Georgia-based sex and spiritual guru Alexyss K. Tylor is best known for a popular YouTube clip from her now defunct public access show Vagina Power which aired from 2006 to 2007 on Atlanta's People TV. In it, a lovely looking woman with a thick southern accent—Tylor—talks with her mother about men "hitting the bottom and working the middle" of the pussy in order to soothe a woman into submission. It's the kind of thing that's difficult to forget, and though you want to laugh, you also question whether or not you should be taking this Southern charmer's no-hold-barred approach to sexual advice seriously.
In 2012, Vice filmed a devastatingly personal mini-documentary about Tylor and her show for "The Vice Guide to Sex" series. It tells the story of Tylor's dark past growing up in the South, covering the hypocrisy, poverty, and sexual and physical abuse she endured during her childhood. Since the Vice film, Tylor has flown relatively under the radar, but her radical approach to the psychology of sex eventually earned her a spot on Tosh.0 in 2013 and multiple shout-outs on Gawker. Today, the Vagina Power legend is still doing her thing, but her once-cult status has receded into the shadows. This is a damn tragedy.
I talked to Tylor over the phone recently, and it became clear to me that her words of sexual wisdom are still relevant today. In the condensed interview below, Tylor and I chat about everything from sex with cats on the Internet and penis envy, to the universality of her teachings and earning a PhD in getting played in life.
How did Vagina Power get started?
The show started from a lot of my issues and a lot of my pain and a lot of things I saw other women going through. Growing up in the South with a lot of hypocrisy, women were too ashamed to admit they’d been victims to the game.
Now that they discontinued my public access show, I’ve gone on a lot of other shows. I’ve done Maury, Tosh.0 Show. I've done a lot of interviews. I spoke at Spelman College. I spoke at Howard University. I do tarot readings as well as spiritual readings. And I also do music. I write and produce music with my son. He’s a new rapper. You can see his videos on my YouTube page, and you can also see me doing videos with him. We do a show together.
Does your son agree with your philosophy about men, women, and sex?
He agrees with everything I say. I mean, he’s a boy, and now he’s a hot-blooded young man. And the women are all at my door getting on my nerves. He saw what I went through with men, and how I struggled to raise him alone, and now he’s in the middle of it on the other side of the game, actually dating women and dealing with the drama. And I'm dealing with the mama/son drama with these women, too.
1.
What’s the mama/son drama?
A mess. All that shit that I talked about on my show, I’m actually seeing my son go through it. These women will say, "Oh, I love your son." And then when they see my son it’s like, "Can you get your mama out your business?" And he's like, "Me and my mother work together. First of all, she’s not just a nagging mother. We do business together, and we do music together, we do shows together." Then the girls say, "Yeah, but I want you to myself, and I don’t want her in my business. I think she needs to stop coming around. I think we need to move in." It’s like, you just met him a month ago!
That’s crazy.
Yeah, you know what that’s like, dealing with petty drama with women and jealousies and gossiping. Now, I thought, "Wow I didn’t have to deal with that anymore." So with my son coming on the scene and dating, I have to deal with the drama and the jealousy and the vagina competition with women dating him.
The dick envy and the competition is really vicious. The same way it is among a woman competing with a man’s mother, a woman competing with another woman about a man, or a woman fucking another woman. The shit really ain’t no different.
Describe vagina competition.
It’s when women fight with their pussy. That ain’t nothing new: women trying to outdo each other with their pussy and outrank each other with their pussy. They tryna to outfuck this one, and outfuck that one, and say, "I’m going to dominate the situation, and I’m going to win his attention over her because I opened my legs. I opened my mouth, and I’m willing to submit to him and be a slave and do whatever I gotta do to pull him from this person to that person. Or to get his mother out of the way." This is what I see women do.
Is the opposite dick competition?
Oh, penis envy. You deal with that on different levels: penis envy, jealousy of another man’s dick, fear of another man’s dick. Like, women are afraid of another woman’s pussy. It’s human nature. You’re dealing with sex—pussy, dick, desire, a lot of low-level seven deadly sins kind of shit. So when you’re dealing with hate, lust, envy, greed, jealousy, and sexual desire, you’re going to deal with whatever the attraction is.
