SuicideGirls
SuicideGirls is a pin-up website that features softcore photos and text profiles of goth, punk and indie-styled young women (although styles reminiscent of the 1940s and '50s pin-up models are also incorporated) who themselves are known as the "Suicide Girls". The site also functions as an online community with member profiles and message boards, and features interviews with major figures in both popular and alternative culture. Access to most of the site requires a paid membership.
History
The SuicideGirls website and concept were created by the founding partners of parent company SG Services, Inc., "Sean" (Sean Suhl) and "Missy Suicide" (Selena Mooney) in late 2001, and based in Portland, Oregon. In 2003, the site operations moved to Los Angeles, CA. Suhl and Mooney started the site "just to see hot punk rock girls naked." Mooney has also stated that the purpose of the site is to give women control over how their sexuality is depicted. The site is privately co-owned; in addition to Suhl and Mooney, co-owners include Steve Simitzis (server admin and SG user, "s5"). Simitzis' wife Olivia Ball (former site programmer and Suicide Girl) was also described as an owner, but as of 2006, is no longer listed among the staff of SuicideGirls.
While SuicideGirls was not the first alternative pin-up site, the enormous success of SuicideGirls has inspired many similarly-themed websites.
Origin of the name
The term "suicide girl" is credited to a usage by Fight Club author, and Portland resident, Chuck Palahniuk, in his novel Survivor. Mooney confirms this novel as the source for the name in the Suicide Girls FAQ where she adds,
"Suicide girls is a term my friends and I had been using to describe the girls we saw in Portland's Pioneer Square with skateboards in one hand, wearing a Minor Threat hoodie, listening to Ice Cube on their iPods while reading a book of Nick Cave's poetry. They are girls who didn't fit into any conventional sub-culture and didnt [sic] define themselves based on musical taste like punk, metal, goth, etc. I think the only classifications right now people identify with are mainstream and outside of mainstream. That is why the site is called SuicideGirls."
Mooney also states that if she had known how popular the site was going to be, she might have thought the name out more than she did. The site received widespread condemnation for use of the term, which in the Palahniuk novel, told of suicidal young women who were gullible and down on their luck calling what they thought was a suicide hotline center, instead reaching a jaded man who gains their trust to sadistically tell them to go ahead and kill themselves.
As a trademark applied to the website, and related merchandise and media, the term "SuicideGirls" is a single word, though this camel notation is often violated by external sources who split it into two words. The girls themselves, on the other hand, are referred to as "Suicide Girls".
Website features
Originally, only one or two girls were typically accepted per week, though this eventually increased to one every day. As of March, 2007 the website features nearly fifteen hundred SuicideGirls, each billed simply under a first name or one-word nickname. Most of the models have non-traditional colored hair/dreadlocks, piercings/body modifications, and/or tattoos. They are represented by professional photo shoots as well as self-written profiles and journal entries which they update as often as they see fit with their thoughts, snapshots, anecdotes, rants, and whatever else they wish to include. The photographs are intended both as an homage to classic pin-up art and a portrayal of alternative images of beauty.
Controversies
Image removal
In September 2005, SuicideGirls announced that it had removed a large number of images from its pages, in an attempt to avoid scrutiny in the U.S. Justice Department's so-called "war on porn." The images involved depicted bondage, knives or swords, or simulated blood. Communications from the Justice Department indicated that images of that type might be the subject of obscenity prosecutions, though SuicideGirls was not mentioned as a target. Because SuicideGirls was never mentioned as a target, some have accused the site of using the "war on porn" as an excuse to remove some images that they no longer wanted on their site while shifting the blame for the image removal to the Justice Department. In January 2007, the "banned" images were made visible again.
Censorship
In 2005, a number of the paid models were reported to have resigned from the site or had their memberships revoked in connection with allegations of censorship and mistreatment of the models by the site's owners. Numerous members have reported that their journals and message board posts were removed because they criticized management. This practice of deleting either objectionable content, disagreeable content, or membership altogether is referred to by Suicide Girls staffers as "zotting".
Exclusivity agreement and lawsuits
A primary issue is the SuicideGirls modeling contract, which prevents its models (including past models, for a time) from working for competing sites or agencies (specifically those dealing in nude photography and/or erotica). In response to this, the SuicideGirls website states that only models "who have chosen to be involved in special projects" sign an exclusivity agreement in addition to their standard modeling contract barring them working with direct competitors for a certain amount of time. However, the standard modeling agreement for SuicideGirls includes a "Non-Competition" clause, barring any model that signs it from modeling for an "SG Competitor" during the one or more years in which the model is under contract with SuicideGirls, plus an additional two years. Many models, however, have received many mainstream modeling jobs from the exposure gained through SuicideGirls.
Many of the former models involved in the 2005 dispute are now involved with the competing sites GodsGirls and Deviant Nation. Both sites have been sued by SuicideGirls LLC for hiring models who were allegedly still under contract with SuicideGirls and for allegedly violating SuicideGirls trademarks. Several former models were also threatened with legal action. In November 2006, SuicideGirls fired one of their main photographers, Philip Warner, (aka Lithium Picnic), for acting as the primary photographer for the website of former SuicideGirl Apnea. The termination was followed in February 2007 by a lawsuit by SuicideGirls against Warner. According to a press release by Warner and Apnea, as of February 2007, none of SuicideGirls LLC's lawsuits or threatened actions against former models or competing sites has resulted in a victory for the plaintiff, however, the legal expenses in the lawsuits have been costly and time consuming for the defendants.
Feminist credentials
Critics have also charged that SuicideGirls has dishonestly claimed to be a women-owned and women-operated business, when it is actually co-owned by Suhl, who is listed as Company President. The "women-owned and women-operated" statement was also repeated in the CSI: NY episode. Suhl is and has always been an active personality on the website and is not a silent partner. At times, he has been extremely outspoken, and has publicly made strong political statements, having little to do with the site itself.
Pregnant modeling
One notable Suicide Girl is Zia McCabe, the keyboard player of The Dandy Warhols, who posted a set of nude photos on March 8, 2005 that were taken while she was pregnant. Asked in the October 2005 issue of British shock-magazine Bizarre, Zia said of the experience
"People thought Suicide Girls was all about a certain bodyshape, or look, and that my shoot broadened Suicide Girls. But they won't do a pregnant girl again. Because they DO have a narrow idea of what they want! They just wanted Zia from The Dandy Warhols on there and this is the only way I'd do it!"
Since then Twwly Suicide is the only model to follow in Zia's footsteps of going live with a nude pregnant documentation.
Response
In response to controversy, the website set up a page called "Trash Can," on which Missy addresses the various allegations and current models relay their positive experiences with the site. As of February 27, 2007, this page featured positive experience accounts from 23 models.
External links
- SuicideGirls.com
- Suicide Girls at MySpace.com
- Virb.com
- Flickr.com
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