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The First Time I Let Someone Die

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I was 27 the first time I let someone die. Thirteen months after finishing medical school in the second year of an eight-year brain surgery residency at a major trauma center in Southern California, I was in charge of the neurosurgical intensive care unit. Before they taught you how to operate, you had to spend a few years mastering medical care of patients with brain injuries, so that's what I was doing. This was one month into a year-long period of my career marked by 120-hour weeks, with three 36-hour shifts a week being the norm. (These work hours are now banned.)

The hospital "sleeping quarter" was a misnomer. We never slept. But on the sixth floor there was a room the size of a closet with a bunk bed and a telephone where you could at least get horizontal while you answered pages that came unrelentingly. I became accustomed to the beeps, but sometimes the room would shake—that meant the trauma helicopter was bringing someone in, and I would likely get a page.

On one Tuesday morning, I felt the room shake at 3 AM. My pager: Trauma Resus ETA 3 min. That meant I should be ready to receive a patient in three minutes, because the paramedics were bringing someone to the "bay"—the trauma bay—on the brink of death.

The paramedics in the helicopter let us know in advance that incoming was a "34F s/p MVA unresponsive with dilated pupil, scalp laceration, multiple orthopedic injuries," meaning a 34-year-old woman who got in a car accident and wasn't awake or responsive. Her heart was beating on its own, but they had to force air into her lungs by hand squeezing a balloon 20 times a minute, a process known as "bagging." When the paramedics pulled her out of the car, they found broken bones and blood dripping from the top of her head. Most importantly, the black circles inside her two blue eyes were not equal in size; the "dilated pupil" was a telltale sign of severe brain injury and dangerously high intracranial pressures. That's why neurosurgery was paged.

Exhausted but alert, I descended the stairs to the second floor. The trauma team was already assembled: surgeons, nurses, technicians, students. The paramedics rushed her gurney through two giant doors that automatically swung open. We all descended on her with defined roles and a cadence to our maneuvers. An anesthetist slipped a tube through her mouth and into her lungs so a ventilator could drive in air since her brain wasn't triggering breaths. A series of images was taken confirming the broken bones, which weren't immediately threatening. But her scans showed a damaged and swollen brain that needed emergency attention and intervention. The violent car crash had slammed her brain against the inside of her skull, and, just like any other tissue, brain tissue swells when hit.

I loaded a eighth-inch bit onto a hand drill and tightened it in place with an allen wrench. A quick stab incision got me to the skull.

Since the skull doesn't stretch, I needed to make room for the swelling brain so it didn't smash itself to death within its cranial confines. Luckily the brain is like a cantaloupe in that it has fluid chambers that can be accessed and drained to make room. So I loaded a eighth-inch bit onto a hand drill and tightened it in place with an allen wrench. A quick stab incision got me to the skull. My left hand held the drill steady and the right hand turned the handle. I made a hole and plunged a hollow catheter seven centimeters through her right frontal lobe and into the mysterious fluid lakes inside her brain. The pressure inside was already so high that clear brain fluid squirted out the end of the catheter into the air. Her injury was global so she wouldn't need brain surgery, but she needed our intense management in the ICU. Two hours after she arrived in the bay, the ventilator and brain catheter stopped her spiral towards death. These steps and the ones to follow gave her about a 20 percent chance of living, we estimated.

She devoured my attention for the next four weeks. Using mannitol and other diuretics, I tried to dry out the boggy brain tissue and I tried to pull the reins on her brain swelling. When her arm veins were too thin to handle the volume of medicines, I punctured giant veins in her neck and slid in bigger catheters for better access. When her lung collapsed, I cut between her ribs and inserted a hose to vacuum up the lung. The brain swelling came in waves every 20 minutes, and during these surges the ICU nurse and I would time the delivery of various drugs—diuretics, sedatives, narcotics, paralytics—in hopes of preventing the intracranial pressure waves from cresting. Her fragility required so much minute-by-minute attention that the ICU nurse and I were by her bedside all night every other night.

