Sexual Harassment: “Please God. Please make it stop.”

I have been forced to leave Cairo prematurely following a horrific sexual and physical attack in Tahrir Square.

The atmosphere was one of jubilation, excitement, and happiness as I walked, accompanied by two male companions for safety along Kasr El Nil bridge. I had had an awful day, caused by problems in personal relationships, so I was so happy to be in such a wonderful environment, getting such amazing footage. Women, children and fathers smiled, waved, and cheered happily at the camera, calling out the widely used phrase “welcome to Egypt! Welcome!”. Fireworks lit up the sky. It was a moving and captivating experience.

Just as I realised I had reached the end of the bridge, I noticed the crowd became thicker, and decided immediately to turn around to avoid Tahrir Square. My friends and I tried to leave. I tried to put my camera back in my rucksack.

But in a split second, everything changed. Men had been groping me for a while, but suddenly, something shifted. I found myself being dragged from my male friend, groped all over, with increasing force and aggression. I screamed. I could see what was happening and I saw that I was powerless to stop it. I couldn’t believe I had got into this situation.
My friend did everything he could to hold onto me. But hundreds of men were dragging me away, kicking and screaming. I was pushed onto a small platform as the crowd surged, where I was hunched over, determined to protect my camera. But it was no use. My camera was snatched from my grasp. My rucksack was torn from my back – it was so crowded that I didn’t even feel it. The mob stumbled off the platform – I twisted my ankle.

Men began to rip off my clothes. I was stripped naked. Their insatiable appetite to hurt me heightened. These men, hundreds of them, had turned from humans to animals.
Hundreds of men pulled my limbs apart and threw me around. They were scratching and clenching my breasts and forcing their fingers inside me in every possible way. So many men. All I could see was leering faces, more and more faces sneering and jeering as I was tossed around like fresh meat among starving lions.

I shouted “salam! Salam! Allah! Allah!”. In my desperate state I also shouted “ma’is salaama!” which actually means “goodbye” – just about the worst possible thing to say to a horde of men trying to ruin me. I might as well have yelled “goodbye cruel world! Down I go!”

A small minority of men, just a couple at first, tried to protect me and guide me to a tent. The tent was crushed, its contents scattered into shards all over the ground. I was barefoot as they stole my nice new shoes. I was tossed around once more, being violated every second. I was dragged naked across the dirty ground. Men pulled my blonde hair.
The men trying to protect me tried to guide me into another tent. I was able to scramble onto the ground.I sat with my back against a chair and surveyed the surging mob. Although a few men tried to form a human shield around me, offering me rags to cover my bruised body, men were still able to touch me. There were just too many.

I felt surprisingly calm. I understood what was happening and just transcended into a detached state of mind. I gazed around at the bared teeth and raging eyes. The tent began to collapse and I was cloaked in a huge sheet. I was struggling to breathe. One man lifted a tent pole and attempted to strike me with it.

At this point, I said aloud to myself, calmly, over and over, “please God. Please make it stop. Please God. Please make it stop.”
I’m not religious. But at times of desperation, we all feel compelled to appeal to some higher power to save us. It’s human nature. The need to feel safe and loved is what compels many to reach for religion in the first place.

An ambulance forced its way through the crowd. It opened its doors, and was invaded by tens of men. It closed up and drove away.

I began to think, “maybe this is just it. Maybe this is how I go, how I die. I’ve had a good life. Whether I live or die, this will all be over soon. Maybe this is my punishment for some of the emotional pain I’ve caused others through some foolish mistakes and poor judgement recently. I hope it’s quick. I hope I die before they rape me.”
I looked up and saw a couple of women in burkas scattered around. They looked at me blankly, then looked away.

After 5-10 minutes, my friend managed to convince people inside a medical tent to form a pathway through the crowd to guide me into the tent. During transit I was mauled and invaded.

I reached the tent and saw my friend Callum. Muslim women surrounded me and frantically tried to cover my naked body. I fell to the ground and apparently temporarily lost consciousness.