Whether it’s a man being attracted to another man—I deal with that a lot too since a lot of my spiritual readings come from gay men—that shit ain’t no different. When it’s a man dealing with another man, or man dealing with a woman, the dick envy and the competition is really vicious. The same way it is among a woman competing with a man’s mother, a woman competing with another woman about a man, or a woman fucking another woman. The shit really ain’t no different. The only thing different is the gender.
Why was your show canceled?
The lady that was running it didn’t like me, as well as a lot of the producers there. They felt that I was getting more attention than them. And then I had a lot of holy-rollers there. You know, we in the Bible belt, my mama a preacher, I grew up in a religious background. So I was saying a lot of things that you weren’t supposed to say, but yet the people wanted to say and they were thinking, and lot of women were experiencing or a lot of women were doing, and I was calling them out.
It’s the same way right to this day with me. You either love me or you hate me because of the controversy of my show. Now, I’m not a liar, they couldn’t say I was a liar, but I think I stepped on a lot of toes. And I was a mirror, I made people look at themselves. That is taboo. So it’s a lot of different reasons, but I obviously triggered a lot of different emotions in people.
It’s human nature. You’re dealing with sex: Pussy, dick, desire, a lot of low-level seven deadly sins kind of shit.
Do you think your teachings translate outside of the South?
What I say is universal and it transcends culture and race. My fans are from all around the world and I love them. It’s the people that just have problems with someone that have the nerve to speak about things that are hidden. It is a deep community problem. Me talking about sex and women being stupid and selling themselves out is not making the situation worse.
Atlanta is considered the gay capital, one of the gay capitals. We know that HIV is a problem amongst black men. We know that a lot of men, not all of them, go to jail, they’re either already bisexual, bi-curious, have been experimenting, and then they become more off the chain when they’re in jail. When they get out, they have asshole fetishes. A lot of women now are reducing themselves to doing anal and they don’t want to.
And as a result of that, catching HIV, herpes, and other diseases quicker. You know preachers fuck little boys. I grew up seeing this. And these are things that Alexyss K. Tylor spoke about that were already an epidemic and a serious deep condition in the black community as well as other communities. It’s just I wasn’t supposed to say it.
So how do fans watch your show now?
I do it online. I also make guest appearances on television shows and do speaking engagements. I’m basically open to other opportunities. I’m not trying to focus on getting back into public access.
Did you have a chance to watch the video that I sent you?
No, I wasn’t able to watch it. What did you want to ask me about it in particular? You said something about little dicks.
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Why would somebody film themselves defending little dicks and put it on the Internet?
Girl, come on. They put everything on the Internet.
According to you?
No. Everybody talks about everything on the Internet. You get sex on the Internet. Sex with a donkey, sex with a damn cat.
Have you seen that?
Girl, yes. Yes. Girl, they have groups where they call them cuckold husbands where white men and women only fuck black men. And then you got groups where the husband will let a dog go down on their wife and they film this. And other people are in love with animals fucking them.
So do you just look at that for research purposes?
Of course. I want to keep up with everything that’s going on. It’s important to keep up with information. I don’t want to run into some man that's attractive and I find out he likes little boys or he likes my pet dog. Yeah, that is my job to know. I deal with sexual behavior and psychology and spiritual sexuality. It’s my job to know.
Did you study sexual psychology?
No. Like I told people already, I have a GED and I have a PhD in getting played in life. Everything I do is natural and intuitive. Just like I do spiritual readings and tarot card readings because that’s a natural gift that runs in my family. When I go deep into issues, it’s just a natural ability to be able to see and breakdown these things. At this time, I don’t have any degrees.
I’m so glad that you called. I really appreciate you taking the time, and thank you so much.
You’re welcome, and if you want interview me another time you can just let me know.
Lauretta Charlton is Associate Editor at Complex. Follower her on Twitter at @laurettaland.