Twenty-six days after she arrived at the hospital, her daily morning brain scan showed something that couldn't be ignored, something for which surgeons will likely never have an answer. A certain part of her brain showed no blood flow and had the dark-gray color of dead brain tissue. She had a brainstem stroke. The brainstem is that deep part of brain that is rarely visualized. It's the stalk of the mushroom, if you will, our reptilian brain, the master controller of our automatic functions. It allows you to breathe when you're asleep and open your eyes when you wake up. The thinking brain (frontal lobe) is useless without its reptilian partner, and when the brainstem is injured the patient will never live off machines. Never breathe. Never wake up. Miracles don't happen with this injury.

In crises people don't understand your words—they feel your energy.

The complexity of what had happened is hard for even general doctors to understand, let alone traumatized family members. After four weeks, I had come to know this patient's family well, but the emotional ether in that "family meeting" where I took away any and all hope of her surviving is hard to capture with written words. In crises people don't understand your words—they feel your energy. They never fully understood, but they trusted me. The next day, they asked me to guide them through the process and steps of letting her die.

Before they came to see her one last time, I wanted her to look as close as possible to how her family remembered her, so I asked the nurse to help me. It was the ICU nurses who knew best what I had tried to do to save her, and how I had failed. I removed the cold sterile catheters and tubes from her neck, chest, and brain. To me, these were vestiges of a tattered parachute that failed. Only one catheter with morphine in the bend of her arm remained. I disconnected the ventilator and pulled the tube from her throat. The nurse combed her hair one last time and then we brought the family in to be with her. A few hours later, she finished the spiral that I delayed for 28 days.

We never met in the conventional sense; I never met her consciousness. My efforts left her with physical scars and she left me with emotional ones deep in the recesses of my mind. By the end of that year, I had let 24 other people die. Every family appreciated how hard I tried; many invited me to their funerals, and one time I went. But she was my first. I think about her nearly 20 years and thousands of patients later.To take care of the dying you have to become comfortable with death. I'm still not. But scar tissue is tough.

Rahul Jandial, MD, PhD, is a dual-trained brain surgeon and neuroscientist.Follow him on Twitter and Instagram, and visit his website here.

Visit Corey Brickley's website for more of his illustration work.


Inside the Vancouver Arcade with the World’s Last 8mm Peepshow

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Games, movies, shooting. Photos by the author

I'm standing on a tiny loading bay with four competitive Street Fighter players as they pass around a joint in the the chill December air. The door is kept just slightly ajar so as to keep the smoke from wafting inside. Genesis, who had been showing me the ropes for the past few hours, articulates his love for Street Fighter the way an art history major might about a Monet painting. I try to keep up but my knowledge of the franchise is limited, and I'm amazed at how much thought he's put into the game's artistic merits. The joint is killed, the roach is tossed, and we head inside toward the blinking lights and endless 8-bit sounds. We walk past a broken game machine in need of repair, past the sketchy bathroom, and past a dozen 8mm peepshow projection booths, the last of their kind in the world. This hodgepodge of vintage entertainment is what makes up Vancouver's nearly forgotten Movieland Arcade.

Someone told me about Movieland when I first moved to Vancouver, about its legendary seedy bathroom and old school porn movies. But when I found out the porn played on actual 8mm projectors, the cinephile in me was desperate to check it out. Seeing 8mm film, pornographic or not, is a rare experience in the "Netflix and chill" era, and the opportunity to hear that whir of celluloid passing through a projector at 24 frames a second for 25 cents a pop was not one I could pass up. I took a trip to Movieland, dug into its history, and interviewed some regulars to find out how the business is still kicking and how it became the last place in the world to project 8mm peepshows.

If you walk down Granville Street on an average Saturday night and you'll find hipsters smoking outside a Japandroids show, homeless sleeping in doorways, and students lining up at Caprice Nightclub. It's an eclectic mix that continues to change in order to appeal to the shifting demographics of the area. Right in the middle of the Granville strip lies the Movieland Arcade, in the same place it's stood for nearly five decades.

The arcade and its retro aesthetic fit perfectly on Granville back in the mid twentieth century. It was the heart of the city with an impressive display of neon lights, movie theatres, restaurants, and other arcades. According to most sources Movieland opened a few doors down from the Vogue Theatre in 1972, but photos from the Vancouver archives date Movieland as far back as 1968. The signage outside has since been updated, and while the "peepshow" is left out of the listed activities, the name of the arcade itself is an indication of what lies inside.

