Delusional doesn’t even scratch the surface of what DMX’s real issue is, but it’s a pretty safe description to use for a man who, with so many issues of his own that need fixing, calls someone who tries to help him “toxic.”

That’s the word X used to describe Iyanla Vanzant following the airing of his episode on “Iyanla Fix My Life” last Saturday. We already knew the rapper was upset when his publicist put out a statement on Monday morning saying:

“DMX agreed to be a guest on ‘Iyanla: Fix My Life’ with the understanding that she would be helping his relationships with his ten children. When he arrived for the taping, most of the content was focused on his struggles with drugs and poor parenting. Iyanla did not “fix” DMX’s life just made his image worse, and does not have DMX’s personal written consent to use the footage.”

Now DMX is moving one step further with that last allegation, exploring his legal options to get footage of his “Fix My Life” episode removed from the OWN network altogether. He told TMZ Iyanla was only supposed to ask him about his issues with women, not drugs, and he was totally caught off guard by the prodding into his addiction.

“Iyanla set the whole thing up to make me look bad for ratings. That lady is toxic … My last words to her were that she can suck my d**k and she still can.”

As much of a fan as I am of Iyanla, I do know that she can be preachy, but toxic? Sounds to me like he’s projecting his own mess onto someone else. While it may be true that DMX came to Iyanla about women rather than his children, that right there says he has some serious issues if he’s putting random groupies before his kids. And even if the episode stuck to his addiction to women, did he nor his publicist not think his addiction to drugs was going to be discussed as a factor there as well?

The bottom line appears to be DMX just wasn’t ready to do the work, as Iyanla would say. And the response he’s giving to the episode is only discrediting his claims that Iyanla is the one making him look bad and showing no one can do that better than himself.

Do you think DMX has any legal leg to stand on in getting his footage removed from OWN?

After coming home from a long day of work sometimes all you want is to plop down on the couch and find something good to watch on TV. Well thank goodness prime time TV is booming with shows that intrigue us and actors and actresses that look like us. With acting that leaves you thirsting for more and silently cursing yourself if you’re away and failed to DVR the latest episode, these celebs are well worth your undivided attention.

“WENN”

Kerry Washington

Kerry Washington plays fierce crisis manager Olivia Pope in the political drama-series Scandal. As a former White House Communications Director for the president, it is difficult for her to shed her past – which includes a secret, steamy affair with President Fitzgerald. Washington’s character has a tight-knit relationship with each member of her new firm, having helped them with problems in their past – but it’s Pope who is ultimately struggling to deal with her own personal crisis.

Source: Shutterstock

Let’s crunch some  numbers. According to the most recent Census data, the median paycheck for Americans is $26,364, which means half of Americans made more and half made less. If most women can’t see themselves dating a man who makes $26,000 or less, then we have our answer: No, the average man cannot afford a girlfriend.

“Women are becoming the men they want to marry.” – Gloria Steinem

— Wisdom Is Misery (@WisdomIsMisery) April 2, 2013

I found this quote buried in a HuffingtonPost piece rebuffing the advice of a Princeton Alum who suggested that young women must find their husbands in college or else, because at no point in their lives would they ever be surrounded by so many college-educated suitors with bright, well-paying futures ahead of them. The original letter, which you can find here, ended up going viral and it received mixed reviews from both men and women. As it relates to today’s topic, there are two main takeaways.

1. Most men adjust the type of women they date based on their income, among other factors. Men aren’t ignorant of what women prefer in a man. Most men know that although most women aren’t strictly motivated by money, money does motivate them. In other words, if all other factors are equal, a woman is most likely to choose the man pursuing her who makes $126k over the man who makes $26k, and why shouldn’t she? That is a smart choice to make. It sucks to be the well-rounded $26k guy, but in all fairness, if all other factors are equal, a man is most likely to choose a woman with a nice A$$ over a woman with extended back syndrome. It’s superficial, but it is what it is.

Even if they can’t afford a girlfriend, even broke men can usually afford to date. If he puts his mind to it, even a broke guy can scrape together a few dollars here and there to take you on a few dates or create the illusion that he makes more money than he actually does. Most of us know the “rich every two-weeks” guy. These are the guys in VIP every two-weeks when their checks cash, but they spend the remaining 13 days on Club Couch.

