I cannot remember when I actually subscribed to SG, but my profile states it was 2004, so I thought it would be worth writing down some personal thoughts about how SG and I developed over time.
Back in the day as a late-teen/young twen, I was initially mostly interested in piercings. During civil service (early 20'th), I decided that I wanted to get tattoos, too, but start slowly to not collect some badly-done small patches of ink with no real concept. That was about the time I subscribed to SG and found a plethora of great images of piercings and tattoos. As I grew up in small suburbs, body modification of any kind wasn't something common around me. In that regard, I couldn't grow along with my local community.
Things changed over time: As much as I loved piercings in general, I hated septum piercings. Today, these are actually one of my most loved piercing types! I didn't really appreciate tattoos at first, because I wasn't sure I'd stand how permanent they were. Some years later, that commitment was what I loved most!
Growing older, I experimented with things. Doing play piercings with thin needles, wearing a skirt, loving the feel of Latex, getting my first tattoo (mid-thirties), tinking long about a tongue split (after two failed attempts where "life happens" came in between, maybe my next attempt in January 2025 will finally give me a split.)
During most of that (bodymod-related) development time, SG was there. I didn't really write a lot here: a few blog entries, a few comments on sets, some posts to a few groups. Back in the day, there was an active SGgermany group, which I liked a lot. Even attended to a few meetings with people from that group. While SG's social impact on myself was limited, all the images helped me to grow.
Looking back at all these years, SG also changed a lot. (When I refer to "SGs" or "Models" here, I always mean models that had a Set-of-the-Day as well as those submitting hopeful sets. The same is ment for "sets" and "albums", which include Set-of-the-Day sets and all hopeful sets.) In its early days, many sets had a quite "basic" quality. Bad lighting, bad crops, models with no experience for good poses, ... But on the other hand, there were some real marvels published, where there were drawings done onto the images etc. Back in the day, waiting for those sets actually kept me subscribed! In contrast to today, it seems to me that less such "brave" sets are posted. But on the other hand, these days most sets are really well-done. Lights are perfect, poses are perfect, crops are good. Actually, it seems that especially on poses, models and/or photographers learned what's teasing to the viewer to keep viewer's eyes catched.
Everybody has their preferences, what they like/dislike, so here are mine: I totally fall for redheaded models. I love septum piercings (quite common), nipples (common as well), lower navel piercings (quite rare), labia rings (very rare for no known reason) and corsets (somewhat rare, but almost always not tight-laced and usually not properly fitting the model.) Top navel piercings (too common) and christina piercings (common as well) are something that I don't really like. Tongue splits catch my eye as well, and these are unexpectedly common on SG models! I think over time I counted 116 models that got their tongues split, some even having venom piercings. That's a lot, given that it's a mod that will make you suffer for some time... Latex is also shown rarely in sets, which makes me wonder, too.
How will SG and I develop during the next years? Who knows?! I for sure will get my tongue split at some time, will get more ink. SG itself didn't change a lot during the last years and I think that's a good thing! It's a well-working site for publishing great albums. There are some rough corners or features I'd wish for: Sometimes, members/models change their name, which sometimes makes it hard to find them (knowing their former name.) Would be great to have a list of those name changes. (There's a group thread somewhere trying to track name changes, but that's tedious...) Also, I realized not too long ago that (and how/why) some sets vanish. (In the past, there were a few _phantasic_ sets that suddenly went missing, like a set by @kimbra where she shows her gorgeous full front tattoo, or a set by @mnemozyne that was just sweet like sugar.) I really miss those sets and thought that it was a rare incident where a set went missing, but it seems any model can request a set to be taken down three months after it has been published as a hopeful / sg set, as long as it hasn't been published as a Set of the Day. That would be my second feature request: Show which sets were taken down. Either before taking them down (which may be a bad idea, calling for the Streisand effect), but at least once they're removed. A final third feature would be a change on how one could swipe through album images. I usually use the view where you can use the left/right cursor keys for jumping to the previous/next image (as a PC user), but I usually only stay at an image for just a split second. The sliding effect might actually be the slowest part there, and I'd love to be able to switch it off. Just ... show the next image without any transition effect.
So after 20 years, it's time to say: Thank you! To the site owners as well as (especially) to all the models who show their beauty, taking the risk of being naked on the Internet. You, dear models, are the real heroes here!