Porn and gaming stereotypically go hand in hand in the age of online gaming, but the two forms of entertainment have a long intertwining history. It's a narrative that stretches back to the beginning of the 20th century with the advent of peepshow machines that played moving pictures like What the Butler Saw. These risqué machines were often displayed in carnival gaming sections and penny arcades.

As time went on, the machines got more complex and the content more erotic. "This was a huge cultural phenomenon back in the 60s, especially in New York," porn archeologist, Dimitrios Otis told VICE. "A couple entrepreneurs put these in bookstores, and they were modified eventually and put into a booth, and that's when it exploded and became a huge thing." When asked why this aspect helped peepshows take off, Otis says, "The removal from reality was increased, the fantasy was magnified. Plus you could also jerk off now."

"I'm sure it's the last 8mm peepshow in the world. The other ones like this all changed to video long ago," says Otis, who wrote about Movieland's peepshows over a decade ago for the Vancouver Courier.

He explains that the owner "has to pay a licence for each one of the these machines, because each one is technically a licensed movie theatre. He can't be making much money at a quarter per view. So why even have them?" There are indeed licences displayed on each machine from the Vancouver government, all of which expired in 2008. "It's all rather complicated and outdated and if it breaks, someone has to fix it, so there's got to be maintenance going on."

This one's called 'One on One.'

Looking at the bulky metal boxes, or booths, there's no way to know what film you're selecting other than a vague descriptions like "1 Guy, 2 Girls" written in sharpie on a metal plaque. The reels are in various states of disrepair, some fading to red from age and some missing frames, and while not sexually arousing there's a sense of intrigue to their mechanical nature or "an Alice in Wonderland fantasy" feeling, as Otis describes it.

To view a movie, you have to slide your body sideways into a tight standing space, slide your quarter in the slot, and crane your neck to peek through a five-inch-wide viewing slot. The film runs for sixty seconds before you have to cough up another quarter to continue where the reel left off. This process is known as looping, and it used to encourage viewers to spend money until the film was done. Most people don't watch more than sixty seconds anymore.

Zachary Kerr Holden, filmmaker and competitive Street Fighter player, tells VICE, "You don't know which part of the sexual experience you'll get. It could be super chill, like two people hanging out, or it could be straight raw dog fucking." He continues, "I really love seeing what they do to new viewers, because everyone is amazed and with what they are experiencing as a very intimate thing, in a very cramped space."

This October Kerr Holden premiered his short documentary about the Movieland Arcade, aptly titled "The MovieLand Movie", at this year's Vancouver International Film Festival. The film is an audio visual ode to the 16-bit, technicolor, button mashing fun of yore, and a love letter to Vancouver's Street Fighter scene, which he's been a part of for the past six years.

It doesn't appear that many people show up for the peepshows, or are even aware of their existence. It's mostly tourists, hipsters, and drunks walking in off the street for a quick round of Addams Family pinball or Daytona USA racing. Kerr Holden, who made the film over a three year period, assures me "Movieland is safe, though it may not seem that way when you first go in with the smell of piss and strange men yelling, but it's a really beautiful, welcoming place." He continues, "One of the important aspects of the community at Movieland is the fact that 90 percent of the games cost a quarter. You get a lot of interaction between people from the Downtown Eastside, different classes, you know, because everyone can afford it."

With the games being so cheap and the place being largely uninhabited the biggest mystery is how does Movieland run? Kerr Holden says, "You might see, at the most, 20 people in there on a busy night. And it's on the busiest strip of Vancouver! I always thought there was something shifty going on."

Otis has a similar feeling, saying he's had thoughts that "the owner is probably laundering money, or writing off the costs." Being on the strip of Granville, the property itself is likely worth millions in Vancouver's current market. Otis continues, "But I always wanted to know why it was still there, and I would romanticize and think it was the owner's secret thing and he just liked to do it."

