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==Media coverage and spinoffs==
==Media coverage and spinoffs==
Positive reviews of the SuicideGirls site have been featured in ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', ''[[Wired Magazine|Wired]]'', ''[[The New Yorker]]'' and other mainstream magazines; it was also featured in a recent episode of [[CBS]] "[[CSI:NY]]" <ref name="Oedipus Hex">{{cite web| author=CBS| title=Oedipus Hex|url=http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi_ny/episodes/305/|accessdate=2007-04-19}}</ref>, on [[HBO]] ''[[Real Sex]]'' special, on ABC's ''[[Nightline]]'' and on the [[G4 (TV channel)|G4]] series [[Icons (TV series)|''Icons'']], as well as the Showtime series ''[[Californication (TV series)|Californication]]''. The literary magazine ''Fence'' used a Suicide Girl for the cover of a recent issue. Rock musician [[Courtney Love]] is a [http://suicidegirls.com/members/Courtney/ member of the site], and, in the past, has written "rambling, stream-of-consciousness posts on the site."<ref name="assault">[http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=3716 "The Calculated Assault of Suicidegirls.com"] by Amy Roe, ''[[Willamette Week]]'', March 19, 2003.</ref> She also brought along several Suicide Girls during an appearance on [[MTV]]. Sixty-six Suicide Girls appeared in the [[Probot (band)|PROBOT]] [[music video]] "Shake Your Blood". Other notable reviews on these group of women came from the Boston Phoenix in 2007 called "[http://thephoenix.com/Article.aspx?id=10799.aspx[The Naked Sorority]]", which observed the girls and ended up with an insight article on the phenomenon.
Positive reviews of the SuicideGirls site have been featured in ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', ''[[Wired Magazine|Wired]]'', ''[[The New Yorker]]'' and other mainstream magazines; it was also featured in a recent episode of [[CBS]] "[[CSI:NY]]" <ref name="Oedipus Hex">{{cite web| author=CBS| title=Oedipus Hex|url=http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi_ny/episodes/305/|accessdate=2007-04-19}}</ref>, on [[HBO]] ''[[Real Sex]]'' special, on ABC's ''[[Nightline]]'' and on the [[G4 (TV channel)|G4]] series [[Icons (TV series)|''Icons'']], as well as the Showtime series ''[[Californication (TV series)|Californication]]''. The literary magazine ''Fence'' used a Suicide Girl for the cover of a recent issue. Rock musician [[Courtney Love]] is a [http://suicidegirls.com/members/Courtney/ member of the site], and, in the past, has written "rambling, stream-of-consciousness posts on the site."<ref name="assault">[http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=3716 "The Calculated Assault of Suicidegirls.com"] by Amy Roe, ''[[Willamette Week]]'', March 19, 2003.</ref> She also brought along several Suicide Girls during an appearance on [[MTV]]. Sixty-six Suicide Girls appeared in the [[Probot (band)|PROBOT]] [[music video]] "Shake Your Blood". Other notable reviews on these group of women came from the Boston Phoenix in 2007 called "[http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid10799.aspx The Naked Sorority]", which observed the girls and ended up with an insight article on this phenomenon.


Other celebrity members include:
Other celebrity members include:

Revision as of 16:45, 24 January 2008

The SuicideGirls logo, used on the website and associated merchandise. The company promises free lifetime membership to anyone who gets a tattoo of the logo. According to IMDb the actress Sam Doumit is the face in SuicideGirls logo.

SuicideGirls is an alt porn website that features softcore pin-up-style 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, California. 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.[1][2]

While SuicideGirls was not the first alt porn 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[citation needed], 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.[citation needed]

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".[3]

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 one thousand, five 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.

Website demographics

File:SuicideGirls book cover.jpg
Front cover of the 2004 SuicideGirls book, credited to photographer Missy Suicide. The cover model, "Mary", is one of the website's most popular.

SuicideGirls claims that 43 percent of the website's paid members are women (which would be atypical for an ordinary porn website), and that the nude photos rate less than 20 percent of the website's traffic. Members are often active in organizing meetings and events offline, and the company also sponsors many itself. A recent interview with Sean Suhl revealed that the majority of their profits came from their merchandise, not their memberships.[citation needed]

Media coverage and spinoffs

Positive reviews of the SuicideGirls site have been featured in Rolling Stone, Wired, The New Yorker and other mainstream magazines; it was also featured in a recent episode of CBS "CSI:NY" [4], on HBO Real Sex special, on ABC's Nightline and on the G4 series Icons, as well as the Showtime series Californication. The literary magazine Fence used a Suicide Girl for the cover of a recent issue. Rock musician Courtney Love is a member of the site, and, in the past, has written "rambling, stream-of-consciousness posts on the site."[5] She also brought along several Suicide Girls during an appearance on MTV. Sixty-six Suicide Girls appeared in the PROBOT music video "Shake Your Blood". Other notable reviews on these group of women came from the Boston Phoenix in 2007 called "The Naked Sorority", which observed the girls and ended up with an insight article on this phenomenon.

