Suicide Girls Live Burlesque Show

The adult sex industry barely has to lift a finger to separate people from their cash. But the savviest skin purveyors realize they can maximize profits by selling the fantasy of availability. Successful strippers aren't just skilled at shakin' the ol' funbags -- they chitchat the easy marks between sets, deluding them into thinking they actually like them, and might even be dateable.

The mega-popular punk-porn Web site SuicideGirls.com makes its dime off a fairly similar illusion, one geared toward underground or "underground-curious" types. Its cadre of tattooed-and-pierced flesh-barers doesn't look like Vivid Video starlets so much as those chicks at the Yeah Yeah Yeahs show the other night. And by creating a "community" through spicing up each model's photo spreads with a Friendster-like profile and blog -- plus offering members the ability to interact with them via comments and bulletin boards -- bam! Couldn't be easier to squeeze greenbacks from poor saps suckered into the myth of a personal connection with their naked counterculture dream girl.

The tepid Suicide Girls Live Burlesque Show is merely the site's traveling promotional arm, dangling eight singularly named models (equipped with chocolate syrup, duct tape for their nipples, and questionable-at-best stage moves) in front of horny hipsters; a relatively tame display designed to whet appetites for the more revealing visions available online. For a recurring monthly fee, of course.