Movieland owner and founder Jack Jung is a bit of an enigma. Otis was unable to get an interview when he wrote about Movieland in 2005, and Jung's never given one based on my research. Kerr Holden, who's there on a regular basis with the Street Fighter crowd shines some light on Jung. "Jack comes in somewhat regularly with his son Leslie, they close it up at night. Leslie comes in around 11 to do maintenance and clean up the games. I've met them a few times, but they're pretty elusive."

I went to Movieland a number of times to experience the community, to watch the peepshows, and to have my ass handed to me at Street Fighter. The last time I was there was a Saturday night and after the Street Fighter crew's smoke break, a downtrodden-looking man stumbles in, and shoots up in one of the peepshow booths. He passes out on the floor between the rows of personal porn theatres, which none of us notice at first because nobody has been to the peepshow machines for over half an hour. I'm assured this kind of thing only happens every so often.

Jack and Leslie are there that night. Genesis points them out to me between tiger uppercuts without looking away from the game or missing a hit on his opponent. They stand calmly side by side, gazing at the homeless man passed out on the peepshow floor. I can't see him, but it smells like he's pissed himself. They call the cops and wait for them to escort him out onto the cold, rainy Granville strip, where he doesn't make it far, lying down beneath Movieland's awning on a small patch of dry pavement.

After the cops leave, Jack steps into the back office, which I am unable to access. Leslie comes out to work on one of the broken game machines. Les, as he introduces himself, tells me he's the manager of Movieland, and has been acting as such since the early 90s. He's the one who maintains all the games, and the peepshow machines, though he offers little information about how it's done or why they've been kept for so long despite pressing him for an answer. From his calm demeanour, it just seems to be the way it is at Movieland.

I imagine anyone who manages an arcade to be a big gamer, but Les says, "No. When I started working the owner told me not to play the games, because if I was playing, I wouldn't be doing my job." When I ask about the owner, Les tells me he's not around much, and that he hardly sees him. I ask if Jack's his father, as the arcade regulars had suggested, and he tells me, "No. people just think we are because people think all Asians look alike. But we're not related."

Speaking to Kerr Holden about Movieland's legacy, he prefaces his next statement by making clear it's a rumour, but as he's heard it, "The plan is that once Jack passes away, he's going to sell the place so that his son and family have a good chunk of money to live on. Jack was a very prosperous business dealer, and sold all his other ventures, and now he loses money at Movieland, but he's okay with it. He has a real affection for video games and just wants to supply the space as long as he can."

It seems Les, whether or not he's Jack's son, is simply trying to keep me from speaking to a man who obviously appreciates privacy.

Jung and Leslie have dedicated themselves to Movieland for nearly 50 years, and after spending time there with the people who frequent it, it's abundantly clear that there's nothing shifty going on other than the odd stray junkie. Kerr Holden explains, "We all have that cynicism when something feels too good to be true. But the truth is Jack's just a man who had a lot of successful businesses before, and he just keeps this one so people can keep having good times. It's such a sweet, loving gesture."

So many articles have been written about special businesses that are barely holding on due to their obsolete services and manner of operation, and it begs the question, what's the point? Otis offers an answer. "You can just go in, and it's a living museum of that era with authentic peepshows and arcade games. Everyone should go in with some quarters and just experience it. It's absolutely unique to Vancouver."

Follow Lonnie on Twitter.

What Being of Mixed Heritage Has Taught Me About Identity

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK

"What are you?" When you think about it, it's a pretty stupid question to ask another person, especially when you already know the answer: a human, just like you mate. But that doesn't stop people directing it at people like me, who are of dual ethnic heritage or "mixed-race." If your parents are of distinctly different ethnic groups, you feel like you have to "pick a side"—and the inevitable questions vary from ones shouted in a crowded pub to those staring up in black-and-white next to a checkbox on a form.

We're so far down the road of thinking about race as a biological reality that we've forgotten it's a construct. There are no links between how much melanin someone has in their skin and their culture. There are no links between melanin and intellect, physical abilities or creative skills. Proximity and language have tended to have more to do with what makes people of the same ethnic group seem similar—the colour of their skin doesn't determine that.