The women told me the attack was motivated by rumours spread by trouble-making thugs that I was a foreign spy, following a national advertising campaign warning of the dangers of foreigners. But if that was the cause, it was only really used as a pretext, an excuse.
The men outside remained thirsty for blood; their prey had been cruelly snatched from their grasp. They peered in, so I had to duck down and hide. They attempted to attack the tent, and those inside began making a barricade out of chairs. They wanted my blood.
Women were crying and telling me “this is not Egypt! This is not Islam! 

Please, please do not think this is what Egypt is!” I reassured her that I knew that was the case, that I loved Egypt and its culture and people, and the innate peacefulness of moderate Islam. She appeared stunned. But I’m not really a vengeful person and I could see through the situation. This vicious act was not representative of the place I had come to know and love.

After much heated debate, it was decided that Callum and I would leave separately to avoid attracting attention. I was disguised in a burka and men’s clothes and ordered to hold the hand of an Egyptian stranger who would pretend to be my husband. I was terrified but I could see it was the only way out, and had to decide to trust him.
He pulled me through the crowds out of the back of the tent. He told me: “don’t cry. Do not cry. Look normal.”

I was barefoot, dodging broken glass and debris, trawling through mud and dirt. My inner reserves of strength kicked in, and I stopped crying and just thought “keep calm and carry on.”

My trousers had clearly belonged to someone much fatter, and were falling down.
I thought I was being led to an ambulance, or to hospital. The man sat me down by the side of the road, still ordering me not to cry. Eventually, his friends turned up, with Callum. They explained that they couldn’t take us to hospital since they might be arrested if they were seen with us.

One man helpfully suggested: “you want to go to McDonalds? Get some food?” I declined this generous offer of culinary compensation for the evening’s events. Surprisingly, I wasn’t really in the mood for a Big Mac.

Callum and I went on our way. We eventually hailed a taxi. Upon reaching a government hospital downtown, we tried to explain the situation. People stared at us blankly, sloping around the corridors. We were turned away and told to go to a nearby hospital instead. Nobody would take us; we just had to walk there.

Upon arrival, I was eventually ushered into a small cubicle. Two men asked “are you pregnant? Married? A virgin?” They seemed displeased by my response of “no”.
They led me back outside to sit with Callum. I was refused examination and treatment. Eventually I decided I’d just have to check for damage myself. I went to the bathroom and couldn’t believe the reflection. I was dirty, wounded, with hair like a tramp and eyes wide with shock.

For 2-3 hours, people strolled past us, a couple of them making vague attempts at phonecalls to the embassy. At every stage, Callum did everything in his power to speed up the process and talk sense into everyone. It was thanks to him that the people in the medical tent saved me. He effectively saved my life.

Somehow, we ended up with the embassy thinking we were at the police station, the hospital staff not realising we were still at the hospital, and the police thinking we were…god knows where.

I was sat in a room full of men. One of them seemed to be taking a photo of me. I’m not sure why, as I wasn’t exactly looking glamorous. It all made my heart race.
It was Callum’s phonecalls (he had to use other people’s phones as both of ours had been stolen) that bore fruit. Finally our friends turned up with a lady from the embassy. I was taken to a private hospital where a doctor’s first question was “are you married?”, which is of course the most important question to be asking a victim of mass sexual abuse.
He and a female nurse (who only reluctantly kept me covered up) looked briefly at the damage and just wandered off, saying that because I didn’t have internal bleeding, they couldn’t do anything. A useful trip, that was.

Finally, I was taken home by my friends, and put to bed. I didn’t want to tell my family right away, as I knew it would destroy them.

Yesterday, I had a proper examination and darted around sorting things out, spending an eternity giving a police report. People with me were reduced to tears, but I didn’t real feel like crying. People kept telling me “you’re being so brave”, but I just felt like getting on with it. Maybe it’ll catch up with me in a few days, I don’t know.

