Photo via Flickr user Christian Hans

As sure as the sun rising, straight men love lesbian porn.

And yet, for the past two years, our masterbatory mothership Pornhub.com has published data on what female users looked for most, and "lesbian" and lesbian-related items have consistently topped searches.

Pornhub insights noted that, specifically in North America, "women in Canada and the United States are 186 percent more likely to search for lesbian videos compared to men, and they're 63 percent more likely to search than women elsewhere in the world."

With such stark numbers, it can be assumed that these figures also include many straight-identifying women.

Dr. Meredith Chivers of Queen's University is a leading researcher on female sexuality. In 2015, she published a study entitled Straight but Not Narrow; Within-Gender Variation in the Gender-Specificity of Women's Sexual Response. Chivers' study showed that when women are shown sexually explicit imagery depicting lesbian erotica, there is an increased physiological response that suggests arousal, regardless of their self-identified sexual preference.

"It's important to keep in mind that the motivations to search for lesbian porn are multiple," she told VICE.

I wanted to find out what these motivations were, so I created a survey that women could fill out anonymously. Some of the responses proved interesting:

"I find it less intimidating as hetero porn can seem quite harsh," one respondent commented. "I don't find the 'typical' portrayals of masculinity hot, I find it a bit scary and often very cringe-worthy. Also boobs and lady-bits look great and I can identify with the actors... making it more enjoyable!"

"Straight porn is often focused on the man's pleasure," said another. "It's common to see handjobs and blowjobs but not as common to see fingering or cunnilingus. As a woman, I prefer to see female pleasure because I can imagine myself in that situation. Lesbian porn ticks that box."

"It's hot," one added.

The results of my (very informal) survey had more than half of straight-identifying, female respondents admitting to watching lesbian porn. Many echoed similar sentiments for why, citing reasons like that it focused more on the woman's pleasure and that they liked to imagine themselves as the woman being pleasured. Some noted the fantasy element of being with someone of the same sex, while others said that overall, it just felt less degrading.

Vancouver-based sexologist Dr. Renee Lanctot agreed with Chrivers. "Everybody is going to search for porn to satisfy an itch that they have."

" of emphasis on dick sucking and, as a woman, you can tell when a woman is not enjoying the sexual experience and is faking. A lot of straight porn features a lot of women screaming repetitively and it is annoying as shit. Lesbian porn a lot of times focuses on pleasure and you see a lot more authentic orgasms."

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Steve Bannon. Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty

Donald Trump, the president-elect of the United States, made a lot of noise about how he would arrive in Washington, DC, and "drain the swamp," putting an end to the corruption that has strangled the government and hurt ordinary Americans. But Donald Trump also lies a lot. So as news trickles out about who Trump is considering for his cabinet, it shouldn't come as a shock that the people in a Trump White House will likely be a collection of Washington hacks, longtime Republican operatives, and representatives of America's most toxic industries.

Trump is often said to value loyalty, so that means that the collection of right-wing hangers-on and has-beens who have been supporting him for months in a nothing-to-lose kind of way are now poised to cash in.

What follows is a list of these losers made winners by the most surprising election in modern times. A lot of them have said racist things, or expressed hostility to civil rights. The vast, vast majority are white men; the only non-white person on this list is famous for his unhinged hostility to Black Lives Matter. An odd number of them are, like Trump, older men who are famous for cheating on their wives. Chris Christie is not on this list because his behavior is too sleazy even for Trump.

The worst-case scenario for Trump's cabinet has an oil executive–running Interior, a racist as attorney general, a psuedo fascist at Homeland Security, a warmonger as secretary of state, a finance executive at the Treasury, and an advisor beloved by white supremacists at Trump's elbow. The best case is that it's just corrupt in the ordinary DC way, and neither better nor worse than the George W. Bush administration. But this is not a list that inspires confidence:

Steve Bannon

Who Is He? The former CEO of Breitbart News, a website Bannon once admitted is "the platform for the alt-right," the section of the right that is more comfortable with white nationalism and anti-Semitism than most Republicans.
Why Him? He was Trump's campaign chairman and so is naturally stepping into a role as a senior White House advisor.
What Will His Job Be? He's Trump's new "chief strategist and senior counsel."
What's His Deal? Though anticipated, news that Bannon is stepping into such a major role made a lot of people very upset, since his last job was running a news organization that is basically the Huffington Post for teenagers who think racism is funny. An ex-wife once accused him of choking her and wanting to pull their daughters out of a school because there were too many Jewish students there; he's also been accused of violating election law by being registered to vote at a Florida address where he didn't live and of sexual harassment. (Bannon has denied all of this.)

Reince Priebus

Who Is He? The Republican National Committee chairman is being rewarded for shepherding his party through the most contentious election in memory by becoming Trump's chief of staff.
Why Him? I guess Priebus must really have done some shit in a previous life, because he's still stuck dealing with the messes that Trump and his band are going to create.
What Will His Job Be? Chief of staff, a thankless role that tends to chew up and spit out the poor souls who have to fill it.
What's His Deal? He's a member of the Party Establishment, and when you're in his role, your job is to elect Republicans and serve them once they get into office.

Mike Pence

Who Is He? The vice president–elect and governor of Indiana, a standard-issue Christian conservative—strident anti-gay views and all—poured into a suit and topped off with a thin layer of white hair.
Why Him? Trump's selection of Pence as VP was widely seen as a bone thrown to the religious right.
What Will His Job Be? Vice president, a role that, given Trump's mercurial managing style, could wind up with a lot of responsibility.
What's His Deal? Pence is most famous for his long history of opposing gay rights, but that shouldn't obscure his other bad ideas, like the taxpayer-funded "news organization" he wanted to create before it was ridiculed by everyone, or his ongoing court battle to keep the contents of his emails out of the public record.

Newt Gingrich. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty

Newt Gingrich

Who Is He? The former speaker of the House, a lover of science fiction and adultery.
Why Him? He's been politically irrelevant for years, but his longtime support of Trump makes him a candidate for a number of cabinet positions.
What Would His Job Be? Maybe secretary of state, maybe secretary of the Interior.
What's His Deal? Gingrich is a hypocritical windbag but pretty benign compared to some of the people populating this list—like, the rumor about him asking his wife for a divorce while she was dying isn't even true! His capacity to bullshit, however, shouldn't be underrated: He recently denied Trump was connected to the alt-right, even though Bannon has open, obvious links to the movement. During the same interview, Gingrich said Bannon couldn't be anti-Semitic because he had worked in finance.

John Bolton

Who Is He? Bolton is most famous for being the US ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush, and for hating the UN.
Why Him? His experience and his hatred of international institutions make him a natural fit for the incoming Trump administration.
What Would His Job Be? Secretary of state.
What's His Deal? His main deal is war, more particularly war with Iran. On Sunday, he published a New York Post op-ed that advocated for canceling the recent agreement with Iran over its nuclear weapons. What should go in its place? He doesn't say in the Post, but he did offer a hint in the New York Times last year: He thinks the US or Israel should bomb Iran.

Kelly Ayotte

Who Is She? A New Hampshire senator who is also solidly in the neocon wing of the GOP. She recently lost her reelection bid, so she has plenty of time on her hands.
Why Her? The Washington Post theorized that her appointment could be a gesture of reconciliation to the traditional Foreign Policy Establishment.
What Would Her Job Be? She's something of a dark horse contender for secretary of state.
What's Her Deal? The most famous moment of her Senate campaign came when Ayotte said that Trump was a "role model" during a debate. Then, realizing that that would link her to the controversial candidate, backtracked and clarified that she didn't think the man who would become the president-elect and her potential future boss wasn't a good example for children.

Rudy Giuliani

Who Is He? The former mayor of New York City and a onetime US attorney, now a talking head who goes on television to say vaguely racist things.
Why Him? Trump loves people who kiss his ass and Giuliani has been doing that for months. That plus Giuliani's legal experience makes him a strong contender for some kind of position.
What Would His Job Be? Attorney general is the most likely spot for him if he's in the cabinet, but ABC News has him down as a possibility for State or Homeland Security.
What's His Deal? Giuliani has always subscribed to a racially tinged pro-police politics, but his race-baiting has been getting less and less subtle over the years. In 2015, he claimed Obama didn't love America; in October, during a speech before a financial services trade group, he supposedly said nasty things about the "Mexicans in the kitchen."

Bob Corker

Who Is He? A Tennessee senator who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Why Him? He's been in Trump's orbit for a while and has a pretty high-ranking Senate post.
What Would His Job Be? Secretary of state.
What's His Deal? Corker is one of a few mainstream Republican politicians who appears to have played this presidential campaign exactly right. He hopped on the Trump train while still calling the candidate's pussy-grabbing comments "inappropriate and offensive" and taking himself out of the running for the VP slot—presumably to avoid being tarnished forever should Trump have lost.

Jeff Sessions

Who Is He? Another Republican senator who was one of Trump's earliest supporters and loudest backers.
Why Him? The guy is so loyal that he said that grabbing women by the pussy wasn't sexual assault. Sessions is now on the Trump transition team and will presumably be in the cabinet in some capacity.
What Would His Job Be? Attorney general, or secretary of defense, or secretary of homeland security.
What's His Deal? His first brush with prominence came in 1986, when he was nominated by Ronald Reagan for a judgeship but got shot down when it came out that as a US attorney in Alabama he prosecuted three activists who were registering black people to vote. He also allegedly called a black subordinate "boy" and referred to the Voting Rights Act as a "piece of intrusive legislation."

Steven Mnuchin

Who Is He? A former Goldman Sachs banker turned Hollywood executive who was the Trump campaign's national finance chairman and is on the transition team.
Why Him? He's Trump's money guy.
What Would His Job Be? Treasury secretary.
What's His Deal? A rich Wall Streeter taking over at the Treasury is pretty much business as usual, though Mnuchin doesn't have any government experience. One company that he ran, OneWest, was criticized for aggressive foreclosure practices—meaning that if Trump taps him for the cabinet, the supposed outsider candidate will be picking a guy with deep ties to both the finance industry and the worst of the real estate industry.

