SuicideGirls is the name of a website and its spin-off media and merchandise, featuring erotica and text profiles of goth, punk, and emo -styled young women who themselves are known as the "SuicideGirls". A subsection of similarly styled "SuicideBoys" has also been added to the site. The site is simultaneously intended as an homage to classic pin-up art and a portrayal of alternative images of beauty. Many have glum expressions, dyed hair, multiple piercings, and / or tattoos, in contrast to the often tanned, sillicone-enhanced, bleached-blondes of stereotypical pornography. It additionally hosts an online community with member profiles and message boards, and features interviews with major figures in popular and alternative culture. Most of the site is accessible to pay subscribers only. As a trademark used on the website and its related merchandise and media, and as a label for the women associated with all, the term "SuicideGirls" is a single word, though this camel notation is often violated by external sources who split it into two words.
The SuicideGirls website and concept was created by SG Services, Inc. company president "Sean Suicide" (Sean Suhl) and photographer "Missy Suicide" (a still unidentified former girlfriend of Sean's) in late 2001, based in Portland, Oregon. They perhaps facetiously claim they started the site "just to see hot punk rock girls naked." Missy has also stated that the purpose of the site is to give women control over how their sexuality is depicted. The term "suicide girl" itself is often credited to a usage by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, in his novel Survivor, though this has been denied by Sean, who claims to be unable to remember the source of the name. The use of "suicide" as a pun for those who "dyed by their own hand" (the source of the song title "Suicide Blonde" by INXS) may also have been relevant.
The website now features over four hundred SuicideGirls, each billed simply under a first name or one-word nickname. They are represented by nude photo shoots as well as self-written profiles and journal entries that they usually must keep updating in order to keep their images from being pulled from the site. The SuicideGirls themselves have control over which images are included of them and how they are portrayed. The site does not rely on model searches, but rather reviews submissions from women who want to be a part of the website, at the rate of around 200 a week from all over the world; only one or two of these are typically accepted, though starting in August 2004 and as of the end of September, a new girl has been added daily.
Suhl has claimed that 55 percent of the paid subscribers 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. Website members are often active in organizing meetings and events offline, and the company also sponsors many itself.
SuicideGirls has branched out into a coffee table book printing images and SuicideGirl profiles from the website, and a travelling burlesque show featuring several of the SuicideGirls. 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 cancelled. SuicideGirls also had a brief partnership with Playboy magazine, which regularly featured SuicideGirls on its own website.
In the interest of fairness, a SuicideBoys group was added as a subgroup of the main site. The same framework is applied to potential male models, focusing on attractive punk and emo guys. Within the many member groups existing on the website, covering topics from specific people to regional notes, the over 4500-member SuicideBoys is among the most popular, along with the "potential model" thread.
SuicideBoys (and -Girls) equivalents have appeared in other places on the web as well, including on some LiveJournal communities.
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 an HBO special and on Nightline. Rock musician Courtney Love is a member of the site, and frequently leaves "rambling, stream-of-consciousness posts on the site." She also brought along several SuicideGirls during an appearance on MTV. Sixty-six SuicideGirls appeared in the PROBOT music video, "Shake Your Blood".