A few things yesterday made me realise the impact this has had on me. During the examination, which was carried out by a woman, I was crying and shaking. To have someone touch me so soon after the event was terrifying.

Later, I couldn’t bear to be around groups of Egyptian men. And when it got dark, I panicked, and couldn’t bear to look any man in the eye. I clung to Callum all day. As we drove around Cairo, I couldn’t help but think “of all the people we’ve driven past today, one of them must have been in that crowd of hundreds last night. Just one.”

I am determined to continue with my documentary at some point. I have no equipment, (not even any of my photos) am nervous about the possibility of not getting my insurance to cover all the equipment and everything taken from me, and no money to resume the process. But I’ll get there. I have to find a silver lining to this experience. I have to spread awareness; it is my duty to do so. I have to do this; I will not be driven into submission. I will overcome this and come back stronger and wiser. My documentary will be fuelled by my passion to help make people aware of just how serious this issue is, and that it’s not just a passing news story that briefly gets people’s attention then is forgotten. This is a consistent trend and it has to stop. Arab women, western women – there are so many sufferers.

I am determined to return to this wonderful country and city that I love, and meet its people once again. I am determined to challenge the stereotypes and preconceptions that people have of Arab women back in the UK and the US. I have so much to say, and I will say it, in time.

So, to anyone taking risks, whether in the UK or worldwide, please, take care, and don’t make the same mistakes. Don’t be swept up in a wave of euphoria. Don’t let anything cloud your judgement. I was not focused enough because I was distracted by the wonderful atmosphere which was cheering me up after a difficult day.

But don’t let yourself become a victim. Don’t let bad experiences ruin your life and determine your future. One of the worst things two nights ago was that I had never felt so powerless. I had no control and I was violated. But now I can take control and rebuild my confidence, and learn from my experience.

Nothing, and nobody, will hold me back. When I’m ready, I’ll finish this. The show must go on.
Thank you very much for reading.

Little Housewife on the prairie

Little Housewife on the prairie

The Husband and I just got back from our Christmas excursion to his family house.  There was massive amounts of food, pillaged wrapping paper everywhere, and it was a lot of fun.  Then there was this one night..

Let me set the scene for you.  You see, The Husband's family owns a ton of land.  They do not actually farm the land since The Father-in-law is a doctor, so they rent out the land to a farmer.  The farmer usually plants in the summer and brings in some sort of livestock in the winter.  This winter, there were cows.  The Husband's family house basically had cows in their 'front lawn'.

The nearest neighbor is 1/2 a mile away, and they also have livestock (sheep) for the winter.  Suffice to say, there are coyote problems.  And as neighbors, they all look out for each others animals, and when a coyote comes too close, they pull out a gun.

So Friday night, the cows were mooing oddly.  The coyotes can't do anything to the cows, but they can sure bring down a sheep or two.  And so while the womenfolk were in the kitchen, the menfolk grabbed their guns and headed out.

I was a little dumbfounded.  I'd never stepped foot on a working farm until I met The Husband, and now it seemed that my man was about to go bag himself a coyote.  I felt like I should be wearing bloomers and ring a triangle to call in the boys for dinner.  Weird.

But it was weirdly hot.  You know, in that lumberjack, burly man type of way.  He can take my bloomers off anytime.

FYI, they didn't get anything.  Just fired off a few warning shots and they ran away.