This isn’t to say that for some women, “money can’t buy love.” Men who prefer women above their pay grades seek out these types of women. Additionally, in my experience, a number of women will date the potential man over the man that stands before them, which means they’ll give a man, even a broke man, who doesn’t have a lot going for himself in the present a chance if he might have a lot going for himself in the future.

Most men don’t fear settling down as much as they fear settling down with the wrong woman. In regards to income, some men have a legitimate concern that they will “settle” before they reach their peak, and they haven’t had a chance to choose from the best options available to them. This isn’t to say some men won’t choose a woman and rise with her by his side, but I think there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that shows that men (and women) will “upgrade” if they are given the opportunity.

2. Men have no idea what women want, and I’m not sure women do either. Many men struggle with the idea that since women changed they have to change too. It seems like women sought equality with men, but as they moved closer to that goal, they began to look at men as beneath them. For men, the question is why does the rise of women have to be the downfall of men?

It is not that men as a whole are obtaining less education – although they are stagnating – it is the fact that women are obtaining more education than ever before. By 2017, women are projected to earn 64.2% of Associate’s degrees, 59.9% of Bachelor’s degrees, 62.9% of Master’s degrees, and 55.5% of Doctorates. In the Princeton Letter, the author makes a similarly interesting albeit not groundbreaking observation:

Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less educated. It’s amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman’s lack of erudition if she is exceptionally pretty. Smart women can’t (shouldn’t) marry men who aren’t at least their intellectual equal.

While perhaps true, this statement seems to suggest that men hunt for “younger, less intelligent, less educated” women as if women are victims of the dating process. Is it unreasonable to assume that maybe women prefer older, more intelligent, more educated men? After all, if they aren’t interested, women have every opportunity to turn down these men’s pursuits. Trust me, plenty of women accomplish the amazing feat of telling a man they’re not interested in “no” every day of the week. The problem with the Princeton Letter, and others like it, is the fact that it prescribes a monolithic solution for a very diverse group, women.

Getting back to the topic at hand, the issue isn’t whether a man can really afford to have a girlfriend. A man simply has to find a woman he can “afford” at the time he can afford to be with her.

WisdomIsMisery aka WIM uses his background as an internal auditor to provide objective, yet opinionated, qualitative and quantitative analysis on life, love, and everything in between. WIM is not a model, a model citizen, or a role model. See more of WIM on his weekly write-ups for SBM, on Twitter @WisdomIsMisery, and Instagram: WisdomIsMisery.

Female empowerment and encouragement are things that I adamantly support. I have friends that I consider sisters and enjoy meeting like-minded women. Unfortunately, all women aren’t the same. And instead of support you’re met with a whole lot of shade. Instead of building a friendship, you’re introduced to an enemy.

In some cases, it’s easy to spot a woman who is being blatantly disrespectful. In other cases, the disrespect is snuck in so subtly that you feel inappropriate for even addressing it, although you sense the shade being thrown. Yes, there are times when our beloved sisters, including ourselves, can be subtly disrespectful. Maybe you’ve experienced some of this disrespectful behavior or possibly dished it out. In either case, here are a few of the most common disrespectful things that women can do to each other.

Source: Shutterstock

From StyleBlazer

As a woman, what are the things you worry about the most? A new study found that British women worry about their weight more than their finances, personal relationships, or their overall health. Although children and family came in first, weight came in second. Does this have anything to do with pressure from society to be a certain size, or are we putting pressure on ourselves to look good?

Check out the other concerns that made the list:

1. Children and family: 84%
2. Weight: 67%
3. Money: 64%
4. Relationships: 52%
5. Health: 43%

Get more details on the other findings on StyleBlazer.com.

Source: Shutterstock

Yes. Men do have preferences when it comes to women’s hair, though those preferences tend to give way when he deems a woman attractive.

Preferences aren’t anything more than a way for people to narrow the pool when it comes to potential mates. In the same manner a woman may have height/weight/body type requirements for men, men have the same type of “checklist” when it comes to women they may be interested in dating. More often than not, preferences tend to be fluid. I haven’t come across too many men who’ve simply outright refused to date a woman because she didn’t have a certain hair type.

There’s also a chance what wasn’t attractive or deemed problematic before, will not be problematic in the future.  For example, while I was in undergrad I preferred for any woman I dated to not wear weave or heavy make-up. My dating preferences were pretty open then so I didn’t automatically turn down a woman who wore make-up or weave. If I was, however, deciding between two women, the woman I believed to be more attractive without weave/make-up was more than likely to be chosen over her counterpart. At that particular time, I had it in my mind that the way a woman wore her hair spoke to something about her personality.

