This Friday, comedian and talk show host Steve Harvey announced he was launching his own dating website. The site, Delightful, is a joint venture with OkCupid and Tinder owner IAC. Harvey promises it will help women become more “dateable,” so they can achieve the ultimate goal of finding a husband.
Yikes.
As Harvey told Forbes:
“Women are wired differently,” he says.
Internet dating is great for people interested in going on a lot of dates—which means, says Harvey, that it’s great for men. “The one thing I know about women is women don’t really want to just date,” he says. “They want to date with the hope that it leads to a relationship.”
If this sounds like misogynistic nonsense, that’s because it is: Harvey is no stranger to the art of making broad generalizations about sex, gender, and relationships, turning his specific brand of folksy gender essentialism into a best-seller with his 2011 advice book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man (later adapted into the hit movie Think Like a Man.)
In honor of the launch of Harvey’s new dating site, we’ve compiled a brief history of all the dumb things the comedian and talk show host has said about men, women, dating, and the art of giving away the “cookie,” his charming term of art for ladies’ vaginas.
[A man] is weak in some areas, and so he goes outside his relationship. But there are some things women do to contribute to this. I have a chapter in the book talking about what a man has to have: support, loyalty, and “the cookie” [sex]. If any of those things are missing, he’s going somewhere to get it, because he has to have it.
On why men cheat, part 2
In 2009, Harvey told Larry King:
Women ask that question all the time: Why do men cheat? But it’s really because there are so many women out there willing to cheat with them.
Harvey’s ex-wife has alleged that he cheated on her for years, accusing him of physical and mental abuse and adultery in court. Harvey has repeatedly denied the allegations.
On why men don’t want smart women
Well, I mean, you know if a guy is out for one thing, it’s best to go for shallow, unintelligent women. You don’t want to break this news to really bright women. “Hey, I just want to do something to you this evening”…You want to find somebody shallow, really simple unintelligent, that you can run this by and they’ll sit there and go, “Wow, that sounds great.”
On women, and how they’re like fish, I guess
A man fishes for two reasons: he’s either sport fishing or fishing to eat, which means he’s either going to try to catch the biggest fish he can, take a picture of it, admire it with his buddies and toss it back to sea, or he’s going to take that fish on home, scale it, fillet it, toss it in some cornmeal, fry it up, and put it on his plate. This, I think, is a great analogy for how men seek out women.
On why women should wait 90 days before doin’ it with a guy
You gotta be at a job 90 days before you get a benefit package. You cannot go to these jobs and get benefits…They want to see if you’re gonna do what you say you’re gonna do, if you’re gonna come to work on time, if you work well with others… then, if you complete the 90-day probation period, they provide you with the benefits.
On the difference between “sex girls” and wives
Get it through your head, you are the Friday girl. That is just for sex. That’s what you are. He’s not going to graduate you to his wife. We don’t upgrade sex girls, we don’t do that. We don’t do that.
On nagging
Harvey, in response to a caller’s question on how to get her husband to stop nagging her, on Larry King Live (2009):
Wow, her husband nags. That’s new. … Maybe you should check your husband’s man card. Maybe he’s not the rough-and-tumble guy you thought you married. What’s he nagging for? Because men aren’t supposed to nag, is what I’m nagging.
On the importance of chivalry
Let him treat you like a lady and open the car door for you. If he doesn’t automatically open the door for you, stand by the darn thing and don’t get into the vehicle until he realises he needs to get hid behind out of the driver’s seat and come round and open the car door for you. That’s his job!
On vaginas
Harvey on the nationally syndicated radio show Steve Harvey Morning Show, in response to Love and Hip-Hop star Mimi Faust’s sex tape:
This thing that y’all sitting on, this thing that every man got to have—your body, that precious jewel that’s in the most hidden place on your body. Think about that. God is smart, that’s why he put it where he put it because it’s hard to get to. We can’t get to it unless you show it to us or you give it to us. Think about that for a minute. Don’t pass it around like it ain’t nothing to it, because you’re actually sitting on a gold mine. Please act like it young ladies. Act like you’re sitting on a gold mine because it is what every man is after and we will pay dearly for it.
Let me tell you something we all sit around and talk about: It’s all the same. I don’t care if you can do monkey tricks with it. I don’t care if you have trained it to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Until a man is emotionally attached to you, it ain’t no difference than the rest of ’em.
We’ve got to have a cookie. Everybody likes cookies. That’s the thing about a cookie. I like oatmeal raisin…but if you’ve got vanilla cream, I’ll eat that too.
On his reputation as a relationship expert:
I’m not a relationship expert.
The only accurate thing he’s ever said.
H/T Forbes | Photo via Daniel Oines (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed