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Pro volleyball player and fitness expert Gabrielle Reece has some interesting advice on relationships in her new book, My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper.

The 43-year-old’s most valuable piece of advice for making love last?

“To truly be feminine means being soft, receptive, and – look out, here it comes – submissive,” writes Reece, who took 10 years off from work to raise kids.

Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow dating photo
(Getty Images)

Also a former model, Reece has been married 17 years to surfing legend Laird Hamilton, with whom shares daughter Reece Viola, 9, and son Brody, 5.

She elaborated on the controversial statement on Today Friday:

“I think the idea of living with a partner is ‘How can I make their life better?'” she reasoned. “So if I’m the woman and he’s the man, then yes, that’s the dynamic.”

 

“I’m willing and I choose to serve my family and my husband because it creates a dynamic where he is then in fact acting more like a man and masculine and treating me the way I want to be treated.”

Being “submissive” isn’t a negative or antiquated thing, she insists.

“I think because women have the ability to set the tone that the ultimate strength and showing real power, I believe, is creating that environment.”

“I dont think it’s a sign of weakness. I think it’s a sign of strength.”

After tying the knot in 1997, Reece and Hamilton went through a rough patch, filing for divorce four years after the wedding, but reconciling two years later.

“I feel like it’s a blessing for us that we’ve gone through a bunch of different things in our relationship, which has allowed us to arrive here today,” Hamilton said.

“We’ve been brought here through what we’ve endured.”

Reece’s stance is sure to be polarizing, similar to Drew Barrymore recently stating that women can’t have it all. What do you think of her comments?