Michael Flynn. Photo by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Michael Flynn

Who Is He? The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Flynn is one of the few people on this list with federal government experience.
Why Him? Given that he's been advising Trump on national security matters since the primary campaign, it's widely expected he'll get some kind of top post.
What Would His Job Be? National security advisor, or CIA director, or secretary of defense, or maybe even secretary of vet.
What's His Deal? Flynn told theWashington Post that he was kicked to the curb by his superiors for his views on Islam, but other accounts say it was because he repeatedly fought with his bosses. Since his forced retirement, Flynn has advocated closer ties with Russia, been photographed sitting next to Russian president Vladimir Putin at a banquet, and compared RT, a Russian government-funded propaganda outfit, to CNN and MSNBC. A lobbying group he founded was recently hired by a company with ties to the Turkish government, and he coincidentally wrote an op-ed defending Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from criticism about his cracking down on dissidents.

David Clarke

Who Is He? David Clarke, the only non-white person on this list, and a registered Democrat, is the sheriff of Milwaukee County. His motto is if you can't say anything nice, say it extremely loudly on FOX News and then mention ISIS.
Why Him? His main qualification is that he's repeatedly praised Trump on TV.
What Would His Job Be? Homeland security secretary or attorney general; either position would give him a frightening amount of power.
What's His Deal? He's said Black Lives Matter is made up of "subhuman creeps" and bizarrely theorized that they would team up with ISIS. After anti-Trump protests broke out following the election, he called for a state of emergency to be declared and for the protests to be broken up with tear gas and "ALL non lethal force." A jail under his control allowed an inmate to die of dehydration and the death was ruled a homicide. In response to budget cuts in 2013, he made a radio ad telling people to buy guns and take their protection into their own hands.

Sid Miller

Who Is He? He's the current Texas agriculture commissioner and a former member of the Texas Legislature. He always wears a cowboy hat.
Why Him? Like most people on this list, he was for Trump early and loudly.
What Would His Job Be? Agriculture secretary.
What's His Deal? He gets called "colorful," a.k.a. his Twitter account referred to Hillary Clinton as a "cunt" (he says that was a subordinate screwing up), his Facebook page once featured a post about nuking "the Muslim world," nearly faced criminal charges over using taxpayer funds to travel to Oklahoma and receive a psuedo-scientific treatment called a "Jesus Shot."

Sarah Palin

Who Is She? The short version is that she was elected governor of Alaska, got nominated as John McCain's running mate, got excoriated by the media for lying all the dang time, and then quit her job as governor because it was easier and more profitable to just go around the country telling Tea Party types what they wanted to hear.
Why Her? Bannon once made a documentary about this failed vice-presidential candidate and governor called The Undefeated. Her appointment would also follow the pattern of a cabinet filled with right-wing media stars without a lot of policy experience—it's the Kardashians for people with a shitload of Confederate flags in their house, and Palin is Kim.
What Would Her Job Be? Interior secretary.
What's Her Deal? Man, I dunno.

Mike Rogers

Who Is He? A former FBI agent and Michigan congressman who headed up the House Intelligence Committee.
Why Him? He has law enforcement and congressional experience; he got his foot in the door probably because he's Chris Christie's friend.
What Would His Job Be? CIA director or national security advisor.
What's His Deal? He's actually disliked by a lot of conservatives for producing a report on the 2012 Benghazi attack that concluded that there weren't any intelligence failures. Also, one time he said during a discussion on the NSA, "You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated."

Forrest Lucas

Who Is He? The founder of Lucas Oil.
Why Him? Lucas is an Indiana native and a big donor to Trump and Pence.
What Would His Job Be? He's being considered for secretary of the interior.
What's His Deal? So putting an oil executive in charge of the government department that looks after the national parks is obviously a signal to that industry that it should feel free to do whatever the hell it likes. But there's more to Lucas than that. For instance, did you know that he had to apologize for his wife (who is also the co-founder of Lucas Oil) going on a Facebook rant against atheists and Muslims?

Joe Arpaio

Who Is He? You might know the famous Arizona sheriff for being viciously cruel to inmates in his charge, or for failing to investigate sex crimes, for spearheading a ridiculous volunteer investigation into Obama's birthplace (it was Hawaii, if anyone in that "posse" is reading this, you're welcome), or for running a department that repeatedly racially profiled Latinos and wouldn't stop even after repeated court orders. Or maybe you know him for arresting journalists who had investigated his finances—they sued and won millions from Maricopa County, just one of many court cases that Sheriff Joe has been involved in. One 2015 article said his legal tab (including court costs and payouts from insurers) was $142 million and counting.
Why Him? Trump has no problem with any of that.
What Would His Job Be? Homeland security secretary.
What's His Deal? The silver lining here is that Arpaio is 84 and so will probably be dead soon.

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Raoul Coutard. Image via YouTube

You probably missed it as Donald Trump ascended to the presidency but cinematographer Raoul Coutard died at age 92 on Tuesday, November 8, 2016.

He shot 25 of the most successful French New Wave films over a 43-year career.

If you like the hyper-referential pastiche of Tarantino and Wes Anderson, then you like the work of Raoul Coutard. His work in film ripples through the aesthetic of modern alternative culture and art: be it in the Instagram filter, the manic pixie dream girl, or the drone camera tracking shot. Coutard proliferated the hyper-aware sense of staged naturalism that has become the look of motion picture in 2016.

Coutard was born in 1924 into a family of communists. He abandoned chemistry for war, joining the French Far East Expeditionary Corps in 1945, soon finding himself in French Indochina. It was here he became a photojournalist, the claustrophobic frenetic energy of the conflict informing his rapid-fire documentary aesthetic. He returned to France and continued freelancing for Paris Match and Look.

He came to film, relatively late and inexperienced, in the late 50s. Eventually, he was hired by infamous producer George de Beaureguard to work with an ostentatious film critic turned first time director: Jean-Luc Godard. Their first project was Boute de Souffle, aka Breathless, in 1960. It would reshape the trajectory of modern cinema and filmmaking.

Breathless plays out as a madcap inversion of gangster B-movies, a punkish on-the-fly masterpiece now reflected upon as the turning point of 20th-century film. It was made on a shoestring, and Godard was brimming with manic brilliance, constantly rewriting the "script," and forcing improvisations upon the cast and the crew.

Coutard needed to adapt as well as catch the mad energy of the creative process, and somehow transfuse it with a threadbare narrative. He used a light Caméflex Éclair 35mm camera, whipping it around like a dad at a backyard BBQ. The combination of natural lighting and newsreel-like use of "shakycam" created an erratically voyeuristic experience. It was something new, a spontaneous dialect, and Coutard was the one who captured it.

Coutard's work with Godard, as well as that other titan of the French new-wave, Francois Truffaut, would lead to some of the most visually inventive moments in cinematic history.

In Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1962), his lingering camera made us feel like a fourth party waiting to pounce upon the fragile love triangle.

This tracking shot in Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player epitomizes the deft-hand ingenuity of Coutard, as well as showcasing his ability to adapt to his collaborator of the moment:

In Alphaville, looming close ups and use of street lighting paved the way for the bleak neo-noir aesthetic of Bladerunner.

Coutard also captured the turbulent romance between Jean-Luc Godard and actress (and then wife) Anna Karina—her waifish figure and doe eyes caught in the headlights of his intimate camera work. Nowhere did he and Godard translate her startling intelligence more brilliantly than in the pop-art hyperactivity of Pierre le Fou (1965)—Coutard turning Karina and co-star Jean-Paul Belmondo into postmodern Sunday-funny comic strips.

Coutard's genius reached a new peak in Godard's existential-erotic masterpiece Contempt. The way his camera captured a naked Brigitte Bardot both excites and condemns: we are voyeurs, as much Peeping Tom as welcomed guest. Somehow, Coutard's cinematography reverberates with the moral elusiveness of the film—we are left aroused and unsure, questioning what has happened.

It is sheer brilliance, and easily Coutard and Godard's most consistent work. Architecture and movement blend into a deceptively simple lyric poetry—the mania of Breathless is still there, but like Bardot, it's stifled and subdued.

In a 2012 interview with Film Comment, Coutard remarked that filmmaking was "the kind of profession where you actually want to change, and that's inventing." You could take the films he made between 1960 and 1970 alone and behold an eclectic monument of shifting form, style, and thought.

In a sense, Coutard was the dream DP because his intuitiveness allowed him not just to adapt to the scene or the moment but also to the people behind that moment—the director, the actor, and a tripping extra.

He described himself as a "fascist of the right" and Godard as a "fascist of the left" but somehow his essential humanism intersected with Godard's overweening didactics to make something new, fresh, exciting.

He embodied the spirit of independent filmmaking, of art through improvisation and experiment: be it using a wheelchair as a dolly in Breathless or mastering the madcap color scheme of Techniscope.

Chances are, your favorite films are infused with the wit and spirit of Coutard. Filmmakers from Scorsese to Jarmusch, Altman to Paul Thomas Anderson, Leone to Tarantino, have all cited his work as influence, and have all in their own way imitated Coutard's mad-mutt aesthetic.

He was the kind of artist whose spirit is as much present in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol as it is in Paul Verhoeven's Elle. That is a rare level of influence and immortality. He is the shaky-cam, the invisible watcher.

Godard once quipped that "a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But not necessarily in that order." Coutard was the master of beginnings, and due to the nature of his work, death does not seem to cement him in an "end."

He is a jump cut away from existence. He was a man apart.

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The lift begins Monday. Photo by Kim Stallknecht

It's now been over a month since an American tug boat sank off British Columbia's central coast, leaking over 100,000 litres of diesel into local herring and clam fisheries. On day 33 of a complicated cleanup, the Nathan E. Stewart is finally coming out of the water.

For the Heiltsuk First Nation, which claims the central coast as their traditional territory, the salvage doesn't mark the end, only a new chapter of a "nightmare" spill. Dragged out by storms and far-flung marine safety resources, Heiltsuk chief Marilyn Slett has challenged the government on its promises for a safer, tanker-free coastline.

