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Jane Magazine's Esther Haynes Profiles Suicide Girls

A friend writes: "I thought you might find a recent article in Jane magazine (a woman's fashion mag) about Suicidegirls.com interesting. There's a lot of controversy about Suicide Girls sending lawyers after models for breaking their contract, models complaining of being exploited by the site-- all that fun stuff. It's in the February [2006] issue, with Alicia Keys on the cover."

I got a hold of the article. It claims that half the members of suicidegirls.com are young women. No way.

The name "SuicideGirls" comes from the novel Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk. A character puts up his home phone number as a suicide hotline. At times, he encourages the girls who call to shoot themselves. Some do.

Here are excerpts from Jane's article:

...[W]hat they [ex-Suicide Girls] once thought was an artsy celebration of nonmainstream beauty they now think is just another sleazy porn site.

"I had always been very antiporn. But at first I felt that, 'Wow, they did porn correctly -- not so dirty, and non-exploitational.' I later felt really fooled." Still, many ferociously loyal members maintain they'd never felt as empowered and confident as they did when they started modeling for SuicideGirls. So which is it -- a revolutionary pro-woman soft-core community or just another smut shop for boys?"

...Suicidegirls.com is a business, and maybe it's a testament to the decency of the site that its models had such faith in it to begin with (and hundreds still do). Because as sweet and cool as everyone is, it's hard to deny that what it all comes down to is this: making money off flesh. Which leads me to wonder if perhaps the real question is simply, Can there ever be a hetero soft-core site that's universally considered fair and empowering to women -- even if fair, empowered women are running it?

When I throw this out to the former SuicideGirls at Cheebo, Voltaire answers: "I wouldn't say any of this is empowering. How is selling your pussy empowering?"

I raise my eyebrows and look around for a response from the other girls. No one says a word.

Jay writes 4/28/06:

Granted, Suicide Girls is softcore, but it's still a major player in alt-porn.

Missy told me that "I don’t think that we’re part of the porn industry. Their opinion of my business has no bearing. Suicide Girls is about beautiful photos of women that don’t fit into the mainstream."

You're probably aware of the exodus that happened over there in September. It taught me a lot about the sorts of people that run the site over there and how they are in deep, deep denial about their identity as a porn site, and how it often forces them to have a different story for everybody, from the press to their members and models. And it also means that I get word whenever the latest outrage happens over there.

The latest issue surrounds a discovery that a Tarzana-based company called Content Pin-up (www.contentpinup.com) is currently selling photos of the models for $500. Now basically, one of the main selling points of SG to its prospective models - many who would never otherwise think of getting into porn and some who have somehow convinced themselves that SG is not porn - is that their images, while wholly owned by SG, will not be handed over to the "adult portals of hell," to quote programmer/partner Olivia Ball, a self-described "feminist" who has for some reason disappeared from the site as of late after years of being very active on it. An unwelcome revelation such as this tends to undermime such claims.

Anyway, my source sent me two great examples of how SG continues to talk out of both sides of their neck.

First is co-founder Selena Mooney's (Missy Suicide) declaration to the girls on the matter.

And here's a letter, purportedly written by SG's lawyer, Paul E. Loving, a person I have had the dubious privilege of meeting one night, to Content Pinup.

Not sure who this "third party" is that Content Pinup paid to get these photos, but I have to admit, I am interested to know.

I sent this over to XBiz, who found it interesting, but not really as "newsy" as they'd like. That's fine - this is much more informational. At this point, I'd just be happy to get this out there. Unfortunately, I doubt the sorts of people who need to see this the most - mainly the young women seduced by the positive reports from mainstream media outlets on SG - even know to read your blog. But it's better than nothing.