Confessions Of A Video Victim

I have recently been listening to excerpts from Karrine Steffans' Confessions of a Video Vixen. My sister is listening to the book on tape, so when we are in the car together, I get to catch some of the tragedies and misdoings that have made up the mistreated Karrine's life thus far. As I listen to her little voice, I can't help but feel ... what's the word ... annoyed. Very very annoyed.

I am not, by any means, under the impression that Superhead is not smart.  She is very smart.  I have no doubt that she would never care about the things that I (or anyone else) have to say about her. I am pretty sure that she doesn't care about what many people say. She has a lot figured out. In her book, she tells ALL. I am not one to speak ill of a tell-all. I share way more than people think should be shared. I get it. And I get judged for things that I never even anticipated getting judged for. People will always find something to judge others on. That is just part of life.

So, I am not judging her.  I have neither the room, nor the want to to pass judgment on anyone for their choices.  I suppose my only complaint is that they are her choices and she tends to shrug them off as mere consequences of life.  She doesn't really own any of her decisions.  Life can take you into a lot of things, but I don't believe it can drag you kicking and screaming the whole way. I think we do a lot of the walking to get to most of the places we wind up.

I think it is important that we own our decisions.  Bad stuff does happen to people.  I don't think we have to take responsibility for all the bad shit that happens. It's true that some people are dealt really shitty hands and life is really really shitty to some people. But, there are certain times when each of us are faced with decisions and we make up our minds to act in one way or another. When you are on that stage and men are slipping dollars into your draws, no matter what circumstances led you to this place in life, it's your decision to step off that stage and go in the back to suck dick instead of making that stage money.

She admittedly decided to stay with Cool G Rap, because she wanted his money. She wanted to live in his home and she said in the book that his house was not as nice as what she had become accustomed to, but it would do. So, she could have just said I was with him for the money, instead of saying in a little voice that she called his mother "Mom," knowing damn well that she called his mother "Mom" for the same reason she called him "Daddy." She did it for the money. She didn't do it because she felt a familial bond.

She did everything she did for money and when she was done using everyone for their money, she wrote a tell-all sob story.  She didn't write it to shed light on domestic violence. She had never had interest in telling helpful stories to uplift women. And that is fine.  If you are going to tell everyone's name and spread other people's business, then do it and make that money, but don't pepper it with sob stories to try to sugar coat it. In my opinion, life is what it is. Parts of life are very very sad, but those sad parts don't allow for you to make decisions, call them mistakes and sell others out in the process. So, why try to rationalize it that way?

Like I said, I don't judge her for stripping.  I don't judge her for selling sex.  I don't even judge her for writing a tell-all book. (I could not imagine telling the names of the men I sleep with or putting them out there like that. Sharing my business is hard enough, but to put others' business out there must be a difficult decision.)

I do, however, think it makes women look really bad when one takes the role of the opportunist for an entire lifetime and then justifies it by wearing the cloak of the victim. She was used and she used.  I don't think the men that paid her for sex are saints or necessarily worth defending.  That was an agreement they made. They put themselves out there.  But, she wanted more than a roof over her head.  She wanted a certain lifestyle and she used sex and notoriety to get it.  I am not mad at her for that. People were willing to sleep with her for large amounts of money.  But, at some point, she wasn't the poor 17 year old trying to make money to eat.  She was working her way to A top.  It wasn't necessarily THE top, but it was something.   That was her path and her decision.  But, the least she could do is own her shit and say "Look at how brilliant I was in my fuckery."  Instead of saying "Look at how mistreated I was by everyone. I had to do the things I did, because I am just a woman and what else would a silly feeble-minded woman do?" Her's was not a story of survival.  It was a story of fame.

With all judgment aside, Karrine Steffans annoys me. She doesn't own her story.  She tells it, but she tells it as a passive innocent bystander.  As women, as people, that's not what we are in life.  We are active participants in our lives.  I always just thought ... "Well, she gave good head and dudes liked it and she gave em up in a book. No harm, no foul," until I heard her tell her story in that book. She's a bold woman with a big, grandiose story. But, she tells it in a small voice and, quite frankly, I don't think bold women should speak in small voices.