"We waited for 22 hours for the right equipment to get here," she told VICE of the first day of the disaster. Industrial-sized booms were hauled in from Prince Rupert, several hundred kilometres north. "It wasn't what we'd all heard about over the past few years about a world-class marine spill response."

In the coming weeks, rough waters ruptured the booms surrounding the spill site, and efforts to recover fuel from onboard tanks were delayed. But amid all the setbacks and dangerous conditions, the Heiltsuk have forged a new oversight relationship with Canada's major spill response players.

The Heiltsuk First Nation has played a central role in communicating with the public and keeping eyes on the water. The spill's "unified command" includes Indigenous representation.

Dangerous weather conditions delayed cleanup. Photo by Kim Stallknecht

"We're now a part of this process that was not designed to include First Nations," said Slett. "There's no rule book or policy or anything that has guided us. It does certainly feel like it's uncharted for our communities."

Out of a poorly-handled disaster, academic observers see a new kind of spill response emerging in real time. "The Heiltsuk should be lauded for insisting, going forward, that old school spill response protocols are no longer acceptable," Chris Tollefson, executive director of the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation, told VICE. "First Nations need be involved on a government-to-government basis in making decisions about how spill response efforts are mounted and prioritized."

The hands-on approach hasn't been without conflict. Last week, the Heiltsuk called out the feds for holding back the results of the Department of Fisheries environmental sampling on the site. "The DFO and are potentially putting human and environmental health at risk," Slett said in a statement.

One day before the federal government was set to announce a $1.5 billion "ocean protection" plan, a second tug sent out a distress call in the Heiltsuk waters. That 37-metre tug left its sinking haul of sand and gravel 40 nautical miles north of the spill.

Illustration by Daniella Syakhirina

This article originally appeared on VICE Indonesia.

When Rashidah was 12 years old, a mob of hardline Buddhists set fire to her Rohingya village during a wave of anti-Muslim violence. Over the next three years, the girl was sold into slavery and raped by human traffickers. Rashidah, who is now 15 and already a mother, has been the victim of an under-reported issue plaguing Malaysia's sizable Rohingya population: the sale of young girls into forced marriages.

"I never thought I would be married this way," said Rashida when we met a month ago. "But it's not like I had a choice."

Malaysia is home to an estimated 90,000 Rohingya asylum seekers, but according to experts, it's difficult to determine the true size of the population. The UN refugee agency in Kuala Lumpur has registered 53,896 Rohingya refugees, but the number of undocumented Rohingya is nearly double those who are currently enrolled in UNHCR's refugee program.

Rendered stateless by the Myanmar government, which considers them Bangladeshi migrants, and confined to squalid settlements in what is effectively an apartheid state, the Rohingya people are among the most persecuted people on Earth. In 2012, a fresh wave of anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar's Rakhine State displaced as many as 140,000 people and set into motion what would grow into a regional humanitarian crisis. During the first three months of 2015, as many as 25,000 Rohingya, as well as some Bangladeshi migrants, boarded overcrowded boats to chance the journey to Malaysia. Hundreds died on the way.

Related: Watch Left for Dead: Myanmar's Muslim Minority

In Malaysia, the demographics of the Rohingya population skews heavily male. The situation created a troubling demand for young Rohingya women in places like Ampang—a suburban neighborhood on the edge of Kuala Lumpur, with a large population of Rohingya men. Human traffickers quickly targeted young girls in Rohingya camps in Myanmar, often offering them safe journey to Malaysia for a fraction of the normal cost. But once they set sail, the terms of the agreement would often change. Suddenly, the girls owed more than $1,000 and those who couldn't pay would be held in jungle camps. Many were raped by their traffickers. Others were sold into marriages in Malaysia.

"We know women have been recruited by brokers in Rakhine State either for free or at a very reduced cost because their traffickers were anticipating that they could charge men in Malaysia a lot higher fee," explained Amy Smith, of Fortify Rights—a nonprofit that documents human rights abuses in Southeast Asia.

"I never thought I would be married this way, but it's not like I had a choice." — Rashidah

It's difficult to determine exactly how many women have been sold into forced marriages, experts said. Arranged marriages are common in Rohingya society, and the custom of a man paying his bride's way to Malaysia is frequently practiced. It's a tradition that feels similar to a forced marriage, but while the women set up on arranged marriages have had some previous connection with their spouse and the approval of their families, the victims of forced marriages have had no prior contact with their husband and no intentions of getting married when they set out from Myanmar.

"'Forced marriage' is a slightly loaded term," said Richard Towle, the UNHCR country representative for Malaysia. "The fact that a marriage is arranged by parents doesn't make it a forced marriage. We have a lot of arranged marriages. We hear of a lot of children being sent here to marry men on an arranged basis. We sometimes hear stories where there was an element of money changing hand and coercion, so there is every case across the spectrum."

Sharifah Shakirah, a Rohingya woman who works with the victims of forced marriages in Malaysia, said the situation is the symptom of a cruel system. Human traffickers routinely demand large sums of cash for passage to Malaysia, and some men, who are willing to pay for a bride in a place where few eligible Rohingya women exist, are supporting this extortion by paying the traffickers' fees. Shakirah works with a loose coalition of Rohingya men and women to try to convince others that this practice is wrong, but it's a difficult conversation—especially among men, who recently arrived and have little education.

And for the women who refuse to accept the marriages, their future can look even worse: "There's a lot unfortunate girls here," she said. "The agents, they sell them into prostitution and then they have to work in bars and clubs. Some traffickers use these girls as beggars. They cut their hands or gouge their eyes out to incite sympathy. I've seen it happen so many times. I cannot explain to you how difficult life is for these girls," sighed Shakirah.

The arrival of new Rohingya refugees has all but dropped off after the grim discovery of more than 100 shallow graves near the Thai-Malaysian border. Efforts by Myanmar's new government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), to address the Rohingya situation initially inspired hope among some Rohingya, and further anger from Burmese nationalists. Former United Nations head Kofi Annan is now leading an NLD-approved investigation into communal violence in Rakhine State—a development many see as a step by the new government toward ending, what one study called, a system of state-sponsored genocide.

Yet, recent violence and allegations of rape by soldiers in Rakhine State have raised fresh fears over a resurgence of the kind of brutal conditions common before Suu Kyi's NLD party won the election. A path to lasting peace still seems distant.

Today, tens of thousands of stateless Rohingya people remain trapped in limbo in Malaysia—unable to legally work or return home, while facing years-long waits for potential resettlement by UNHCR. And hidden inside the Rohingya population are women like Rashidah, teenagers who have been sold into marriages without their consent by human traffickers. These women, poor, unable to speak English or Bahasa Malay, and afraid of law enforcement, are rendered all but invisible in Malaysia.

"Some traffickers use these girls as beggars. They cut their hands or gouge their eyes out to incite sympathy. I've seen it happen so many times. I cannot explain to you how difficult life is for these girls," – Sharifah Shakirah

Rashidah, whose last name is being withheld by VICE Indonesia to protect her identity, met with me at a small Islamic boarding school on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. Her green, floral-patterned sari and button-down blouse were stained with specks of white paint after spending the afternoon repainting the school's walls—one of the many small jobs that keep her and her family afloat.

Her child, a chubby young boy, was resting on the floor. Her husband relaxed on the other side of the small school—a simple, but crowded space housed on a single floor of blighted low-rise shophouse. Rashida met Aziz at a local market. He was friendly and from the same region of Rakhine State. At the time, Rashidah was in the middle of one of the darkest periods of her life. She had just arrived in Kuala Lumpur after spending months imprisoned by Thai human traffickers in a jungle camp on the border of Malaysia and Thailand. She was alone, broke, and the youngest girl at the camp—a dangerous combination.

The traffickers raped her multiple times. When she fell pregnant, they contacted a man in Malaysia and sold her into debt bondage. The man, a Rohingya resident of Kuala Lumpur identified as Islam, paid the traffickers about $700 and brought Rashidah to his home. Islam told Rashidah she would have to care for his children and clean his house to pay off the debt. She was forced to live in a small shed behind his home.

When he noticed she was pregnant, he began to look for a doctor to abort the fetus, Rashidah said. But a local ustad convinced him to allow her to have the child. The man then quickly began to search for another man willing to pay off her debt to take her as a bride.

When Aziz heard of Rashidah's situation, he promised to pay off her debt if she would become his wife. It was a complex proposal for Rashidah. She admits that if things were different she wouldn't have gotten married. But at the time she was alone, trapped in debt bondage, and pregnant with the child of a human trafficker who'd raped her. Here was a man who appeared to be kind, and was willing to save her from being sold into prostitution if she refused the marriage.

"If my parents were still with me, I could have gotten married to an educated person or a person who had some money to support me," Rashidah said. "But at that moment I didn't have enough money to support myself and no one to protect me."

Rashida says her husband is very caring and that he treats her well. But if she had a chance to do it all over again, she would have never left Myanmar. "If I knew all of these things would happen, I wouldn't have come here," Rashidah said. "I think Myanmar was better for me."

For more than just dental visits. Image via Flickr user Betsssssy

This year, 4,375 Canadians will be diagnosed with HPV-related cancers, according to last month's Canadian Cancer Society report—a 16 percent increase since 2012. And while cervical cancer used to be the most prevalent HPV-related cancer, it has now been surpassed by oral cancer, which affected men 4.5 times more than women in 2012, and continues to rise.

Protestors march outside a rally against hate speech and hate crimes this September. Photo via Flickr user Fibonacci Blue

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One week ago today, American Muslims were fired up and ready to vote. One million Muslims voters registered to vote this year, more than doubling their ranks from 2012, and they voted early, knocked on doors, and tweeted voting selfies.

Stung by Trump's call "for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," they hoped to seriously dent his presidential aspirations. Seventy-two percent of American Muslims said they planned to vote for Clinton, 4 percent for Trump, 3 percent for Jill Stein, and 2 percent for Gary Johnson, according to an October 13 survey by the civil rights group Council for Islamic American Relations (CAIR).