Other celebrity members include:

Wheaton, Corddry and Isaacs are contributors to the SuicideGirls Newswire. Kesselman is a columnist.

SuicideGirls has also branched out into a coffee table book printing images and Suicide Girl profiles from the website, and a traveling burlesque show featuring several of the Suicide Girls. A print magazine entitled SG Pin-Up was also scheduled for release, but after being delayed due to contract and licensing issues with some contributing photographers, the magazine was canceled. The idea was later revived[16] and the first issue was released March 1 2007. In 2004 SuicideGirls also had a brief partnership with Playboy magazine, which regularly featured Suicide Girls on its own website.

The SuicideGirls burlesque troupe opened on select dates for the Guns N' Roses 2006 North American tour.

Controversies

Image removal

In September 2005, SuicideGirls announced[17] 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.[citation needed] In January 2007, the "banned" images were made visible again.[18]

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.[19] 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).[20] 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.[1] 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.[21] Many models, however, have received many mainstream modeling jobs from the exposure gained through SuicideGirls.[22]

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.[20][23] 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.[24][25][26] 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.[24]

Controversy regarding ownership

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 Sean Suhl, who is listed as Company President. The "women-owned and women-operated" statement was also repeated in the CSI: NY episode. Sean 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.[27] 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 several models have posed while pregnant, including Twwly, Darby, and Evette Suicide.

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.[1] As of September 23, 2007, this page featured positive experience accounts from 25 models, 2 photographers and a staff member.

Nazi Imagery

On October 15, 2007, a set of model Nana was posted containing a SS Totenkopf skull pin, as well as photos surfacing Nana and other models posing in Nazi uniform on separate occasions.[28] The following response was issued by the site.

"We have added Nana to the archive. Many people have brought up the arching of Eve because she posted images of herself in a full Nazi uniform. It was not in a halloween context or just an arm band, and has been asserted recently, it was a full on uniform and she was in the hail pose, clear cut black and white, Nazi support. While the Nazi symbolism in Nana's set was subtle and unfamiliar to me, the skull pin is not a symbol that is taught in US schools as being representation of the Nazis. Since this incident people have e-mailed me several pictures of Nana in nazi uniforms. I do not feel a girl who hangs out in Nazi uniforms all the time is a good representation of the site."[29]

Models

Past

References

  1. ^ a b c SuicideGirls. "The Trash Can". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  2. ^ "About SuicideGirls", Suicidegirls.com.
  3. ^ SuicideGirls. "Who are the suicide girls?". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  4. ^ CBS. "Oedipus Hex". Retrieved 2007-04-19.
  5. ^ "The Calculated Assault of Suicidegirls.com" by Amy Roe, Willamette Week, March 19, 2003.
  6. ^ SuicideGirls. "Ian". Retrieved 2007-11-16.
  7. ^ SuicideGirls. "Zuiker". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  8. ^ SuicideGirls. "Wil Wheaton". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  9. ^ SuicideGirls. "Rob Corddry". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  10. ^ SuicideGirls. "RStevens". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  11. ^ SuicideGirls. "Halsparks". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  12. ^ SuicideGirls. "SteveIsaacs". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  13. ^ SuicideGirls. "DaveNavarro". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  14. ^ SuicideGirls. "Jon_Kesselman". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  15. ^ http://suicidegirls.com/members/Chris_Gore/
  16. ^ http://suicidegirls.com/boards/Everything+SG/110625/
  17. ^ SuicideGirls. "SG Removing Pictures, You Can Thank Bush". Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  18. ^ SuicideGirls. "*cough* candyass *cough*". Retrieved 2007-02-01.
  19. ^ "SuicideGirls Gone AWOL" by Randy Dotinga, Wired September 28, 2005.
  20. ^ a b "Suicide Defense" by Ian Demsky, Willamette Week, January 11, 2006. Cite error: The named reference "Defense" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  21. ^ SuicideGirls. "Model_Agreement" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-01-14.
  22. ^ SuicideGirls. "model testimonial". Retrieved 2007-04-19.
  23. ^ "Suicide Girls Gone Mad" by Esther Haynes, Jane
  24. ^ a b "Lithium Picnic Legal Fund" by Apneatic, Lithium Picnic LiveJournal Community, February 13, 2007.
  25. ^ "SuicideGirls vs. Lithium Picnic", Fleshbot, February 16, 2007.
  26. ^ "SuicideGirls Sues Lithium Picnic Photographer Philip Warner" by Justin Bourne, AVN Online, June 15, 2007.
  27. ^ SuicideGirls. "Zia". Retrieved 2007-02-01.
  28. ^ "We are removing NANA's "nanohana" set" by Missy Suicide, SuicideGirls board, October 16, 2007, 9:36 AM.
  29. ^ "We are removing NANA's "nanohana" set" by Missy Suicide, SuicideGirls board, October 16, 2007, 1:26 PM.

External links

Critics

Articles

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