Don’t force survivors of sexual assault to go to the police

When I was sexually assaulted by a classmate during my first year in college, I thought that reporting to the police would help me feel safer. But the police told me that if I tried to press charges against my assailant, my traumatic experience would be made public -- so I decided to wait. I wasn’t ready for my friends and family to know what had happened to me. I tried to press charges again a year later, and had to go through many grueling interviews before the police told me that they no longer believed my story. After everything, I was forced to continue attending school with the person who had assaulted me.
If I had known then what I know now, I never would have gone through the shameful and traumatizing process of reporting to the police. But a group of lawmakers are pushing a bill that will force survivors to do just that. Misleadingly called the SAFE Campus Act, this bill would prevent colleges from punishing a student who rapes another student unless the victim reports the attack to the police.
Sign to tell Congress not to make our campuses unsafe for survivors by passing this harmful bill.
We know from survivors across the country that if forced to report to the police, the vast majority would choose not to report their assault at all. Only a fifth of the rapes reported to the police lead to the attacker being prosecuted; particularly in cases where the survivor knows their attacker, reporting to the police can cause violent – or even fatal – retaliation from their rapists.
For undocumented students who might be afraid of deportation, or students of color who experience police violence at disproportionate rates, going to the police is often the last thing that they would do to feel safe after an attack.
If this bill passes, schools will be able to punish students who cheat on a test or beat up a classmate, but not students who rape, unless the victim goes through a lengthy and difficult criminal process. That means rapists will be free to continue roaming campus and putting all students at risk.
We can’t let this happen.
Please stand with survivors calling on Congress to oppose this bill and keep our campuses safe.

Establish a Sexual Assault, Stalking, and Relationship Violence Crisis Center on Campus

According to The Sexual Victimization of College Women report by the US Department of Justice, approximately 5 percent of college women experience a completed or attempted rape in a calendar year, while 20 percent experience a completed or attempted rape during a five year college career. According to Purdue’s website, only 3 rapes were reported to the Purdue police within the last calendar cycle. While some may view this as clear evidence for why these services are not needed on campus, in fact, this is clear evidence that these services are needed. If it is known that approximately five percent of college women experience a completed or attempted rape in a calendar year, and there are approximately 16,700 female students enrolled at Purdue University, then it can be expected that approximately 830 women on Purdue’s campus are affected by a rape or attempted rape each calendar year. Of course, this number neglects to include men, transgender and non-binary individuals, and any individuals affected by stalking or relationship violence.  

While Purdue University leads the way among Big Ten universities in developing new technologies and producing modern engineering feats, the University falls woefully behind other universities in addressing a basic need of their constituents. Other Big Ten universities, like the University of Minnesota, the University of Iowa, and the University of Wisconsin, offer myriad services to sexual assault survivors including, but not limited to, a dedicated space for receiving safe and confidential support, helplines, legal advocates, support groups, community awareness raising events, and assistance with filing complaints to the proper university authorities. In contrast, victim services at Purdue are decentralized—students are directed to contact the Title IX coordinator (located in Young Hall), the Student Assistance Center (located across campus in Schleman Hall), or the Crisis Center at Mental Health America, which is not even located on-campus. The University directs victims to use the crisis hotline (765-495-HELP) for immediate support. This hotline, however, is not a Purdue hotline but is, instead, connected to the Crisis Center, about 3 miles away from most on-campus residences. While we recognize and value the work of the Crisis Center, we contend that a centralized, on-campus location for survivors’ services and support arising from a partnership with the Crisis Center and existing services would better serve the Purdue community.
In short, we are calling on Purdue University to establish an institutional center at Purdue University that is equipped with well-trained staff and appropriate resources to assist Purdue community members with issues of sexual assault, stalking, relationship violence, and related issues.

