I guess the foundation for this all began with my upbringing. It was only my mom and myself, and my mother is an ardent feminist (and when I saw that, I don't mean the kind of feminism where we burn bras and shun all men and say that all heterosexual sex is rape, etc.) I mean more along the lines of sex-positive feminism. I learned that it was fine to want to be beautiful and it was good to not be ashamed of my sensuality, because that's such a huge part of what humans are. But I was also told that smarts and hard work were just as important. Add to the fact that I was very boyish as a wee one, and often preferred to play with superheroes instead of dolls; there was no gender-izing of what I was into and what I wanted.

I learned in grade eight that many other girls did not grow up with this kind of mentality. It was in social studies class, and we were reading a recent newspaper article about the wage gap between males and females. I remember being so angry as we read this, that at one point I just blurted out, "that is bullshit!" (I swore a lot in school, haha.)

This girl sitting next to me in class turns and looks at me as if I have three friggin heads and then asks, with a very affected, uppity tone: "are you a feminist?"

I replied, "yeah. Why aren't you?" I mean, this was something that was going to effect all us girls in the near future. I couldn't understand why more of them weren't angry about it.

The next four years were not any better. There was a lot of body policing, slut shaming, gender policing and just all out horribleness between the majority of girls, and there were a lot of girls with eating disorders. I remember after graduation, I was inundated with Facebook messages from a lot of these girls asking why I couldn't just look "normal" and that I "ruined graduation" because I just looked so "fucking weird". (I had a hot pink mohawk at the time.) Of course, it's hard to take insults seriously when it's all written in shit-for-brains language, but it's what I had to live with for all of high school.

Add to the fact that as a teen, I didn't feel that there were many positive female role models within the pop-cultural zeitgeist (who everyone knew by name), except for maybe Kat Von D. But what I did have were the SuicideGirls.

This would have been about 2006, and me being fifteen at the time, obviously couldn't get a subscription to a soft-porn site. But because this is the internet, I had random blogs to go to to get my SG fix. Most of the time I wouldn't even look at them to get off. But I just thought that despite whatever supposed "flaws" mainstream would say these women had - being of colour, being too "big", having body modifications, coloured hair, etc. I just thought these were some of the most interested and courageous and beautiful women ever.

I say courageous because as a woman, we are subjected to a lot of gender policing and double standards. There is a lot of slut shaming, so to being able to take control of how your sexuality is portrayed in this type of culture, I thought was very brave.

I remember thinking to myself, "man, I wish I was that brave. I wish I was that beautiful."

Spring forward to 2010. It was just after I turned 19, and I was dicking around on Facebook, when I come across a link to the model application of the SuicideGirls Facebook page. I had nothing better to do, so I thought, eh, why not. I honestly didn't expect a reply because I didn't have many tattoos at the time. So it came as a shock when, less than six hours later, I get an email back saying that they liked me!

I didn't have great self-esteem so at the time, that was honestly enough for me. So I left the application alone.

About three weeks later, I get an email again, this time saying "we really actually like you and want you to do a set. We've referred you to Cherry."

This knocked me off my feet. I slept on it a bit more, still unsure if I was ready for it. (I have a lot of scars on my back due to a nasty bout of chickenpox later in life, so I was very self conscious about it. I've since been undergoing treatments to lighten them.) But I went through with it in the end, and I'm glad I did or else I wouldn't be here. And if someone a year and a half ago told me I would be where I am, I never would have believed them.

Around the same time I got into SG, I was reading a lot of feminist literature. I have been learning how to deal with oppressive language and gender specific slurs and and internalized misogyny. I'm really bummed that my university doesn't offer a gender studies course, although my cool teacher who had us do our inspirations is working on a queer film course, which I am definitely going to be taking. As a side note, there are a couple girls in my class who are prospective Hopefuls, one of whom told me that I had inspired her to get into it.

Being part of a community such as this one has helped me grow massively as a person who I always wanted to be. Becoming a SuicideGirl was honestly a dream come true.

Mostly.