By late Tuesday night, that hope had curdled.

"I expected people to vote for him, but I didn't expect him to win," said Ali Abbas, writer and creator of the Muslim superhero webseries The Ridge. For Abbas's Lebanese American family, a Trump presidency raises fears of harassment, surveillance, and racial profiling.

During the Obama administration, he'd begun to hope that the worst was already behind American Muslims. "Now we put all our hopes, aspirations and dreams on hold to deal with everyday protection and safety," he said.

And so anxiety ratcheted up throughout last week: As Muslims awoke to a brand new country on Wednesday, NYU students encountered Trump grafitti on their prayer room; a female Muslim student at San Diego State University told police she was robbed by male assailants, who invoked Trump's name as they did so; similar racist messages and incidents plagued various other minorities across the country. In the US and worldwide, Muslims reached out to each other to ask how, why, what's next, and should we move to Canada?

"As the American Muslim community, we got beat," said Nezar Hamze, operations director of the Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "It's hard to stand up and brush your shoulders off, but that's what we have to do."

"Do I think knows about Islam? Absolutely not," said Hamze. "Does he have a circle of business partners from the Muslim community? Yes." The latter allows hope that the president-elect may soften his anti-Muslim views, he said. And he questions the notion that "bigotry" or white supremacist ideals motivated the 58 percent of white voters who cast their ballot for Trump more than economic grievances. As deputy sheriff in Fort Lauderdale, Hamze knows and works with many Trump voters. He describes them as "staunch conservatives" who "100 percent support American Muslims. They love our country but are sick of the establishment."

Hamze's take resembled other soul-searching post-mortem conversations that have circulated in the media since last week's election. Yes, a demographic that refused to be denied, disparaged, or ignored had roared to life—but instead of Muslims (or Latinos, women, people of color or LGBTQ voters), that demographic turned out to be a much larger group of white Americans who felt left behind throughout the Obama administration.

"We've been in our civil rights bubble, fighting for everyone to be treated equally. But that's not what everybody is concerned about," Hamze says. "They don't have the problems that we do. They're more concerned about jobs and their income. We need to expand out of our bubble and try to come to a working partnership with everybody."

And while Hamze acknowledges that many in his community fear a rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes—in Florida, CAIR estimates they rose 500 percent during the 16-month election cycle, he told me—he's confident that the rule of law will remain. "If people want to be vigilantes and go on a crusade, they will be held accountable. They will go to jail for a long time," he said.

Watch "Immigrant America: The High Cost of Deporting Parents":

After a campaign filled with minority-targeting policy prescriptions, insults and innuendo, others remarked that Trump's self-conception as a "president for all Americans"—the mantle he claimed in his acceptance speech—is insulting.

"He is the one that has fomented all this racism," said Ghazala Irshad, a 31-year old Muslim American in New York City. "It's up to Donald Trump to take the first step and tell his supporters that he was wrong. We can't work with them unless they have empathy and compassion for us. We're already so marginalized. As people of color, we're challenging racism every day just to survive."

Irshad spoke about the "disconnect" she experienced when well-meaning friends and colleagues told her not to worry. She said she cried at work on Wednesday. "They have the privilege of not having to worry about it. It doesn't affect them as deeply," she said. "Because I'm Muslim, brown and a woman, it affects me." Adding to that disconnect is that fact that one of her aunts voted for Trump out of concern for ISIS: "The fear-mongering worked on her," Irshad explains.

While several people I talked to spoke of non-Muslims friends who reached out to express solidarity following the election, their worry is that their allies are fewer than they'd once believed and that, according to Abbas, "a lot of the allies we thought we had are willing to sell us out."

And for Abbas, Trump's personal beliefs about Muslims are beside the point—in legitimizing public hatred of the Muslim community, Trump has caused real damage to the community. "It's no longer a prejudiced thing" to disparage Muslims, he said; now, "it's just an opinion."

The election may be over, but American Muslims expressed an overwhelming feeling that major battles to protect their rights and community loom in the years ahead. Irshad talked about the seven stages of grief, and the necessity of moving past "shock" to "acceptance and hope."

"I think people are fired up now," said Irshad. "Most people followed the same pattern of depression, crying, mourning—and then the next day being resolved. I'm not going to resign myself to defeat. We're going to do something to change this."

Shahirah Majumdar is a writer living in Chicago.

Illustration by Kelsey Beyer

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My girlfriend Kelsey isn't just a nudist—she's a nude activist. She's a regular fixture at body freedom events around San Francisco and was once detained at city hall for stripping in protest of the recent nudity ban. She even suggested that our first date be in the buff (at a "leathermen/nudist rally").

I declined that generous offer, opting instead for the much lamer first date of drinks at a bar. Because I am not a nudist. If anything, I'm a prudist. I feel risqué around cleavage. I keep my eyes fixed to the floor of my gym's shower at all times, as if savoring the fallen strands of hair and Clif Bar wrappers there.

So when a rep from Hedonism II—a clothing-optional resort in Jamaica—invited me to spend five days "pursuing pleasure" in my birthday suit, I said, "No thanks!"

They asked a few more times, and it so happened that the next press trip fell on Kelsey's birthday. Nothing made her happier than nudity, and if I selflessly got an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Caribbean out of it, then by gum, I guess I could try being a nudist for a week.

I never thought I would travel to Jamaica, because I am a queer person and TIME once called the country "the most homophobic place on earth." That was ten years ago, however, and many activists and artists say the country is making strides. So we decided to go, anticipating severe cognitive dissonance while attending one of the most progressive resorts imaginable in one of the most homophobic countries around.

Day 1

A resort pamphlet notes that Negril, the town where the resort is located, is "popular for watersports," forcing me to briefly reconsider what I've gotten myself into before realizing that they're referring to wakeboarding.

Before I can blink, a mimosa appears in my hand. Hedo's staff is bend-over-backward accommodating (not a euphemism!) and our room is pimptastic. Steps from the beach! Ceiling mirrors! Private jacuzzi! Mini fridge stocked with booze! All of it free and positively, well, hedonistic.

We're given a daily agenda of activities and encouraged fetishwear ("school attire" on one day, "leather and lace" the next). Kelsey strips down to her birthday suit immediately, and I, emboldened by vodka, take off my top on our private patio, which isn't actually so private, as anyone can walk by and say "hi" (and MANY do, and SOME don't leave for a long time).

What I notice immediately is this: When nudity is the norm, it's easy to follow suit (or suitless, I suppose). Why? Because I'm a follower. As much as I might consider myself an artsy type who flirts with the EDGE, I am 100 percent lemming. Jump off this cliff, you say? Sure! Way better than what I had in mind. I defer to you, group of strangers!

I only last ten minutes in the buff, however. I am freeeeee, yes, but also self-conscious because our room has mirrors on every surface except the floor. I now know what my back fat looks like from four unique angles, and this knowledge is not comforting.

I remind myself that everyone else at this resort is comfortable (celebratory, even!) with their imperfections, and try to force myself to not to think of my physique as a "block of cheese on toothpicks." But I struggle. Judgment-free nudity cannot make up for a lifetime of being a woman in the world.

I do receive a surprising amount of attention from strangers, which is intoxicating. But it soon becomes apparent that the real star of our vacation is Kelsey's bush. A selection of unsolicited comments she received from men:

"DAT BUUUUSH!" (Followed by vigorous pointing.)

"Can I give you a compliment? I just loooove them hairy pussies."

"How do I put this? You are the first lady at the resort I have ever seen to be, uh, unshaved."

"Can I shave that? No? Can I lick it for you, then?"

I begin to feel weirdly competitive, wondering why nobody makes denigrating, sexist remarks about my bush. Admittedly, Kelsey's bush is resplendent—a fluffy cloud of curly tendrils you could comfortably nap upon for several hours. Mine, however, looks more like a 13-year-old's valiant attempt at a beard.

A Hedo attendee gets down with the Symbian saddle-plus-dildo sex toy at a lady-focused sex party. Illustration by Kelsey Beyer

Day 2

Hedo has planned a pole dancing class where we're taught "the grasshopper" and told to shake our asses "like you're salting a chicken." When I try, it looks less like seasoning poultry and more like frightening a chinchilla. So, fine—I cannot twerk. But we laugh a lot, and I post a picture on Facebook with one leg up on the pole at an awkward right angle. "I feel that there are many much more sexy dance moves than this one," my mother comments.

As the days wear on, I begin to feel more at ease in my body. I take advantage of the ceiling mirrors. I give my back fat a name (Sandra) so it feels more like a friend. I look at people's genitals but do not stare. Strangely, I find the most radical parts of Hedo aren't the nudity or fetish wear at dinner; it's that we can bring our beverages into the pool. Later that night, when I see a man receiving fellatio in the same pool, I barely bat an eye. "That? That's nothing. I enjoyed a piña colada in here earlier."

Day 3

A shortlist of activities I can now say I've tried nude: Ping-pong, snorkeling, playing pool while in a pool, dancing to "Baby Got Back" while wearing devil horns, and playing giant chess.

At this point, it's seeing people clothed that's shocking, partly because many male guests' wardrobes fall into the category of "Gross Dad Shirts." "This shirt was designed to distract you while I look at your chest," said one. Another simply had an erect penis, made to appear as if it was bulging up and out of the waistband of the wearer's shorts. The gentleman sporting it made it himself. "I may have embellished the size," he noted.

Truly, where else can an otherwise respectable fellow wear a shirt that reads "ASS: The Other Vagina" in public? Hedonism II might be his only chance in the world. I sympathize, and to each his own and all that, but I find it hard to smile at a sweet sexagenarian whose shirt reads, "Let's play a coin game: If it's heads, I get tail. If it's tails, I get head."

Watch "A Flair for Fetish: Sploshing"

Day 4

On our last day, we meet Beth, who runs Wild Women Vacations, which specializes in erotic trips for bi-leaning ladies. She tells us about a lady-focused party that night in the resort's sex play area, and we get excited, because Hedo is largely straight. When we arrive, Beth greets us excitedly.

"You came!" she says.