Likewise, I currently have dreads that reach past the middle of my back. Depending on the woman I approach (or if I’m lucky, approaches me) her preferences will come into play. Some women think my locs are beautiful and would love nothing more than to spend half the day (and all night) running her fingers through my locs and counting each individual one. On the opposite end of the spectrum I’ve been turned down by women that preferred “clean cut” men with fades and thought men shouldn’t have hair that can’t be maintained by a brush. There is a certain stigma attached to men with locs (some believe the hair is dirty or can’t be managed) and it likely goes back to either what she has observed or where her standard of beauty is derived from.

As we all know, men are creatures who are more likely to judge based on appearances than anything else when dealing with the opposite sex. What a man uses to judge that standard of beauty can be based on any number of influences. Society tends to prefer that women look a certain way to be deemed attractive and if a man is heavily influenced by these outside factors, he’s more likely to find himself attracted to that standard. If a man has seen a variety of women with differing hairstyles who all look attractive, it’s likely he won’t make hair a determining factor when it comes to choosing a mate.

The preoccupation with women’s hair is mostly to determine if a woman is attractive. Meaning, as long as a woman looks good, a majority of men could really care less about the way a woman’s hair looks. You’d be hard pressed to find a man who found Halle Berry attractive when she had long hair saying she’s no longer attractive because she started rocking the short cut. Preferences for women’s hair aren’t set in stone, so if a man believes an attractive woman would look better rocking long/short/permed/weaved hair, he’s still more than likely to at least approach said woman, even if her hair isn’t styled to his preference.

In conclusion, yes, men do have hair preferences but those preferences moreso tend to be tied to appearance. Not just the hair itself.

So I want to hear from you. Do you find that men approach you more when you’re wearing a certain hairstyle? Has a man ever taken issue with your hair because of the way it was styled or stated he wanted you to go back to a certain hairstyle?

Hit the comment box and let me know.

Peace.

For more on RealGoesRight’s opinions on men and women, be sure to check him out with the all-star collective of black men writers over on SingleBlackMale.Org. If you prefer something a bit more direct, feel free to follow him on Twitter at @RealGoesRight and subscribe to his blog at RealGoesRight.Com

Source: iStock.com

There’s an upside of growing up in a predominately female household for a girl.  My father was the only male, while my three sisters, an aunt, my mother and myself dominated.  The upside is that at a young age I could battle all of my feelings of insecurity.  My sisters and I were constantly being compared to each other by family members, classmates, teachers and friends.  There were always comments of:  ”Well [insert sister name here] is better [insert character trait that you're lacking].  What happened with you?”  After a while and many failed attempts to try to become like your siblings you learn that you can only be yourself and you learn to embrace it.  You stop trying to be better than them, and you begin to try to be a better you, or that’s how it was for me.

It’s always a little awkward when you find out that someone is competing against you when you’re not in an actual competition.  Competition can be a good thing, and very healthy.  It can increase your drive and make you want to be a better person.  However, it concerns me when I find out that people are competing against me over something completely insignificant.

I remember my very first time having this realization.

I was in first grade and I had just moved from Alabama and was living in East St. Louis.  People are interested in “new” things, and that was true for me when I first started attending my elementary school.  I don’t know if other kids did this, but we had this thing called “Play Mamas.”  Where an older girl would kind of “adopt” you and get you things, like candy, toys, and if you had a problem with someone else, you tell your “Play Mama” and she’ll handle it for you.

Before East St. Louis I had never heard of such a thing, so when a girl came up to me and asked me to be her play daughter she had to explain to me to just accept the invitation because it was an honor.  Being the young people pleaser that I was, I accepted.  I also accepted the six other invitations from other random older girls.  My role was to allow them to play in my hair and buy me candy, so I did that.

It wasn’t until a month or two later that a saw a girl in my class crying.  I went over to her to see what was wrong and she told me she was certain that after getting her new braids and outfit that she would have more “Play Mamas” than me, but she didn’t and she was mad.  I was caught off guard, because, what did I have to do with the number of “Play Mamas” you had?  But after my “Play Mamas” realized that I was cheating on them (I didn’t know you could only have one), they dumped me.  A week or two after I remember girls bragging to me about their superiority of keeping the older girls happy over me.  Way to stay classy, first graders.

This type of behavior is expected in children, but it persisted in high school over the dumbest things.  Everything was a competition.  Who could get to class faster, who had the smallest waist, and who would guys like better when they got their weave.  The thing was, I was always caught off guard whenever someone brought it to my attention that they were competing with me, or couldn’t wait until someone else beat me in this unknown competition.  I even lost friendships when I won a competition I didn’t realize I was in.

I realized then that this type of competition could be a scary thing.  Now, don’t think that I don’t suffer from it too occasionally.  I think everyone has at one point of time, saw something that someone possessed, and as childish as it was, wanted to win out over them, even if they don’t know who you are.  I’m not opposed to competing with people, but I more so compete with myself.  I want to do better for me.

The thing is, there will always be someone more pretty, smarter, or more successful than you, and comparing yourself to them is only going to make you more insecure about your own potential greatness.  Try to make yourself better, but also be aware that people will try to compete with you, no matter if you expect them to or not.  But as long as you’re being the best you that you can be, then don’t let it bother you.

Kendra Koger has gotten rid of her Play Mama philandering ways and got herself on twitter @kkoger.

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From Essence

If I had a nickel for every time I heard a woman say “he has to pay to play,” I would own a professional football team by now. That mindset of entitlement totally baffles me. Shucks, it sounds more like a professional arrangement (wink, wink!) than a woman looking for love.

While I’m still al little old school about certain things, deciding who pays for the date is just not one of them. Frankly, I’m shocked at how many women still hold on to outdated dating traditions while demanding new school relationship status.

Hold on. I can already see you giving me a little side eye right about now, so let me explain. I’m not saying a woman should start paying right out of the gate (unless, of course, you ask him out), but once a man has made his level of interest clear, and has been consistent with his intentions, then it’s time for you to step up. Here are seven reasons why:

1. Because it’s considerate: At least offering to pay shows a guy that you are not “on the take.” If you are thoughtful about his financial situation now, then you will be even more considerate as the relationship progresses. Many men won’t accept the offer, especially not in the beginning, but it’s an honorable gesture. Men like to feel valuable, desired, important, respected and loved.

Check the other six reasons on Essence.com.

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According to a new study, many more people are deciding to live together, unmarried, and are having children as a result of this than in the past. According to USA Today, almost half of women between the ages of 15 and 44 have had their first real “union” through cohabitation. The study, done by the National Center for Health Statistics was based off of interviews conducted with 12,279 women from 2006 to 2010. It also showed that the numbers of people shacking up have even increased a great deal since 1995, when there were only 34 percent of women saying they had done it, and from 2002, when 43 percent proclaimed their current or previous cohabited status.

Other findings in the study including detailing which groups are cohabiting more and more, the length of time on average people are doing it, how many become pregnant during that time, and what the opportunity for marriage is looking like after saying I do…to sharing bills under the same roof. The women who have cohabited have definitely increased for all ethnic groups, though the study says Asian women are the exception. Hispanic women have gone up to 57 percent cohabitation, 43 percent for whites and 39 percent for blacks. The study also finds that 70 percent of women cohabiting as a first union don’t have a high school diploma, while 47 percent of women with a bachelor’s live with their partners, and according to USA Today, “Among women ages 22-44 with higher education, their cohabitations were more likely to transition to marriage by within years (53%), compared with 30% for those who didn’t graduate high school.”

About 19 percent of women were found to have become pregnant within the first year of living with their partner, and 22 months was the median amount of time people lived together, an increase from 20 months in 2002. But within three years of living together, 40 percent of women were able to get a ring put on it, while 32 percent continued to live together and 27 percent of those studied fell out and broke up.

I’m sure we all know a few friends or family members who are cohabiting. And it’s clear that more and more people are becoming comfortable with living with a partner before marriage, and for some, it’s setting them up for pregnancy, while others do end up walking down the aisle. Question is, are you down for cohabitation? Why are why not?

Source: AP

Sistahs who rock naturals are just as easy, breezy, and beautiful as the models on CoverGirl commercials. Why, you may ask? It’s because they realized the beauty of the hair that sprouts from their scalp. Strands that for no reason have been persecuted by chemical relaxers, whipping them into straight submission. No more! Tresses are breaking the cycle of chains, free to be kinky, curly, plain-ol’-me coils. Listen in on some reasons to rock your natural and free yourself once and for all.