For that reason, it's silly to think that the experiences of the 1.2 million people in the UK who identify as "mixed" would be identical. Some are happy to define themselves in that way, while last year the British Sociological Association deemed deemed the term mixed-race as "misleading since it implies that a 'pure race' exists".

Rather than have an academic association speak on behalf of people, I chatted to a few millennials of dual heritage to hear about how they understand identity, what it means to belong and whether the label really has expired.

Natasha, 30

I'm sort of conflicted when it comes to the term "mixed-race." I hate the way it's so vague: it can apply to someone who's part-Venezuelan and part-Malaysian, then again to someone who's part-Jamaican and part-Irish. However, on the flipside a large part of me wants to "own" it.

I describe myself as mixed-race, but even then it feels limiting—I often find myself having to explain things further. That's probably because I'm very light-skinned freckly and ginger. People just won't take "I'm half-white and half-black Caribbean"—they want to know why I have red hair.

It can be frustrating feeling like I always have to be defined but I do feel that it's just a very human instinct to want to categorize people and make sense of the world. I think a lot of people feel like the world is changing at an exponential rate and that it's a struggle to keep up with it all.

Do I think the UK has a fairly narrow view of what it means to be mixed-race? Yes. There's a stereotypical picture and it doesn't deviate much from that. But that ignorance extends well outside the mixed-race category—for example, a lot of us aren't really exposed to second or third-generation ethnic minorities who grow up in rural areas. An ex-boyfriend of mine is from a Bangladeshi family and he grew up in north Wales. Another good friend is from a Chinese family and she grew up in Ayrshire and has a beautiful Scottish accent. Nobody expects it and it's amazing.

James, 21

I prefer to identify myself as British. My mum has Indian parents but was born in Kenya. My dad has Irish parents but was raised in London. If someone asks where I'm from I usually assume they will have fallen asleep before I rattle off my various backgrounds, so I stick to saying "British." I don't believe a person's identity is made up of the countries their parents are from, it's more where you feel you most belong and for me that is, and probably always will be, England.

I feel most mixed-race people use the term in a similar way to me as a shortcut past explaining each parent or grandparent's origin. Being mixed-race isn't really an identity, it's more a warning flag saying it's complicated and I don't want to bore you.

Have there been occasions where I've felt I've had to "pick a side"? Definitely. I've rarely felt the need to hide my heritage but bringing up certain facets of my backgrounds is often a great way to connect to people. "Hey, I'm from Ireland too!" or "You celebrate Diwali with your family as well?!" can be great conversation starters. The only time it's a negative is when the side is picked for you. I've had times where people have said, "Well you're not really Indian, though," or "There aren't any Irish people your colour."

My particular mix resulted in me looking like I could be one of many races. I probably avoid receiving any racism since no one can quite guess what to insult at first glance. So I've never been made to feel like I don't belong, which I am grateful for.

Do I feel like we need a new term? It can be annoying on forms... always having to search for the right mixed heritage box to tick or I feel like I'm doing one parent an injustice.

Gabriela, 24

(Photo by Yasmine Akim)

I sometimes still find myself identifying as mixed-race. This is a bad habit I'm trying to fix. I guess it stems mostly from yearning to be accepted. I realize now that it's something pushed upon us, not just as mixed-race people but as those living within an environment that feeds off what's known as normativity.

Saying I'm mixed-race makes me yawn myself—what does that even mean as a statement? Nothing. Rather it explains more of the coming together of my parents, of racial divisions, of lost family connection. It says nothing about mixed-race as a culture, as a place in history. That's its failure. Mixed-race people don't get spoken to about their histories/perspectives and politics.

The main priority bestowed upon us is the question of how we should fit into the structural racial categories in place already—only a yes or no, black and white answer has ever been permitted.

The way we brag about diversity in Britain is hilarious. Yes, mixed-race people are the fastest growing demographic in the country but when your mum's side of the family passive-aggressively lets you know that there's too many immigrants nowadays, where's the progress?

Jen, 28

Would I say that the term mixed-race reflects my identity? If I'm going to give a resolute answer, no, it's not enough. I feel like I use different terms depending on who I'm speaking to and where I am. I think it's come from people willing to label very quickly, who I'm speaking to and why.