Another host chimes in, "Well, they haven't come yet."

Sex toys are scattered about the rooms, including the Hi massager, a vibrator about the size and shape of an electric mixer that can give women orgasms through their clothes. There's a vibrating saddle-plus-dildo apparatus named the Sybian, and a Womanizer, which is like a benign vacuum cleaner hose for your nether bits. A fisting demo takes place; the woman lending the helping hand is also the dominatrix of the evening. She's mostly retired, with kind eyes, and wears a hat with sparkly stones that read "SEXY." While she flogged me, she ran her fingers lightly along my back and said, "You're so delicate. I don't want to hurt you."

Hedo's fisting demo. Illustration by Kelsey Beyer

Day 5

As we leave, I'm grateful that we experienced no outward discrimination or harassment for being a lesbian couple, but this is possibly due to the fact that Hedo is completely segregated from Jamaica itself. We rarely left those progressive walls, and when we did, it was to be shuttled to Rick's Cafe, another white tourist destination that didn't care about our queerness. Of course, most everything that took place at Hedo would have been illegal in Jamaica proper—in most of the United States, even, which tends to frown upon public nudity and overt displays of non-normative sexuality (not to mention exhibitionism, BDSM, and drinking beverages in pools). I'm glad I got to exercise my sexual freedoms abroad before they are outright outlawed by Mike Pence.

Five days of nudity didn't make me fall in love with all my body's flaws and imperfections, but it did help me realize that there are a thousand more important things that I could and should be focusing on than finding an Instagram filter that best minimizes Sandra. Spending a week consorting and chatting with hundreds of nudists, almost all of whom were exceedingly friendly, cheerful, and eager to share how much they relished the freedom that is denied to them in their day-to-day lives was refreshing, uplifting even.

After we returned home, I found myself being more cavalier—walking brazenly from my bedroom to the bathroom with no towel, even! I may not have become a #BrandNudeYouAtH2, as Hedo's hashtag proffered, but I was definitely less uptight, and far less clothes-minded. And that counts for a lot.

Follow Anna Pulley on Twitter.

Marie Curtis Park. Photo via Flickr user Gary J. Wood

Less than six months after Toronto police officially apologized for the 1981 bathhouse raids that targeted gay men, the cops have charged dozens of consenting adult men for having sex at a local park.

A couple months ago, the cops undertook undercover operation Project Marie at Etobicoke's Marie Curtis Park in response to community complaints about indecent exposure and an alleged sexual assault. As a result of the investigation, through which "a number" of plain-clothed male officers hung out in the park and at times were solicited for sex, a total of 89 charges have been laid against 72 people, mostly men, according to police spokeswoman Meaghan Gray.

Very few of the charges are criminal in nature.

The majority relate to bylaw infractions and provincial offences, including 36 for engaging in sexual behaviour in a park and 33 for trespassing property. Gray said the men charged were primarily consenting adults.

Though the charges are minor in a legal sense, they have the potential to ruin lives, according to LGBT lawyers who say the investigation is a gross overreaction by police.

"Toronto police sent undercover police officers into the bushes to wait for men to proposition them for sex so they could arrest them. In 2016," Marcus McCann, a gay Toronto-based human rights lawyer, told VICE.

"That is unacceptable."

In response to news of the operation, McCann and ten other lawyers have stepped up to offer free legal help to the men who've been charged. He said it's likely that some will plead guilty and pay their fines—which can be hundreds of dollars—rather than risk exposing themselves publicly by fighting the charges.

"There have been crackdowns on men who have sex with men in the various locations they do it for 40 years or more," said McCann. "We know for that population these kinds of charges can have very severe consequences around shame and stigma, the risk of outing, there can be employment consequences, family consequences. Something that's a fairly minor bylaw infraction has the potential to really, really disrupt lives for these men and their families."

He said depression and suicidal ideation are also potential outcomes.

Const. Kevin Ward, one of the officers who went undercover, told the Etobicoke Guardian cops aren't planning on easing up on their crackdown.

"I want anyone engaging in these illegitimate activities to know that this is no longer a safe place for this to happen. We are going to be at the park every day and we will not be tolerating it," he said.

However, some are questioning the allocation of police resources on something that didn't net many criminal charges.

"It's basically like a very expensive sting operation for jaywalking," said McCann. He noted that while police have publicly spoken about reports of men who exposed themselves to children in relation to Project Marie, child sex predators aren't who they targeted by using adult undercover officers.

Gray said she could not disclose how much the police spent on Project Marie. She also couldn't say how many community complaints cops received or if there's been a spike in sexual activity at Marie Curtis Park.

She said the initiative wasn't meant to target gay men.

"We don't know the sexual orientation of any of the men who were involved, nor does it matter quite frankly," she said. "These people were engaged in behaviour that was against the law."

McCann said cops should have used a public education campaign, similar to the one they rolled out to curb drinking at Trinity Bellwoods Park. Gray said police started with that tactic, increasing their uniformed presence at the park and explaining to people what behaviour is and isn't acceptable.

Kyle Kirkup, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, said for members of the LGBT community, the operation is reminiscent of the bathhouse raids.

"People may not be out to their families. To have the police kind of force them out of the closet in this way, I think the consequences are going to be really devastating," he told VICE

Kirkup, who identifies as gay, pointed to the controversy that followed Toronto's Pride Parade this past summer, when Black Lives Matter demanded that cops no longer have an institutional presence in future marches.

"I think moments like this community members think, Wow, if this is the way they're governing themselves in 2016, perhaps it's unacceptable to have the police in the parade."

He said a better approach would have been to reach out to LGBT community groups and work together to resolve the issue.

Police are planning a "Walk the Beat" event at the park on Saturday, to discuss the issue with community members.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Our jobs and our mental health are obviously linked: if you're suffering from anxiety or depression, it can affect your ability to work, while the stresses of work itself can be a trigger for mental health issues. It's in bosses' interests to have a mentally healthy workforce, yet most choose to look the other way: 56 percent of employers say they wouldn't hire someone with depression if they knew about it.

Which causes a big problem: how can we expect workplaces to be more receptive to dealing with mental health issues when people worry that discussing issues with their colleagues could affect their career?

This week on The VICE UK Podcast, we're joined by Alastair Campbell – spin doctor during Tony Blair's years in Downing Street and now an advocate for Time to Change, a campaign aiming to end mental health discrimination – to talk about what can be done to change attitudes towards mental health at work.

READ: Should You Tell Work About Your Mental Health Condition?

(Thumbnail image: Dan Evans)

More on VICE:

Should You Talk To Your Employer About Mental Health

How Has Britain Been Affected by Donald Trump?

What It's Like to Feel Powerless as a Young Woman?

Illustration by Tiana Dunlop

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

Most people I know with an ongoing mental health condition haven't told their employer about it. We'll send one another memes about panic attacks and joke about periods of psychosis, but there's no way we can be that casual in the workplace.

In a fair world, employers wouldn't judge you for having a condition, and anyone who has an illness would have access to some form of work—which often helps with self-esteem and managing an illness—if they wanted that. But we're far from this being a reality, particularly in an economy in which employers don't want to take perceived risks on people they deem as sick—or, even worse, unproductive.

"When I had a breakdown, my work wasn't particularly supportive at all," remembers Sarah Mitchell, a 30-year-old mom with bipolar disorder, who used to work in an office in London. "They said: 'Can you just work from home on this day? Can you come in for a half day?' It just wasn't conducive to getting better at all. When I returned to work, people were talking behind my back, openly emailing about me... people who I thought were friends there shunned me, basically, and that made me more ill."

This lack of understanding from both employers and employees meant she had to leave the job and focus on recovery. She has since decided to stay working freelance because it was easier than trying to find an employer that would work with her illness rather than be scared of it. "It's very difficult to explain that gap in your CV," she says. "I should be honest, but people aren't usually receptive when you go into an interview and tell them you have bipolar."

It's important to add that disclosing illness doesn't always—and shouldn't ever—end in misunderstanding or punishment; sometimes it can improve your working conditions immensely. Fraud investigator Paul, in his 20s, suffers from anxiety and depression, and described a nurturing, female-dominated environment where the older women in the office look out for him.

"They've made it very clear I can talk to them about how I'm doing," he says. "If I'm seeming a bit down or ill, they'll notice. That makes so much difference to whether I feel I can go in during a bad patch. I think it's just about being good, supportive people."

This is an ideal situation—and, promisingly, over the last few years more companies seem to have become more understanding of conditions like depression and anxiety. This is brilliant progression, but it's obvious why it's these illnesses that have been picked up upon: Not only are they the most common mental health conditions, they also fit within the idea of "curable" illnesses.

Sometimes depression and anxiety come in patches, or can just happen for a singular stretch of time. They are viewed as "normal" mental health illnesses that even extremely productive people (people who make other people money) can have. But many other conditions are still overlooked, or treated with concern rather than compassion.

Hannah, 26, works a full-time job in admin for a company in London. She discloses to her employers that she has "vague" problems with her mental health, but hasn't told them she has borderline personality disorder (BPD).

"If you're working a normal 9–5 job, people don't think there are people who are seriously mentally unwell in their midst," she says. "I've heard people make jokes and comments that I think they wouldn't make if they knew. I have self-harm scars, and if they see , they feel uncomfortable—and it's because they assume that if they're working with me, I must be 'normal' and not have anything 'wrong.'"

The reality is that some people with chronic and less common mental health problems—BDP, PTSD, or psychosis, for example—are too ill to work, and we need to make sure they are properly cared for. However, there are also many with these conditions who can work if they get the support they need. Hannah doesn't believe she is any less capable than someone with a clean bill of mental health—just that she's different. "When I'm low I can't get my work done, so I might have two days where I've hardly done anything, but sometimes I'm high and I get a whole week's work done in a day and a half," she says. "It kind of balances out in the end."

Thankfully, there are legal safeguards in place to protect the jobs of people with mental health issues. These protections are mainly down to the UK's Equality Act 2010, which states that your employer can't discriminate against you if you have a mental health disability. To qualify for a disability, your condition should have a long-term (at least 12 months) effect on your normal day-to-day activity.