Elsa Benitez - Sexy Lady

Elsa Benitez

Mexican-born model Elsa Benitez graced the cover of Sports Illustrated's famous swimsuit issue in 2001. Her career seemed off to a promising start, but she took a break from the fast-paced fashion world to study acting and become a mother. She and her husband, former Miami Heat player Rony Seikaly, became parents to daughter Mila in 2003.
Born in 1977, Benitez is a native of Hermosillo, capital city of the northwest Mexican state of Sonora, about an hour's drive from the Gulf of California. Hermosillo, which lies on the Sonora River, is home to a Ford Motor Company manufacturing plant where the Escort model was once made, and is a thriving agricultural center as well. Growing up, Benitez idolized one of the top models of the 1980s, Linda Evangelista. As a young woman, she reached five feet, ten inches in height, and won a model-search contest in Costa Rica in 1995. She soon began finding work in Latin America, and then signed with Elite Model Management, the agency founded by John Casablancas and later run by Evangelista's husband, Gerald Marie.
Benitez first came to international attention modeling in Europe, and her nascent career was boosted immensely when influential photographer Steven Meisel began working with her. In 1996 she appeared on three covers of Italian Vogue. She also became a favorite of Italian designers Dolce e Gabbana, and appeared in their spring/summer collections shown in Milan in October of 1996. Stefano Gabbana told a writer for London's Observer newspaper, Roger Tredre, that he and Domenico Dolce felt that Benitez "embodies the Mediterranean woman," Gabbana enthused. "Her beauty reminds us of the actresses of the neo-realist Italian cinema, like Anna Magnani." At the time of the interview, Benitez still spoke just rudimentary English.
Benitez went on to work for designers Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, and Rena Lange; she has appeared in ad campaigns for Episode, J. Crew, and Nine West. Her biggest career coup, however, came early in 2001 when she appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue. Under the heading "Goddesses of the Mediterranean," the model's sultry photo was captioned, "Elsa Benitez Heats Up Tunisia." The issue—a February tradition—is centered around an immense promotional blitz, and sales ordinarily hit the $50-million mark. Some of the world's top models had graced the SI cover before Benitez, among them Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks, Elle MacPherson, Christie Brinkley, and Cheryl Tiegs. Launched in 1964 as a way to lure readers during a slow sports-story month, the swimsuit issue grew racier over the years, and the exotic locales of its shoots are usually kept top-secret. "No matter where the magazine drapes its models, though, the issue manages to do one thing no other feature can: it gathers sports fans of every stripe beneath a single umbrella," noted a Financial Times report. "With the swimsuit issue in hand, no one complains that baseball lacks action, that hockey is too violent, that football is for those too fat or too dumb to play hockey."

At a Glance . . .

Born in 1977, in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico; married Rony Seikaly (a professional athlete), 1999; children: Mila Seikaly.

Career: Won modeling contest in Costa Rica, 1995; signed with Elite Model Management; appeared in runway shows and ad campaigns for Dolce e Gabbana, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, and Rena Lange; appeared in ad campaigns for Episode, J. Crew, Victoria's Secret, and Nine West; appeared on the February 2001 cover of Sports Illustrated 's annual swimsuit issue.

Benitez's career for the rest of the year seemed promising: she became the spokesperson for Budweiser and Bud Light, and also appeared in ads for the Taco Bell fast-food chain and its new stuffed burrito menu item. One television commercial for the product featured a dream sequence of her walking past two men, who are enamored of the burrito she is carrying, not her. "Agency creatives said the Mexican-born Benitez will help the product earn quick recognition with fickle fast-food customers," wrote Justin M. Norton in AD-WEEK Western Edition. A representative of the San Francisco-based advertising agency involved, Tom O'Keefe, told the trade journal that Benitez "is the ideal spokesperson, because she perfectly embodies the essence of the product."
Benitez appeared again in the 2002 SI swimsuit issue. The New York Post reported in March of 2002 that Sports Illustrated had struck a deal with the Playboy magazine empire to publish some of the other photos from the shoot in the German edition of Playboy. Some of the models—Klum and Eva Herzigova among them—objected to the deal, claiming that the models had not been consulted, and had not signed waivers allowing the publication of outtakes from the shoot in which they were nude in some cases.

Benitez seemed to drop out of the public eye afterward, however. She wed Rony Seikaly, whom she had met in 1997, and was dividing her time between their homes in Miami and New York City. The basketball player, who retired from the New Jersey Nets in 2000, was the first Lebanese player in NBA history, and stands at an impressive six feet, eleven inches. Seikaly was nonplussed by the attention his wife usually received in public. "I've always said I'm the luckiest guy in the world, not because she's beautiful on the outside, but because she's beautiful on the inside, too," Seikaly once told the New York Post. Benitez gave birth to daughter Mila in February of 2003. She has begun taking acting lessons and harbors an ambition for a film career, in both Spanish- and English-language productions.