Indian-English is what I would say. But say if I'm in an area where it's less multicultural or where I feel like that person is going to be receiving of having to listen or there's no time for it, I'll just say mixed-race.

I think the term is limited. Say if you're three "things," labelling yourself mixed-race just helps people pop you one pot: "OK, they're in that one category so they're all kind of similar because they all don't know really who they are! They're all unclassifiable so let's just shove them in together," you know? I do think my whole life has been like that. I've put myself into that pot.

When I was living in Oxford with my ex-boyfriend, although I could tell people about my heritage I'd never felt that my history was understood. That's why I came back to London, because there's many people of different backgrounds that we've all felt a bit different at one point—and that's why we're all quite similar.

@its_me_salma

More on VICE:

This Is What it's Like to Be a Mixed-Race Girl on Tinder

Growing Up Asian-British in the Home Counties Sucks

Documenting the UK's Black and Mixed-Race Gingers

Why Are Indigenous Leaders Partnering with MRA Groups?

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Chief Ernie Crey on a 'Expand the Inquiry' panel at SFU. Photo by Jeridan Kowal via Facebook

The issue of missing and murdered Indigenous men is now in the spotlight. This comes thanks to efforts by leaders like Cheam First Nation Chief Ernie Crey, who in the past has championed for MMIW and now has his sights set on shining a light on issues facing missing and murdered Indigenous men (MMIM).

He's part of a coalition called "Expand the Inquiry" that includes a partnership with the Canadian Association for Equality. CAFE has been criticized for being misogynistic in their views and was recently banned from an Ottawa theatre.

Crey and others have been called out on Twitter for their partnership with the men's rights organization.

People Tell Us Their Half-Assed Reasons for Never Using Condoms

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Image via Flickr/Chris Palmer

This article originally appeared on VICE Australia/New Zealand

Last month, the Kirby Institute released their 2016 annual surveillance report of STIs and blood-borne viruses in Australia. What the report found was that the rates of almost every STI, excluding HIV, have increased quite steadily in Australia since 2006. Syphilis had one of the highest rates of new diagnoses, jumping from 843 in 2006 boosting to a whopping 2,736. Over this same time period, gonorrhoea rates per 100,000 people doubled for both men and women.

These statistics may not seem so surprising given Australia's lax attitude towards safe sex. Last year, market research company Roy Morgan found only 11 percent of Australians 18 years and older actually purchased prophylactics in the last six months—a figure that hasn't changed since 2011.

So with STIs on the rise, and a country seemingly unconcerned about it, VICE asked six people who don't use STI preventatives to explain their reasoning.

Carlos, 22

Laziness is one thing. Sensation is another. The biggest the reason why I don't use protection; however, is that I just don't like having a piece of rubber or plastic around my penis.

I suppose that's selfish but for someone like me who doesn't practise safe sex, I feel I have a somewhat safe sex life. I don't really have sex with people I don't know. I'd rather have sex with someone I know and trust—as well as someone I can be open with about sexual health. I feel it's integral to be able to communicate with your partners about sexual health.

I also get regular blood and urine tests every two months. If I've had more partners than what I'm used to then I'll get a check up more frequently. I feel this method protects me from getting an STI but, you know, if I was going out to clubs every weekend trying to pick up random people, I'd have a change of heart. I know sometimes you don't get symptoms so fair enough if you don't know if you have an STI but I feel if you're an adult and sexually active, you need to get regular tests, regardless of whether you use protection or not.

ANASTASIA, 21

It's not so much that I'm against safe sex, it's that people don't practice it and I hate having to have that conversation. If someone pulls out a condom, for example, I'm fine with it. It's just that people either don't have them or they refuse to. There have been so many times where I'll ask someone to use a condom and they'll get real argumentative or offended that I asked. Having to deal with that conversation and the attitudes that men have—I just can't even be bothered. It's easier to not use one.

The way people talk about using condoms—or about people who demand to use condoms—doesn't make it any easier to have that conversation as well. You don't want to have them to have them talking about you to their friends behind your back.

