bit on what I'm trying to say. Obviously a woman who has a lot of sex is going to have to explain herself and her "ho" behavior.
Maybe its just a bad read because she's misread the most recent developments in cultural demands on 'vixens.' Tragic vixens with a a deeply romantic core are just so out of date--she should have gone with a straight gonzo no holds barred glamorification:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/chaudhry/2
I'm truly shocked at BabyGirl and UltraMagnus' lack of sympathy for/disbelief of Karinne Steffans' abuse!
I KNOW women like that personally - so reading Steffans account seemed VERY real to me!!!
I read the book and I had no reason to disbelieve her.
Lots of women (particularly in countries like the Virgin Islands, where many men feel they have a "right" to have more than one woman) have abusive relationships with their mothers - especially, in the case of Black women, if the daughter is lighter skinned than the mom.
Lots of girls have their first sexual experience in the form of a rape - and then get attacked by their mom for being a "slut".
Lots of girls have absent and/or emotionally abusive fathers, who abandon them with any excuse.
And lots of those girls grow up to enter abusive marriages, and after they leave their abusesers they are drawn to abusive men just like their fathers and ex husbands.
And some of those women end up in the sex trades.
Particularly women who are in and around the entertainment industry.
In that business, sexual harassment is a way of life.
Many male entertainers feel they have the "right" to cheat on their wives with as many women as possible, as well as the "right" to impose their sexuality on women entertainers, and to use their power to hire and fire to make women sleep with them.
I once dated a former Hollywood stuntwoman - (who happened to be, like Steffans, a lightskinned Black woman)
Like Steffans, she was bombarded with propositions constantly, unlike Steffans, she said no, repeatedly, and, consequently, had to leave the industry (and ended up living in poverty in her mom's house in New York as a result).
Again, Steffans account rings VERY true to me!
I hate to say this, but perhaps BabyGirl and UltraMagnus wouldn't feel so much doubt if Steffans was a White woman!
As for Steffans' writing ability - like almost all celebrity bios, the book was ghostwritten, in this case, by one Karen Hunter.
Hunter is an award winning journalist, who happens to be African American.
She used to be a columnist for the New York Daily News and now she's the reader ombudsperson for the Hartford Courant.
I didn't have a problem with her writing style - I really don't understand the problem other commenters had.
I don't know anything about Steffans' writing style, since I've never read anything she actually wrote on her own.
"I mean, non-profits that have done studies have found that more than half of sex-workers, for instance (like prostitutes and strippers), were abused as children."
Source?