On the positive side, this is legal and binding. It also means that employers must make "reasonable adjustments" to work practices and provide other aids and adaptations. However, what works on paper can play out very differently in practice. If you did feel you were unfairly treated, you'd have to call an employment tribunal, which costs a lot of money and can take a long time. In addition, depression and anxiety can come in patches and can be severe, but still last for a shorter period than 12 months, meaning you're technically not protected by the law.

It also puts the onus on the employee to disclose their condition to the employer, which is stressful and not always safe. A 2011 Mind survey found that one in five people people would not disclose their stress or mental health status to their employer for fear of being placed first in line for redundancy.

LISTEN: The VICE UK Podcast—Employers Still Don't Know How to Deal with Mental Health

Bethany Lamont, who runs mental health zine Doll Hospital, agrees that there is a fault in this current system. "First and foremost, someone with a mental health condition has to think about practical issues, such as being safe and happy and surviving in our day-to-day lives," she says. "You don't want disclosing your condition to affect your employment; you might not be in a position to rock the boat too much."

People on zero hours contracts, for instance, might not feel secure enough to talk to their employer about their mental health; they might need all the hours they can get, and worry that disclosing their condition might work against them. Young people, too, who have only just finished interning for free and are seen as disposable might not want to be defined by their illness at the very start of their career.

Rather than employees putting themselves in danger, employers should be making environments that are conducive to good mental health and well-being in the first place. Some workplaces are starting to recognize this. Deloitte, one of the most well-known finance companies in the world, has embraced the idea that mental health matters. They provide "Mental Health Champions" at work who provide a confidential one-to-one advisory service for those suffering from mental health problems, and educate managers on what to do if employees come forward with issues.

According to MIND's Claire Bennett, there are plenty of things workplaces can do. She suggested providing flexible working hours to those struggling, regular one-on-one meetings with managers in order to keep the dialogue between them and staff open, and subsidized exercise classes to help with general well-being. They've now started a voluntary Workplace Well-being Index, which is a bit like hygiene ratings for restaurants, but to show that a workplace is doing what it can to promote and support good mental health.

Although you wouldn't want to sign up if your company is the equivalent of a dodgy takeout restaurant that leaves its patrons with nothing but shame and the shits, if you're in the business of claiming you look after your staff, put your money where your leftie brand ethos is.

"Businesses, companies, employers need to be advertising the fact that they believe in mental health support," says Bethany. "They need to make that clear in whatever way they feel is fit. So people feel like they are safe to talk about it and safe in the fact they are your legal rights. Because, right now, people just don't believe it."

Follow Hannah Ewens on Twitter.

Photo via HBO

Winter is coming for HBO. Game of Thrones has two more seasons left, and when it goes off the air, it will leave a smoking crater the size of Doom of Valyria in HBO's lineup. The last season of Game of Thrones averaged three times as many initial viewers as the second highest HBO show, True Detective, and about 16 times the viewership of a show like Girls. Total per-episode viewership has surpassed a staggering 25 million, making it the most popular HBO show ever.

While HBO still has a stable of fantastic, critically acclaimed shows like Silicon Valley, Veep, and Westworld (which was just picked up for a second season), none of them come even close to being the cultural force and ratings dragon that is Game of Thrones. So executives at HBO are mulling a radical plan: Make more Game of Thrones. According to Entertainment Weekly, HBO is having "preliminary ongoing talks" with author George R.R. Martin about how to do a prequel or spinoff of the fantasy franchise.

Although there are countless spinoffs one could imagine from HBO's sprawling fantasy drama (Arya and the Hound buddy comedy please), any spinoff sequel would be dependent on which characters actually survive the famously bloody series.

If HBO wants to do a prequel, they already have the material ready, as David Perry wrote in VICE last year. Game of Thrones is based off Martin's epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, and, while Martin has been famously and aggravatingly slow to finish the sixth novel in the series, he has been busy fleshing out the backstory. He's written three prequel novellas called "The Dunk and Egg stories" that take place about 100 years before the events of Game of Thrones, and has plans for many more.

Martin himself has talked excitedly about the possibility of adapting the Dunk and Egg stories, saying that "they're somewhat lighter in tone than the main series. A little more adventurous. But my fans love them, and I love the two characters, too. And it all ties into Westeros history. So maybe that will be what we'll do."

Martin also co-wrote a massive encyclopedia-style faux-history book called The World of Ice and Fire that features literally centuries of backstory on dozens of kingdoms and settings and countless characters all over the fictional world of Planetos. If HBO wants to make more shows set in the Game of Thrones world, it has plenty to choose from.

Follow Lincoln Michel on Twitter.

Calgary-based Creep Catcher Dawson Raymond (centre) with two fellow catchers. Photo via Facebook.

There is much debate about whether or not Creep Catchers—groups of vigilantes who publicly shame people they perceive to be child sex predators—are doing any good in their communities. But for one Alberta judge, the threat of "vigilante reactions" was enough to convince him to protect a child-luring sex offender's identity while delivering his judgment.

According to CBC News, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Brian Burrows anonymized the accused while convicting him of child luring—a decision he made on his own accord. Because there's no publication ban on the man's name, media outlets independently identified him as Kenneth Rode.

Rode, 53, was convicted in October in relation to a series of sexually explicit online chats he had with an 11-year-old girl, including the exchange of graphic photos. He's been sentenced to 15 months in jail.

After the girl's parents discovered the chats in January 2015, they went to police, who continued talking to Rode on the girl's behalf. Eventually, undercover officers from the Alberta Integrated Child Exploitation Unit (ALERT) arranged a meet-up with Rode in Edmonton (he reportedly wanted the girl to "cuddle up... and see what happens"), and arrested him.

Read more: An Edmonton Woman Killed Herself After Being Confronted By Creep Catchers

While delivering his judgment Justice Burrows said he was concealing Rode's name "because of the nature of the allegations," the CBC reports. "I think the recent news of vigilante reactions to such allegations."

Alberta's Justice department declined to comment on the judge's decision.

VICE reached out to several Alberta Creep Catchers but has not heard back. However, the Creep Catchers website advises followers not to harm the people in their videos.

"We do not condone or endorse any harm coming to these individuals, minus public shaming and outting (sic)," it says.

"Any such violence towards anyone portrayed in our content will be frowned upon and you may find yourself on our pages!"

Michael Lacy, vice president of the Criminal Lawyers' Association, told VICE Burrows' decision is unprecedented.

"Openness and transparency favour publication except in the most exceptional of circumstances. If there was a real concern for the physical safety of the accused, that would certainly qualify as exceptional but it does not appear there was actual evidence of that before the judge," he said.

"Vigilante justice obviously has no place in the administration of criminal justice and this judge's reaction perhaps speaks to his concern in that regard."

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE Alps.

Sarah (21) and Stefan (25) are two students from Graz in Austria, who decided to wait to have sex until after marriage and actually managed to pull it off. The couple got together in 2013, but only had sex after their wedding in the summer of 2015. I had a chat with them about love, the limits of intimacy, and their moments of weakness.

VICE: How did you guys meet?
Sarah: We've actually known each other for most of our lives.

Stefan: We have been running into each other at church events since we were little. We had been together for a year and a half before getting married.

Sarah: We both had other relationships before getting together though. The last time we both found ourselves single, something seemed to finally click.

Why did you decide to wait before having sex?
Stefan: Our views on love and relationships are very much influenced by our religious beliefs. Of course, we didn't talk about marriage right away. But what was clear to us was that if the relationship worked out, then the next step would be marriage.

Sarah: At the beginning, marriage didn't really play a big role for me. But we did talk about it before we officially became a couple, as well as about our thoughts regarding physical love. We always agreed that we would wait until marriage before we had sex.

Stefan: Generally, I let my beliefs and the Bible help me with important decisions. I'm convinced that sex should be saved for marriage, and think that it's just even more special that way. Sex is something we only share with each other.

Sarah: I also think that it's reasonable to wait. That way, you concentrate more on the relationship, on building trust, and on getting to know each other well before you get close.

Did you have sex with other people before you got together?
Sarah: No. Our ex-partners were people, who also wanted to wait to get married. So we lost our virginity to each other.

Did you ever sleep over at each other's place before getting married?
Stefan: Sarah stayed over at mine a few times, but we always slept in separate rooms. Early on in our relationship we spoke about what our limits should be and decided to avoid kissing, too. We did give each other little kisses on the cheek or the forehead, but never a real French kiss.

Why did you do that?
Stefan: We decided to wait with the kissing, because we worried it could mislead us into going further physically. Kisses are powerful and one thing can lead to another, so we wanted to prevent this.

How did the relationship between the two of you differ from a friendship ?
Stefan: I would say the only difference was that we never got as physically close as other couples might. Apart from that, our relationship was like anyone else's: We were in love, spent a lot of time together, and talked about everything. I tell Sarah things no one else knows. Sarah is the person who knows me best and is most important to me. But we also expressed our love physically.

This couple is not Stefan or Sarah | Wyatt Fisher | flickr.com | CC By-Sa 2.0

How did you express your love physically before marriage?
Sarah: Like any other couple would. We cuddled, we held hands, we leaned on each other, we hugged each other, stroked each other's backs—things like that.

Stefan: We just didn't kiss and didn't sleep together. Apart from that we were like any other couple in love.

Did you have any moments of weakness?
Stefan: Hardly, but only because of the separate bedrooms. It would have been very difficult if we had shared a bed.

Sarah: You did have some moments, when you really wanted to kiss.

Stefan: That might be true. I can't really remember now. But we were never really weak.

How was your first time then? Did you go all the way on your wedding night?
Stefan: It all happened in stages. We had our first kiss at the registry office. That was two days before the church wedding.

Sarah: Yes, those two days were pretty exciting.

Stefan: On the wedding night, we were too tired so nothing really happened. But the next day it did. We both approached sex as something to learn—mostly because you have to figure out what the other person likes.

