New in Books

Back in 2001, when the internet was fresh and new and exciting, SuicideGirls promised to, um, single-handedly turn the porn industry—and what we talk about when we talk about beauty—on its head. The partially women-owned business seemed practically feminist, and the tattooed and pierced naked ladies were utterly unlike anything you could see in Playboy or Penthouse or literally any of the other stroke mags available at the time. But in 2005, 30 models left the site in protest of SG’s decidedly noninnovative business model. And just about every porn site has some tattooed and pierced models at least tucked away in a little ghetto now.

As if to celebrate its ascension to the smutty establishment, SuicideGirls has released a gi-gantic, glossy coffee-table book full of photos of its models (helpfully arranged by geographic location so readers can entertain area-appropriate masturbation fantasies). It’s a tombstone-sized tribute to the website’s mainstream assimilation. There’s no Redefined Beauty here: Under the Hot Topic consumerist-chic trappings, all the models are traditionally gorgeous, most with large breasts and girly makeup. There’s not one girl who could charitably be defined as “chubby,” nor are there any skinny women here. And they’re all white. Wait, not 100 percent of them; there’s an Indian chick somewhere near the back—what’s her name again? Oh, right. India. What an awful book.