Edward Snowden wasn’t always a controversial whistleblower. Way back in 2001, when he was 17 or 18, he tried his hand at amateur modeling.

He posted these images from a shoot by an unamed Model Mayhem photographer on an Ars Technica forum, and asked viewers to “be gentle”

So I got invited to model for this guy (potentially NSFW) last week, and I just now got the proofs back from him. He shoots mostly guys, and he’s got some… “questionable” people interested in his work, so I was actually a little worried he might, you know, try to pull my pants off and choke me to death with them, but he turned out to be legit and is a pretty damn good model photographer.

It’s only my third shoot, so be gentle.

While the young Snowden seems to have been going through a twink raver phase, the physical features and moles line up.

More of Snowden’s modeling debut.

You have to wonder what would have happened if Snowden had become a successful model and never into IT.

h/t: Hacker News via Daily Dot