Sarah: I think we went about it wisely, though. We spoke about sex and exchanged ideas and read about it a lot, beforehand. You also hear from a lot of people that the first time isn't always so great. That minimized our expectations, so we were more relaxed. We knew that no matter what happened the first time, we'd work together to make it good. And we don't regret having waited. If I had to do everything all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.

Why did you marry so young? Was it at all about wanting to have sex as soon as possible?
Sarah: Once we both realized that our relationship was working out so well, it only made sense to take the next step and get married.

Stefan: We know we got married earlier than the average person, but we felt the time was right. There was no reason to wait anymore. We'd found out what we needed about each other.

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Kevin Briggs worked for the California Highway Patrol between 1990 and 2013, during which he spent the majority of his time on the beat that included the Golden Gate Bridge. While it offers some of the most majestic views in the world, there's a dark side: It is the most popular site in the United States for those attempting suicide. Here's the story about what that was like in his own words.

I arrived to the Bay Area on December 5, 1983, just after a stint in the Army. I remember that because it was my birthday. In 1987, I started with the Department of Corrections, and in 1990, I joined the California Highway Patrol.

I worked in Marin, a very big beat that starts just across the Bay and then goes into San Francisco County via that Golden Gate Bridge. Marin handles the bridge. So, I started working down there, and really liked it, but I didn't know it had this big dark side to it. People didn't talk about it much. There were four to six calls every month about a suicidal subject on the bridge, which was called "suicide proof" by Joseph Strauss, the chief engineer in charge of building it.

"Suicide from the bridge," Strauss said at the time, "is neither practical or probable." According to the Bridge Rail Foundation, an organization dedicated to stopping suicides from the bridge, nearly 1,600 people have leapt to their deaths since the bridge opened in 1937.

When I first found out this was part of the beat, I was angry. I had no training in this. This was a disservice to those people who'd climbed over the rail, and also a disservice to me. We've come a long way since. Now veteran officers and psychologists take these calls.

My first call was a lady who was quite despondent, and may have been homeless. She had that very tough kind of life like most people who decided to go over the rail. Typically, they'd been going through things for a number of years. The majority suffered from mental illness, generally depression. I didn't know how to approach, and I was stumbling with my words. I was having a tough time with it, but she eventually did come back over. To be honest with you, I think she had more sympathy for me, because I was a mess.

As cops, you're taught to take charge of situations. You get in there, handle it, move on. But with mental illness cases or negotiations, you calm down. You need to take your time and develop rapport. What I started doing was walking up to these folks, keeping a bit of distance, and asking their permission to approach. "Can I talk with you a little bit?" To have a cop ask their permission always surprised them and set us on a good path—most of the interactions people have with police is of us giving orders. Once I got permission, I tried to get below them. If they could look down on me, that was a plus. So I'd kneel down and get them to look through the rails at me.

Sometimes you'd get drivers yelling from their cars. 'Jump! Hey, jump, man! It'll be good pictures!'

In the job, you use active listening skills, open body language like not crossing your hands or arms. You never ask questions that begin with "why," because their answers could point to blame. It's very important not to judge, to let them tell their story as long as they want to keep talking. You say things just to let them know you're paying attention, not to interrupt. You need to pay attention. It's a lot of work, you're tired in the end.

We didn't typically reach over or through the barrier to grab a potential jumper. I've had to wrestle with some folks when they were trying to get over the rail. But once they're over you don't. If you try to grab someone, their first instinct is to scoot away. I don't want to lose them that way. But probably the biggest reason you don't attempt to pull them back is that it's so empowering for them to come back over on their own. It takes so much courage to do that.

Sometimes you'd get drivers yelling from their cars. "Jump! Jump, man! It'll be good pictures!" Some nonsense like that. Traffic is stop-and-go with people gawking, and these folks are going to be a couple minutes late getting home, so they'll roll down their window and shout. All that rapport you'd try to develop was out the window then because the person is like, "See, nobody cares!" It set you back.

I lost two people that I spoke to directly. One I wasn't with for very long. He was a really nice guy. Wouldn't tell me his name. Wouldn't tell me how he got to that situation, what his story was. But something was going on in his life, and finally he just turned around, shook my hand, and said, "Kevin, I have to go. My grandmother's down there." His grandmother had passed. He thanked me and jumped. There was nothing I could do.

People often ask, why there? Why the Golden Gate Bridge? It's the bridge itself, and the romance associated with it. Most people jump in mid-span of the bridge and think it's a gateway to somewhere. They think the water is cleansing. They want to see the view before they go. A lot of people have said they know it will get the job done.

They're right. After someone jumps, they experience a free fall of four to five seconds. The body strikes the water at 75 miles per hour. That impact shatters bones, some of which puncture vital organs. Most die on impact. Those who don't most likely flail in the water helplessly and drown.

If you lose someone, of course it affects you. We used to deal the old school way—go out, have a drink, shut your mouth, come back and do your job. But now it's getting better. We can see a counselor free of charge, and have confidentiality. Also, if you talk to someone who jumps, you don't handle the case anymore. Another officer takes over. They'll go to the Coast Guard, see the body, talk to witnesses, do a report. Which is a good way of doing it. I don't want to go down and see what I refer to as my failure.

If you or someone you know needs help, please call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Follow Rick Paulas on Twitter.

Look at this bullshit. Photo via Kevin Kerr

Some Toronto based Alt-righters are feeling emboldened after their God-King was elected and their most well-known jester was thrust into power.

To celebrate and recruit for their cause they put up posters around a park in East York.

It's not hard to see the target audience of these posters as at the top, in big bold text, it read "HEY WHITE PERSON." It then went on to ask several questions, most of which can only be defined as blatantly racist.

"Are you tired of political correctness?" reads the first, which is technically not racist, but we know where it's going.

"Wondering why only white countries have to become 'multi-cultural?'" reads the second, which is something a racist might wonder.

"Figuring out that diversity only means 'less white people?'" reads the third. Sigh.

Starting to see the trend here?

After asking eight questions that all have a similar bent, the poster then instructs the reader to "Join the Alt-right" and lists several websites. For those not in the know, the Alt-right is a movement of nationalism and white supremacism that championed Donald Trump in the American election.

Read More: The Alt-Right's Fear of a Black Planet

Ian Daffern saw the posters up near his son's school on Monday morning. He took a photo of the posters and uploaded them to Facebook.

"Hey Canadians. It's here okay?" he wrote in the status. "This poster was up on the grounds of my 4 year old son's school this morning in East York. Be vigilant. Do not underestimate the force of American culture. These ideas push in."

Toronto city councillor Janet Davis tweeted out against the posters and their sentiment.

"This hate is unacceptable in our City," she said. "Staff are removing the posters immediately and investigating who is responsible."

These posters are just the latest in a trend that has seen racist ideologies become more and more mainstream in the past year. A few months ago,anti-Sikh posters were put up at the University of Alberta. Then, just a few weeks later, also in Alberta, anti-Islamic ones were put up.

The Alt-right posters were removed by the city and police are investigating them as a possible hate crime.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter

The people of the United States just chose as their president a right-wing, anti-immigrant populist. So, naturally, in the week since Donald Trump was elected president, the left-wing, pro-immigrant State of California has begun toying with the idea of splitting off and doing its own thing.

The seemingly new #Calexit movement is actually less of a movement than a hashtag that sprang up last week, and soon got perpetuated by members of the already-existing Yes California movement. As I reported back in February, Louis Marinelli's secessionist California National Party has been making small ripples in the California political scene all year, including some (very limited) recognition from the actual California secretary of state. Still, the platform of the CNP (basically, "believe what you want, as long as you also believe California is a country") didn't exactly seem like it was about to become California's ascendant political ideology before November 8.

President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump shake hands following their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, November 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The sky is falling.

At least that's what many alarmed by the coming ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States would have America believe. How could a country assumed to be so morally advanced by so many elect a man so overtly foul? That's what has brought a healthy number of people into the street night after night, their social media outrage bubbling over into IRL rage.

But as much as I encourage healthy activism, some of these people need to check their history. Trump's win isn't a massive deviation from the norm, but an affirmation of business as usual in American politics. The cold reality is that it's the same shit, different day. America has a long, putrid legacy of racism: The country was developed on the backs of slave labor, expanded and fortified via a genocidal campaign against Native Americans, and has waged war in one way or another on countries and communities of color practically since its inception. Why is it still surprising when America does something despicable?

Now, if you're worried about a president-elect who's been endorsed by affiliates of the KKK, I get it. But in the last 50 years alone, we've had at least one Supreme Court justice and a US senator who were once in the Klan, and multiple presidents have been accused of KKK membership at various points in their careers, as well. There's nothing new here.

The fact is both the Democratic and Republican Parties have played key roles in upholding the ideals of white supremacy. Democrats ushered in Jim Crow in the post–Civil War South, and their cause was carried well into the 20th century by racial blowhards like Bull Connor and George Wallace. And the GOP's exploitation of racial anxieties among white working-class voters since the 1960s (which came to be known as the "Southern Strategy") has been devastatingly effective.

Of course, some will argue it's a knee-jerk response to label Trump's win the product of racism, suggesting instead that he seized the White House because of his "populism." The argument goes that Hillary Clinton was seen as too cozy with DC elites and the moneyed classes of America; in this telling, Trump's faux working man's champion shtick was enough to convince many whites he cares about people like them—even if he has a solid history of shafting the little guy for his own benefit. (Really, the greatest hustle of all is Trump's con of making working-class whites think that he gives a shit about them.)

But guess what? Non-whites don't have the luxury of overlooking the racist rhetoric of powerful white people. And given the violence that often accompanies such oratory, the promise of new jobs from our bankrupter-in-chief for depressed areas is not enough to allay these concerns. If you voted for Donald Trump, I think you're a racist by proxy. And the fact that Trump didn't just win working-class whites, but—if you buy exit polls—college-educated and affluent white folks, as well, means there are a hell of a lot of racists running around.

