Profit in a tangled web

Portland’s SuicideGirls.com caters to a goth clientele

By Jim Redden

The Portland Tribune, Apr 2, 2002, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Portland has more X-rated businesses per capita than any other American city. This report is part of an occasional series that explores the issues raised by the proliferation of strip clubs, live modeling studios, adult video stores and other sexually oriented businesses in the metropolitan area.

Sex sells Ñ even to young hipsters with heavy black tattoos and stainless steel nose rings.

Portland is home to several X-rated Internet Web sites. The majority promote local strip clubs, adult entertainment guides and even a swingers’ dating service called Casual Sex. Most feature nude pictures of local exotic dancers or so-called escorts, whom police suspect are actually prostitutes.

The number of local porn sites is no surprise. Portland has more adult businesses than any other American city, so it’s only natural that some of them are using the Internet to promote themselves.

But the local site receiving the most attention offers nude pictures of young women with bold tattoos, body piercings and multicolored hair. The site casts itself as an online adult club for the “goth” community, a youth subculture obsessed with dark clothes, body art, serial killers, and angst-ridden music and movies.

The site is called SuicideGirls.com, a name that evokes images of sad young women broken by fast living and unrequited love. It was recently profiled on ABC’s “Nightline” as a hip alternative to traditional hardcore sites.

SuicideGirls.com currently features online photos of 45 women, 30 of whom live in Portland. The other models e-mail their pictures to the site from states and countries as far away as Finland.

The local people behind the site work hard to create an air of mystery about themselves. No one reveals real identities, preferring to hide between fictitious names. The two owners call themselves Spooky and Missy. The models go by names such as Zona, Echo, Lux and Max.

Although Spooky and Missy do not consider their site to be part of the Portland sex industry, they have promoted it in local adult entertainment guides and among the women who dance in local strip clubs.

Four of their Portland models work as exotic dancers, said Spooky, the 25-year-old site designer who cultivates a short-haired, goateed bohemian look. The rest hold low-paying jobs and spend much of their free time at raves or rock clubs, he says.

In addition to the nude photos, most of the models also maintain online journals that chronicle lives filled with self-discoveries, late-night parties and personal betrayals.

“This is my 15 minutes of fame,” said Veronica, a slender 21-year-old model with piercing eyes and a steel ring through her lower lip. “It’s my history, like a scrapbook I can look back at and say, ‘That’s what it was like when I was 21 and hanging out in Portland and having a good time.’ ”

Although the site only has been online for six months, it’s already breaking even, Spooky said. The money comes from subscribers who pay $9 a month for more features than are available to the general public.

“We’ve already grossed more than $80,000, and the revenue is doubling every month,” Spooky said.

Missy insists that the site is not pornographic, however. The 22-year-old photographer noted that none of the pictures depict real or simulated sex. Although some of the models appear naked or semiclothed in short online videos, they do not perform sexual acts. Instead, they talk about their likes and dislikes, and their lives in Portland.

“The women aren’t being objectified,” said Missy, whose librarian-style glasses contrast with her nose ring and pink hair. “They are presenting themselves as they choose. They wear what they want and do what they want.”

Not everyone agrees with that assessment. Brent Borchers, a local anti-pornography activist, is shocked by both the name and content of the site. Borchers says the introductory text alone made the hair on the back of his neck bristle and his blood boil.

“There’s got to be something wrong with this,” said Borchers, leader of a citizens group called Siege that wants to shut down local adult businesses. “They’re commercializing sex, death and mayhem and making money off it.”

Larry Kochever, acting head of the Portland Police Bureau’s drugs and vice division, said there’s nothing illegal about the site; free speech provisions of the Oregon Constitution protect virtually all displays of nudity except those involving children.

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