Hundreds Petition to Fire XXL Mag. Editor After Too Short Sparks ‘Rape’ Talk

Feb 14, 2012

XXL magazine and rapper Too Short produced a video about the ‘birds and the bees’ to teach middle-school-aged boys how to "turn girls out."

"Push her up agaisnt the wall" and "take your finger and put a little spit on it and you stick your finger in her underwear and you rub it on there and watch what happens," Too Short told viewers in the video published last week.

The video has been removed from XXLMAG.com but Donovan X. Ramsey at The Grio watched the video and describes it below:

XXL magazine teamed up with rapper Too Short recently to give "fatherly advice" that involved teaching middle-school-aged boys how to "turn girls out." Calling it a process of "mind manipulation," the aging rapper advised boys to digitally stimulate girls to get "whatever [they] want." While the video has been removed from the XXL site, the fact that it was published at all is still drawing outrage.

Then, the 45-year-old rapper, whose real name is Todd Anthony Shaw, asks women off camera to "cover their ears" to avoid being offended. Short then describes a scenario in graphic detail. "You push her up against the wall," he continued. "You take your finger and put a little spit on it and you stick your finger in her underwear and you rub it on there and watch what happens."

Whie Shaw is giving his graphic "advice," upbeat, child-themed music plays in the background.

Allhiphop.com has published an apology from Too Short and Vanessa Satten, XXL’s Editor-in-Chief:

"I want to apologize to anyone I may have offended with the XXL video interview I recently did," $hort stated. "When I got on camera I was in Too $hort mode and had a lapse of judgement.I would never advise a child or young man to do these things, it’s not how I get down. Although I have made my career on dirty raps, I have worked over the years to somewhat balance the content of my music with giving back to the community. Just coming from a man who wants to see young people get ahead in life, I’m gonna do my best to to help and not hurt. If you’re a young man or a kid who looks up to me, don’t get caught up in the pimp, player, gangster hip-hop personas. Just be yourself."

"In a culture where 44% of rape victims are under the age of 18; in a society where someone is assaulted every 2 minutes; with 2/3 of victims committed by someone known by the victim and 38% of rapists being either friends or acquaintances of the victims, and 15 of 16 rapists will never spend a day in jail, we stand together in condemnation of this video," reads a petition calling on Harris Publications (Publisher XXL Magazine) to fire Satten.

"Too Short should and must be held accountable for his deplorable rhetorical violence. Ultimately, however, the decision to post this video sits with the magazine’s EIC, Vanessa Satten."

Satten says she made orders to have Too Short’s video taken down after she had a change to watch it, according to jimromenesko.com. She’s placing the blame on an "employee:"

"I was truly offended and thought it crossed the line. …I am disappointed that an employee decided to post it and I am putting internal procedures in place to make sure content like this does not go on the site."

The petition is still calling on her removal. "In the name of justice, in the name of decency, and in the name of our children we call for her immediate removal and an accounting for the ways in which XXL treats women," the petition’s statemet reads.

"We are appalled that this video was disseminated, further contributing to a culture of sexual violence."