The Playa Haters’ Ball
Gus
Dave Chappelle is to comedy, what Jesus is to Christianity—a prophet sent from above to perform miracles for the people. Admittedly, Chappelle and Jesus don’t have much in common, apart from a badass comeback. Despite that, Chappelle really was like a black Jesus to me and Chappelle’s Show was my bible.
“The Playa Haters’ Ball” was the skit that always captured my imagination. It was only with the gifts of maturity and age that I realised the skit was wrapped in irony. It was the first time I’d ever seen a ‘playa’ portrayed as unappealing. Till then, we/I glorified this eye-catching, multiple relationship having ‘playa’.
Those of you who are inclined to listen to Wilkinson while swinging your jaw might call this ideal man a ‘skux’, ‘slick guy’ or possibly just a ‘fuckboy’. I still call this guy a ‘Playa’. Whatever you call this archaic idea of a ‘real’ man, I think it’s time we retire him for good.
Growing up I was infatuated with the idea of being a ‘playa’, and it wasn’t hard to see where my infatuation stemmed from. It was prominent in music and still is to this day. Sure Tupac had “Dear Mama”, but he also had “I Get Around”.
It’s convenient to blame the arts but it was societal expectations that shaped my ideas of what made a successful man. How many times have you heard “He’ll be a heart-breaker when he’s older,” or participated in undeniably misogynistic locker room chats?
There’s a duality that exists with the way our generation uses swear words. Depending on who says it or how it’s expressed, they can be terms of endearment or an invitation to throw hands. It was a duality I didn’t know existed with the word ‘playa’, until the word was hurled at me with hurt and disappointment.
It was real life wrongs that fueled the change in the way I saw the ‘playa’. In my naive youth, I’d been guided by misinformed ideas of what a man should be. My intentions were good, but in this instance, I had acted in a way that had hurt someone else. It was only with time and reflection that I realised my actions were guided by a selfish desire to conform to an unhealthy standard.
Often we judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions—that was the trap I had fallen into.
But where does the societal pressure come from? As a heterosexual man, I can only speak to a few of these pressures, so I enlisted the help of some friends. According to my friend E, it stems from the ideas we hold about men and how sexually active they should be. E felt the pressure at its strongest coming into his first year at Vic. “I guess coming into Vic, where no one knows who you are, I felt like I needed to have some characteristics of a player to get ahead with women.”
Fear of being persecuted for inexperience is real. E was very honest about his fears of being inferior because of lack of experience, “I’m scared to say that I’m still a virgin around women cause that’s not exactly desirable.”
Don’t get me wrong, I'm not coming for people with extensive sexual pasts; what you do with someone who is willing is your consenting, adult business. I’m simply coming for the idea that it is socially acceptable and ‘cool’ to be emotionally manipulative for your selfish sexual needs and need of an ego boost. By now there is probably a choir of incels crying out “But girls can be playas too” and you know what Derrick, (or whatever your 4chan username is), you are fucking right.
Being emotionally unavailable or leading someone on isn’t exclusive to any sex. As Makkabee graciously pointed out to me, women can also “not be ready to commit” and they “play the game too”. Contemporary music doesn’t shy away from expressing this sentiment. As the philosopher Meghan thee Stallion puts it, there are lots of ladies who have boys, “thinking he a player” but really “he a member on the team”.
However, retribution for acting that way is rarely equal. There is nothing wrong with casual sexual relationships, it gets messy when the truth is dismissed for the sake of foregoing the awkward conversations that are necessary.
As I stressed before, we often judge ourselves by our intentions and judge others by their actions. If we want positive relationships there are two important words that must be considered—informed consent.
This means more than just getting willing consent to do the deed. It means having enough respect for your partner to give them all the information they should be entitled to about your intentions.
May puts it quite bluntly when it comes to relationships that you want to be purely sexual, “make it obvious that the only thing you want is attention and sex.” That sentiment, although very blunt, has lots of truth behind it. If you can respect someone enough to be intimate with them you should respect them enough to give them the information they need to make informed decisions about their future with you.
I don’t mean forcing awkward, “What are we?” conversations; I simply mean having the decency to not stoke the feelings they have for you if you can’t or don’t want to reciprocate them. Even if that means it has to come to an end, it’s better to be given hard truths a week in, than to have your reality shattered after a year.
The word ‘playa’ is not just a redundant relic from the 90’s, the concept and the archaic double standard behind it are also redundant. If I have one thing in common with Big Pun, it’s that “I don’t wanna be a player no more”, and I don't think any man should want to be. Shit, in honour of Dave Chapelle I might just start my own playa haters club. Hopefully, they don’t tuck me around the corner of the hub, like they did to the Māori and Pasifika groups at club day this year.
It’s time to recognise that to want to be a player is to conform to ideas about who we should be and how our relationship with women should go. And change starts with a simple seven-letter word that is seldom practised anymore. Please, in the memory of Aretha say it with me, R-E-S-P-E-C-T. See, that wasn’t that bad, don’t you feel better already?