Natasha Poly Hot Russian Girl

Lady Gaga

Bio
When Lady Gaga was a little girl, she would sing along on her mini plastic tape recorder to Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper hits and get twirled in the air in daddy’s arms to the sounds of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. The precocious child would dance around the table at fancy Upper West Side restaurants using the breadsticks as a baton. And, she would innocently greet a new babysitter in nothing but her birthday suit.
It’s no wonder that little girl from a good Italian New York family, turned into the exhibitionist, multi-talented singer-songwriter with a flair for theatrics that she is today: Lady Gaga.
“I was always an entertainer. I was a ham as a little girl and I’m a ham today,” says Lady Gaga, 23, who made a name for herself on the Lower East Side club scene with the infectious dance-pop party song “Beautiful Dirty Rich,” and wild, theatrical, and often tongue-in-cheek “shock art” performances where Gaga – who designs and makes many of her stage outfits -- would strip down to her hand-crafted hot pants and bikini top, light cans of hairspray on fire, and strike a pose as a disco ball lowered from the ceiling to the orchestral sounds of A Clockwork Orange.
“I always loved rock and pop and theater. When I discovered Queen and David Bowie is when it really came together for me and I realized I could do all three,” says Gaga, who nicked her name from Queen’s song “Radio Gaga” and who cites rock star girlfriends, Peggy Bundy, and Donatella Versace as her fashion icons. “I look at those artists as icons in art. It’s not just about the music. It’s about the performance, the attitude, the look; it’s everything. And, that is where I live as an artist and that is what I want to accomplish.”
That goal might seem lofty, but consider the artist: Gaga is the girl who at age 4 learned piano by ear. By age 13, she had written her first piano ballad. At 14, she played open mike nights at clubs such as New York’s the Bitter End by night and was teased for her quirky, eccentric style by her Convent of the Sacred Heart School (the Manhattan private school Nicky and Paris Hilton attended) classmates by day. At age 17, she became was one of 20 kids in the world to get early admission to Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Signed by her 20^th birthday and writing songs for other artists (such as the Pussycat Dolls, and has been asked to write for a series of Interscope artists) before her debut album was even released, Lady Gaga has earned the right to reach for the sky.
“My goal as an artist is to funnel a pop record to a world in a very interesting way,” says Gaga, who wrote all of her lyrics, all of her melodies, and played most of the synth work on her album, The Fame (Streamline/KonLive/Cherrytree/Interscope). “I almost want to trick people into hanging with something that is really cool with a pop song. It’s almost like the spoonful of sugar and I’m the medicine.”
On The Fame, it’s as if Gaga took two parts dance-pop, one part electro-pop, and one part rock with a splash of disco and burlesque and generously poured it into the figurative martini glasses of the world in an effort to get everyone drunk with her Fame. “The Fame is about how anyone can feel famous,” she explains. “Pop culture is art. It doesn’t make you cool to hate pop culture, so I embraced it and you hear it all over The Fame. But, it’s a sharable fame. I want to invite you all to the party. I want people to feel a part of this lifestyle.”
The CD’s opener and first single, “Just Dance,” gets the dance floor rocking with it’s “fun, L.A., celebratory vibe.” As for the equally catchy, “Boys Boys Boys,” Gaga doesn’t mind wearing her influences on her sleeve. “I wanted to write the female version of Motley Crue’s ‘Girls Girls Girls,’ but with my own twist. I wanted to write a pop song that rockers would like.”
“Beautiful Dirty Rich” sums up her time of self-discovery, living in the Lower East Side and dabbling in drugs and the party scene. “That time, and that song, was just me trying to figure things out,” says Gaga. “Once I grabbed the reigns of my artistry, I fell in love with that more than I did with the party life.” On first listen, “Paparazzi” might come off as a love song to cameras, and in all honestly, Gaga jokes “on one level it IS about wooing the paparazzi and wanting fame. But, it’s not to be taken completely seriously. It’s about everyone’s obsession with that idea. But, it’s also about wanting a guy to love you and the struggle of whether you can have success or love or both.”
Gaga shows her passion for love songs on such softer tracks as the Queen-influenced “Brown Eyes” and the sweet kiss-off break-up song “Nothing I can Say (eh eh).” “‘Brown Eyes’ is the most vulnerable song on the album,” she explains. “‘Eh Eh’ is my simple pop song about finding someone new and breaking up with the old boyfriend.”
For the new tour for this album, fans will be treated to a more polished version of what they saw (and loved) at her critically acclaimed Lollapalooza show in August 2007 and Winter Music Conference performance in March 2008. “This new show is the couture version of my handmade downtown performance of the past few years. It’s more fine-tuned, but some of my favorite elements to my past shows – the disco balls, hot pants, sequin, and stilettos – will still be there. Just more fierce and more of a conceptual show with a vision for pop performance art.”
It’s been a while since a new pop artist has made her way in the music industry the old-fashioned/grass roots way by paying her dues with seedy club gigs and self-promotion. This is one rising pop star who hasn’t been plucked from a model casting call, born into a famous family, won a reality TV singing contest, or emerged from a teen cable TV sitcom. “I did this the way you are supposed to. I played every club in New York City and I bombed in every club and then killed it in every club and I found myself as an artist. I learned how to survive as an artist, get real, and how to fail and then figure out who I was as singer and performer. And, I worked hard.”
Gaga adds with a wink in her eye, “And, now, I’m just trying to change the world one sequin at a time.”

