My take on the suicide girls
3:56 p.m. - 2006-02-09
When I first heard about the Suicide Girls it sounded great to me. Alternative Girls taking soft-porn pin up style pictures because they wanted to and were comfortable with their sexuality. A site that claimed to be empowering, to treat these women as people with opinions and viewpoints. Sounded completely different to the usual sites, where women are shown as a sexual object, nothing more. "Sign me up!" I would have cried had I the confidence to show off my body.
I viewed the site and personally I was disappointed. The models were mostly caucasian, slim, very pretty...apart from the piercings and tattoos, not so alternative from normal porn in my opinion. I was expecting something different, women of all shapes, sizes and races...women I could relate to, whose flaws made them even more beautiful in my eyes.
Now it appears there is a darker side to the suicide girls. It seems the site is not actually run by a woman ("missy suicide" aka Selene Mooney) but by a man ("spooky suicide" aka Sean Suhl). I would have no problem with a man running this site if it still achieved what it claimed and was woman friendly.
However it is now claimed that he mistreated the models, censored them, and did not carry out proper business practises.
The ex-models are upset and doing their best to warn other potential models not to join.
If their claims are true, I hope the site is shut-down. If the claims are untrue then they will be proved to be so.
It seems the dream has died but I live in hope for a website that will live up to it's feminist claims.
If you want to read more about the claims the models have made, there is a fantastic article in the current issue of Bust
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