Cape Town - “This may surprise some of you men, but there are a whole lot of women out there who are not interested in a relationship… sometimes she is just looking for a one-night stand too, just like you. She, like you, may sometimes just want a good time without the complication of a relationship.”
This is an extract from the book, The Refined Player: Sex, Lies and Dates by Stevel Marc, a Jamaican-born model and actor, now based in Joburg.
In this candid book, Marc, 32, opens up about his dating escapades and features the thoughts of 800 people he interviewed worldwide during his travels. The book is intended to help men to understand their role in relationships and also to inspire women to expect and demand better from their men.
We spoke to Marc at the Cape Town launch of his book, held at the Pepperclub Hotel. There he spoke about making a 180 degrees U-turn from being a player to being the perfect gentleman, or a “refined player” as he calls it.
“A refined player is the perfect woman or gentleman who screams marriage material, but may not be ready to get married yet,” Marc explains.
“A refined player takes pride in how he treats the woman he is with, and women in general… his goal is to meet his woman’s every need.”
As a successful international model, Marc admits that women, drawn by his good looks and charm, were throwing themselves at him from the start of his modelling career.
Having his heart broken by his high school sweetheart led him to living a life “without boundaries” and saw him cheating on most of the women he was with without any guilt.
Marc was about 25 when a friend asked him the question: “How many women have you slept with?”
The realisation that he had slept with more than 180 made him confront the fact that he had intimacy issues.
“I realised that it was time to be true to my identity; to be the good man my mother raised me to be… It was time to be more than my assets, to take on my responsibilities of a good man,” he says.
“Had it not been for those 180 women I wouldn’t be the man I am today. Sometimes we have to go through things in order to be refined. A lot of people say: ‘Oh now that you have stopped playing the game we should also hang our player boots up’. I never said that I hung up my boots, I just became a refined player.
“I’ve always been a refined player in a sense that I have always treated women right. I have always had a certain lifestyle about me.
“Like the gym for example, I don’t get bored of it because the gym for me is a lifestyle thing, I love working out. It’s the same principle I apply to women, I love chivalry,” says Marc.
“That is how the idea for the book came about.
“I had all these friends over the years and a girlfriend telling me:‘You need to write a book and tell men how they should treat women’.
“I am a good listener and nurturer, I can connect with women on a level because I don’t feel threatened by them. I have always been that way because that is just the way my parents brought me up.
“My mother and my aunt always said to me: ‘You should be empowered by a woman’s power and the fact that she can lift you up’.”
The book is divided into chapters and “For Her” notes, talking about the different aspects of relationships such as communication, hygiene and how to find the strength to walk away from a toxic relationship that has reached its expiration date.
When it comes to sex and relationships the rules of the game have changed for men and women, with more and more women choosing casual sex over commitment.
To avoid anyone getting hurt, be clear about what you want or what you are looking for from the onset, advises Marc.
“If you are going to engage in casual sex the first thing is to protect yourself, make sure you use a condom.
“While some guys might be thrown off by that kind of woman or call her names, I love a woman who is just honest with me… a woman who knows exactly what she wants.
“Perhaps it stems from the life experiences that she has had and just doesn’t want the complications of a relationship at that point in her life.
“Often those turn out to be the best relationships you will have because it started out on honest grounds,” he says.
Now with a steady girlfriend who encouraged him to write the book, Marc says supporting each other and communicating are key ingredients to a lasting relationship.
“My girlfriend loves the fact that I wrote this book, even the exes that broke my heart. It is not a biography, but it was a matter of ‘if I have this wealth of knowledge and experience how do I save someone the heartache?’
“The book is aimed at both women and men. However, all the relationships books I have read over the years have always been about women, this is how you keep your men. This one is about men, this is how you keep your women… while at the same time saying to women – be empowered, be uplifted, don’t settle for mediocrity. You deserve more, you deserve to be treasured, nurtured, loved and to be cared for,” Marc adds.
The Refined Player
Stevel Marc
(New Jacana Media, imprint Black Bird Books)
Cape Argus