Maybe this was inevitable, as a common gripe echoed among white men in recent years has been their feeling marginalized as our country slowly began its overdue metamorphosis into a more inclusive society. They started to view themselves as casualties of a sort of imagined reverse-racism, forced to share power they entertained exclusively for so long. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, these sentiments reverberated online and festered in forums on 4chan, Facebook, and Reddit, finding cohesion in the "alt-right." That movement's driving force is the idea that white identity and Western civilization are under relentless assault at the hands of "political correctness" and "social justice."

Alt-right or not, many Americans seem to have grown tired of a new, cosmopolitan America where a black president wielded power, women asserted themselves and vocalized the need for wage parity, blacks demanded racial justice by proclaiming that their lives matter, and immigrants were able to achieve upward mobility. Millions of white Americans said "enough" last week, and, in tribal fashion, voted to return America to a state they are more comfortable with. They really do want to, in the words of their dear leader, "Make America Great Again."

For the record, I'm not afraid of Donald Trump. He's a bully within his moneyed circle who's never really known struggle. He's a gilded tough guy and a political lightweight who champions anti-intellectualism, and whose allegiances change like the blowing of the wind. Want proof? He's already begun to change his tune on eliminating Obamacare. And his proposed wall on the border of Mexico is completely infeasible.

See, my concern is not so much that Trump will do horrible things—my concern is that Trump legitimizes racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic behavior and emboldens others to do horrible things. It's not the man that's a concern to me, but his supporters and his political party.

Tomie Lenear Jr., a student-parent success counselor at UC Berkeley, echoes that sentiment, noting that students quickly began to feel the same anxiety after last Tuesday. "Some of them feel like a Trump administration will deport their family members or people they know," Lenear told me. "And a lot of them say the overall social climate is more violently charged. They think we're headed for conflict in the streets."

Those fears are not unwarranted, as allegations of hate crimes and intimidation have spiked since the election.

Not that Democrats have been particularly good for people of color—they haven't. Hillary Clinton had a sullied history that rightfully prevented many from supporting her. Perhaps the party's defeat will force it began to take seriously my assertion, and the belief of many others, that its leaders take African American support for granted—and should began to truly address concerns relevant to us and other people of color. Pandering for votes come election time, only to disappear until the next one, will no longer cut it.

For now, it seems like things have to get worse before they get any better. Time will tell whether or not the Trump administration is as damaging as many fear it will be. Either way, I'm prepared—we've been here before. It's just disheartening that, in 2016, we find ourselves here again.

Paris is a hip-hop artist and activist from the Bay Area. He's owned several businesses that never went bankrupt. Follow him on Twitter.

All images courtesy Garry Glowacki

There is a theory that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a master at something.

Looking at the scores of paintings and drawings covering the walls of The Bridge office in downtown Brampton, Ont.—all of which were done by Canadian prisoners—you'd think you were standing in the lobby of the Ontario College of Art and Design.

This stuff is good. Like, gallery good. "Master of the craft" good.

You see, in prison, they've got nothing but time.

Curator Garry Glowacki is executive director at The Bridge, an organization that helps ex-offenders reintegrate into society after release from custody.

After more than 20 years of working with this population, he knows firsthand the power that art can have in someone's life. And as an ex-con who struggled with a heroin addiction himself, he also knows the effects that jail can have on a person, both physically and psychologically.

Now, Glowacki is holding a gallery show to share his art collection with the community—to give them a glimpse into the humanity of those behind bars, many of whom struggle with mental health and addictions.

"We want the men we work with to be seen as people," Glowacki says. "They have talent and skills... far more than they've had a chance to show."

While some of the pieces featured in the show contain blatant references to or reflections of jailhouse life—like gang insignia or the view from a cell—others are more metaphorical. Many focus on nature, or portraits of family members or friends. Some are dark and uncomfortable. Others are heartbreakingly childlike.

After a sit-down with Glowacki recently for a preview of the show, VICE reached out to some of the artists or people who knew them to get a glimpse into the stories behind their art:

(The show From The Inside Out will run through the month of November at the Beaux-Arts gallery in Brampton, with a reception taking place on Nov. 24.)

Despite being a part of the National Curriculum since 2014, turns out only 40 percent of school children are being taught money management. Still, while that might not be Every Single Child in the UK, it's surely better than pre-2014. The only thing finance-related thing I ever learned was how many euros Marie and Jean-Luc from my KS1 French textbook would need to buy 30 oranges.

Suffice to say, I was never taught the important stuff – and, it would appear, nor are the current crop of 17-year-olds. In a report released this week by Money Advice Service, 32 percent of those surveyed said they didn't have experience of putting money into a bank account, while 59 percent couldn't read a pay slip.

Martin Lewis – founder of MoneySavingExpert.com – told me over the phone that "we live in one of the world's most competitive consumer economies, and yet we're not very good at it. It's an absolutely crucial life skill to learn how to live your life as a consumer, because so many people fuck up their lives at the age when they hit independence."

So just to get things started, I spoke to a number of experts about the money stuff we should have been taught at school. Treat this as a gateway into the world of properly understanding why you shouldn't just instantly shred all your payslips.

CHOOSE YOUR ADVICE WISELY

While your nan might have lived through seven recessions and seem dead set on the reliability of lottery bonds, maybe don't take her word as gospel. Or your parents' word, for that matter; just 61 percent of parents reported feeling confident about talking money with their kids. This lack of confidence might be due to the fact that half of parents don't save regularly, with 68 percent finding it difficult to keep up with their bills and credit card payments. As a result, this month collective personal debt in the UK rose to a record £1.5 trillion, which doesn't bode particularly well for all those parents' offspring.

Still, Nick Hill from the Money Advice Service says that listening to your mum and dad might not be such a bad thing. "You can learn as much from bad habits as you can from good ones," he points out. "So even if your parents aren't doing the smartest thing, you can learn from their mistakes." And when that fails, there's plenty of alternative wisdom out there in impartial, regulated organisations like Nick's. The key message, he says, is to "just take responsibility and accountability for it", and not to expect anyone else to tell you when to get off ASOS.

NEVER GET A PAYDAY LOAN ADVERTISED ON THE TELLY BY A CARTOON ANIMAL

Martin tells me that "a level of skepticism is crucially important" when it comes to assessing the people trying to sell you things, because "a company's job is to make money – they aren't there to help you". A pretty obvious point, but it's worth remembering when it comes to stuff like payday loans, because fuck those up and you might end up having your car repossessed.

According to Nick, there's "a time and a place for payday loans, but if you're having to use them as a way to cope day-to-day, then the chances are it's getting out of control". So unless you're certain about your ability to pay them back, their extortionate interest rates are best avoided.

Be smart with your money and one day maybe you'll be able to make it rain like Fat Joe and Lil Wayne (Screen shot via)

DEVLOP A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT CREDIT ACTUALLY IS

Credit as a concept isn't necessarily an objectively Bad Thing. As Martin puts it, "Debt isn't bad; bad debt is bad. Frankly, the message 'never borrow' is antiquated, because unless you are incredibly lucky then if you want to buy a house you are going to have to have a debt."

Responsible ways of building up a credit score without getting a credit card include: keeping your postal address the same as your parents while you're at university, never going over your overdraft limit and even registering to vote, because it proves that you're a responsible person who cares about the world beyond your immediate surroundings.

UNIVERSITY LOANS ARE, IN FACT, REAL MONEY

University is becoming less of an expected part of growing up, as higher tuition fees and the disappearance of grants mean that you might be saddled with a level of debt that isn't ever justified by your eventual job role. But for those who choose to take the plunge, you need to know that, despite what everyone tells you, you will in fact notice and fully feel those loan repayments. They are made out of proper, real money, which you will be expected to pay back in full.

BUYING BAKED BEANS IN BULK DOESN'T COUNT AS "BUDGETING"

As Martin points out, "Most budgets are bollocks." While your parents shoo you off to university with a recommended monthly budget, you are inevitably going to completely fuck it all up in the first week and blow your entire loan on either three nights out or one very expensive pair of trousers.

So, he says, "We have to accept that life is a bit complicated, and we don't live it by the month." That's why his recommended budgeting system has 112 categories – to accommodate all the unexpected stuff that isn't planned into a normal week, like Christmas, or MOTs, or not getting your deposit back because you drew dicks all over the wall in permanent marker.

Habitually sticking to a budget involves learning about financial priorities early on. So you should get into habits like doing a Big Shop instead of spending all your money on singular Scotch eggs and steering clear of impulse purchases. That includes putting the call in four pints into a Thursday evening. Nick didn't overtly advise me on that one, but he did say that sometimes you should just leave your bank cards at home "to protect yourself from yourself".

READ: How to Have a Night Out in London Without Spending a Penny

DON'T USE YOUR PAYSLIP AS A COASTER

So there's more to a payslip than the figure highlighting how little is actually being transferred into your bank account. For example, tax information! The numbers depict how much money you can earn tax free, while the letters indicate any special circumstances or benefits which might affect your income. Just have a google to figure out the specifics of yours.

While understanding tax might not seem that much fun, actively not doing so could be the cause of your financial downfall. Particularly if you're self employed, in which case Martin says to just accept straight up that "a third of your money isn't actually yours".

Another thing: if your economic situation has recently changed and you're in a new job, it can take a while for The Man to figure out your proper tax code. Being given an emergency tax code (indicated by the letters W, N or X) either results in a rebate or a potentially crippling extra charge, so Nick advises that when you look at your new payslip you should "be a bit pessimistic until they are absolutely certain about what income is going to be".

SAVE MONEY FOR WHEN YOU ARE OLD AND YOUR HYPOTHETICAL CHILDREN DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU ANY MORE

Trying to make a 17-year-old think about the expiration date on their lithe, supple limbs is near impossible. And while pension auto-enrolment happens at 22 anyway, contributing more than the required minimum amount as early as possible is incredibly important if you actually ever want to retire. So when it comes to being aware of the reality of your own impending mortality and the benefits of saving, it's a case of the sooner the better.

More on VICE:

How to Invest Your Money When You Don't Have Any Money

What It's Like to Date Someone Who's Terrible with Money

How to Print £190 Million in Fake Money and (Mostly) Get Away With