MTV's A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila

Basic Info:

NAME

Tila Tequila

DATE OF BIRTH

24 October 1981

HEIGHT

4' 11" (150 cm)

BUILD

Slim

EYE COLOR

Brown - Dark

HAIR COLOR

Black

BIRTHPLACE

Singapore

STAR SIGN

Scorpio

ETHNICITY

Multiracial

OCCUPATION

Model/Singer/Actress

CLAIM TO FAME

A Shot At Love

MUSIC GENRE

Pop

Background: Tila Tequila is the stage name of Tila Nguyen. Born in Singapore to Vietnamese parents, Tila spent most of her life in the United States, where she eventually was discovered in a mall by a Playboy magazine scout. This lead to modeling jobs and appearances on reality TV and game shows.
Tila is also known for having close to two million MySpace friends.

A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila: MTV's A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila, aired in 2007.
The premise of the show was that Tila, a self-identified bisexual, was on a quest to find love from among both male and female contestants.
The show has been has been called everything from offensive to the worst reality TV show yet. Still, it had a strong following.
At the end of the season, Tila picked a male contestant. However, reports that the "relationship" had fizzled soon surfaced. Shortly after this, MTV announced that there would be a second season of the show.

Responses From the Bisexual Community: Sheela Lambert, the founder of the Bi Writers Association, blogged about her concerns with the show on the Huffington Post:

"The bi community spends much of its time fighting stereotypes and myths that don't accurately reflect who we are. People tend to associate us solely with our sexuality and forget that, like everyone else, we have other aspects to our lives. We fear that this show is more likely to add fuel to the fire of bisexual stereotypes, than to put them out."

Another view appeared in an article originally published in American Sexual Magazine. Nicole Kristal, a bisexual writer, says that despite the shows flaws:
"I've never had the opportunity before to watch a fellow bisexual woman struggle on national television with the disadvantages and advantages of dating both sexes, and for this reason alone, the show is truly groundbreaking."

Challenges to Her Sexual Orientation: Like many other bisexuals, Tila has had to face scrutiny over her sexual orientation, and the claim that she is not really bisexual.

Tila responded to these allegations on her website saying,
"One minute, back in the day when I was still modeling, people talked...about me for being "lesbian" for shooting sexy pictures with other females and now I'm too "straight" come one....who's really the confused one here? Definitely not me! HA!"