“The Suicide Girls? Oh yeah, I know them,” exclaim some people whom I’ve spoken to in casual conversation. “Naked tattooed girls, right?”
This sweeping statement is far from erroneous – there are, indeed, naked tattoo girls on the site, and the most apparent misconception of Suicide Girls is that it is a porn site. But the members of the site beg to differ: To them, Suicide Girls is both platform and safe space, where like-minded people can come together online to appreciate ‘alternate forms of beauty’.
I was welcomed into the community shortly after creating a profile, making my presence known on the site, and actively commenting on blog posts and forum discussions. The topics we discussed ranged from a Suicide Girl’s newest photo set to the latest episode of The Walking Dead.
The overwhelming positivity on the site – the flow of encouraging comments and replies to random members’ blog posts – was a stark contrast to the criticism and negativity that one can experience in the offline world. There was no hostility when I broadcasted my intention to speak to members of the site, as part of my research on their subculture. Instead, there was an outpouring of support, with many members eager to help.
As a result, I was fortunate enough to speak to over 10 members on Skype, and have face-to-face meet-ups with 7 members from cities across the globe. These are their stories.
THE ORIGINS OF SUICIDE GIRLS
In 2002, Missy, an Oregon-native, decided to form an online community to bring deviants together.
She was having coffee with her friend [and soon-to-be co-founder] Sean Suhl (aka Spooky), in her apartment in Portland. Their conversation soon shifted to their mutual admiration of tattooed women, and the fact that many tattooed people they knew wouldn’t classify themselves as beautiful.
They decided to celebrate this form of beauty and way of thinking by creating a community online, centred around nude pin-up photographs of girls, with an emphasis on highlighting their tattoos. And thus, Suicide Girls was born.
“The term ‘Suicide Girls’ was taken from Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor, published in 1990,” Missy told me over email. “It was about girls who chose to commit social suicide by not fitting in. I’ve always hated the term ‘alternative’. It makes me bristle. Alternative to what?”
In Missy’s terms, committing social suicide is choosing not to fit in, or simply recognising the fact that you don’t care, and don’t care to try. “Nobody really claims their identity from the subgenre of music they listen to anymore,” she elaborated. “Even then, it wasn’t like you were just punk rock or hip-hop. I needed a catch-all phrase that embodied the attitude, as opposed to the very specific niche elements.”
GLOBAL SAFE SPACES
Over 15 years, suicidegirls.com has grown significantly in its popularity among misfits. They find the site a conduit, an alternate reality where they can find themselves a home.
These ‘deviants’ who make up the Suicide Girls community shy away from societal conventions and are generally individuals who choose to indulge in body modification – tattoos and piercings. In terms of attitudes, they prefer a touch of rebellion and unorthodoxy – be it in music, art or sex.
Cjwelsh, a male member, recounts his bewilderment upon joining the community and realising that there were others like him in Melbourne. “It was amazing to meet the very few like-minded people in my hometown. The people I went to school with were very interested in the classic styles of beauty – blond hair, big tits – that sort of thing. That really wasn’t my schtick. And it was interesting to realise that [my preferences] didn’t make me weird or a freak. Or if it did, [at least] there were other freaks out there.”
“It’s not all about sex or about ‘naked’. It’s a lot about socks or computer games or onesies… and not in a sexual way,” commented Lievanec, a Slovenian Suicide Girl photographer. “If you just want to see naked girls you don’t need a subscription [on Suicide Girls]. Just go on a bit torrent site and it’s there. I’m sure that most tattooed girls get judged, mocked, or harassed at least once in their lives. This is a safe place, where everyone is the same.”
Sucidegirls.com leverages on what an online community does best – bringing people from all over the world to meet each other, regardless of race, country or background. The members of the site are mostly from the US or Europe, but there are a few who are in Asia. Almost_missed is a 25-year-old male from Singapore who found the site a couple of years ago.
“Why the website is a safe haven for people like me is because I don’t like conformity,” he shares. “Some of [the members] hide away our real personalities because we have to fit into society to survive. You know how people are themselves when they’re alone? On the site, I can show my real personality. There is no prejudice, no judgement.”
REBIRTH, NOT DEATH
Although suicidegirls.com is not a support group per se, it does function as a safe haven: Within its confines, the tattooed, pierced, and marginalised are accepted, if not celebrated. The community promises its users escape from a reality that does not allow them to be comfortable in their own skin.
Besides Suicide Girls, there is possibly no other platform that will allow a body that has gone under the knife to be depicted without aversion, as it does not fit typical representations of a beautiful body.
Chani, a 36-year-old Suicide Girl hopeful who went through a mastectomy due to breast cancer, had a photographer take nude pin-up photographs of herself, and shared it on her page:
“It was the most amazing and liberating experience I could have ever thought of,” she told me. “Honestly it was the best thing. It really helped me to regain my sense of feeling sexy and normal. I didn’t care how people would look at it. I just wanted to show people that I’ve been through this. I have been through this trauma. And I want the whole world to know that you can come out perfectly fine.”
Another member of the website, marcusmassacre, 29-year-old male from Nebraska, uses the site to put up semi-naked photos of himself.
“It’s horrible here,” he shared. “I live in the middle of Nebraska, where I can be in a room full of 30 people and feel absolutely alone. I don’t know if anyone can relate to that. I need beauty, I need art. [That’s] what the site represents. You don’t run into tattooed people openly expressing who they are and being artistic. I don’t see that here.”
After he shared photographs of himself and had torrents of praise flowing in, marcusmassacre’s self-confidence was elevated. “I never knew how beautiful I was until people told me that.” His newfound self-confidence led to him pursuing modelling as a side job.
The Suicide Girls themselves? They’ve managed to build a solidarity that has solidified into friendships offline. Clio – who has been a suicide girl for 10 years – testifies to this: “Over the years I met over 200 suicide girls, as well as members and staff. Really interesting people from all over the world.”
“We’ve had hundreds of couples meet on the site and get married,” Missy shares, of the communal nature of the site. “Babies have been born because their parents met on SuicideGirls. Countless friendships have been made, and thousands of business partnerships and bands have formed.”
A DIGITAL UTOPIA
Suicide Girls is more than a site with nude photos of tattooed girls: it is a much-needed platform for those that need a place of solace. The community helps people who think differently to flesh out (pun intended) views that may not be accepted by the majority.
It enables misfits to handle the portion of their identity that they’re unable to reconcile with their surroundings. Many of my respondents managed to make friends in real life after connecting on the site, and that strengthened their individual personalities, instead of letting that part of themselves erode into the social norms they faced offline.
When we choose to commit ‘social suicide’, we need to know that we are not alone. And perhaps this is the only solution, until the world changes.