In saying all this, I am concerned about getting an STI. I contracted chlamydia when I was younger but I suppose it's cognitive dissonance or even naivety—you just don't think it'll ever happen to you. I like to think if someone had an STI they'd say something, but the reality is that's not true.

Shaun, 25

I'm not against condoms. Sex does feel better without a condom, but it's not so much better that I'll avoid them or try to convince someone to not use one. There have just been a lot of times where it doesn't happen. There are factors like being drunk or high, or she won't want one, or even there just won't be condoms. It's never been a conscious decision for myself to not use protection going into a sexual experience.

If I had to explain why, it'd be that I'm a very impulsive person. I find there's always those competing motives going into a sexual experience where on one hand you have that knowledge about the importance of safe sex but, on the other, you just want to feel good. If you don't have a condom on you—or if they don't want you to—you're just going to fuck them.

I'm concerned about not using protection, it does really worry me. I've caught STIs in the past and it's made me a lot more aware. It's not an excuse at all but I do feel it comes down to those competing motives. Once you throw drugs in the mix, there's only one thought you're going to end up listening to.

Marie, 28

For me, it's mostly an incorrectly placed apathy. If there's a lack of suggestion in the throes of passion, I'm generally more interested in the now. Asking puts a pause on everything and can really ruin the atmosphere. It's not a conscious decision to avoid them, especially if it's with a partner or someone I know. There's an assumed trust that people are being honest and getting checked. I've never had an STI so I suppose I don't have any fear.

I also find it's guys to blame. Not that they don't want to use protection—there's actually a lot of pressure for safe sex—but just that they don't carry condoms as much as you'd think. The irony of this; however, is that if a girl starts carrying condoms it send offs a message that she's getting a lot of it. The safer you are with your sex, the more it looks as though you're having a lot of sex.

I feel it's really important to say as well that like many other people of my age and general health, you don't consciously think of their health in every day-to-day activity. It's only really when you're unwell you start thinking about it. There's no pragmatism in keeping yourself healthy, especially sexually.

Samantha, 28

I don't use protection, such as condoms, because they irritate my skin, which is very off-putting. I don't think my decision is a very wise one. I do wish they worked for me a lot better than they do but it's what works best for my body. I get regular check ups regardless of my symptoms. I've never had an STI but I take my health and the health of others seriously.

I do use condoms on occasion but it's never really at my insistence. If somebody wanted to use one, I'd oblige. Communication is so important though, regardless of who it is. I wouldn't sleep with someone I didn't feel comfortable asking that or calling to say, "Hey, you've got chlamydia."

Although I feel if everyone got tested regularly, STIs would become a thing of the past, there's no way I'd ever advocate for check ups over having safe sex. Protection exists for a reason and a very important one at that and getting regular check ups isn't nearly as cost effective. I do feel irresponsible over the fact I'm not using them. The fact I've never had an STI just means I'm only tempting fate but, again, it's really important to do what works best for your body.

Russell, 25

My partner and I don't use protection with each other but we do use it with other people when we have penetrative sex. Personally, in the past I generally did use protection but there have been times where I've been very drunk and didn't have access to protection. I'm the first person my partner has had unprotected sex with.

We've had instances of STIs such as syphilis in the past and that came from an instance where we had a sexual experience with an ex-partner of mine. He didn't inform us he had an STI and we didn't use protection because there was no penetrative sex—just oral and penis to penis contact. We didn't have protection nor did we feel the need to use it in that instance. I don't think I'll ever use a condom for oral sex though but it's definitely encouraged my partner and I to get tested a lot more.

Even though we're in what you'd call an "open relationship," we're still quite exclusive. If one of us were to be more open and have unprotected sex then we'd have a period of using protected sex with each other but we'd talk about it together and decide what to do then and there. Communication is vital, especially in a sexual context.

All names have changed to protect identity and interviews have been edited for clarity and length

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We Asked Two Experts Just How Risky Face-Sitting and Fisting Are

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All illustrations by Joel Benjamin

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

It's been a tough couple of years for Britain's porn fans. The government's proposed Digital Economy Bill looks set to tighten restrictions on the sorts of porn people will be able to watch – building on a template set in 2014 – and new age-verification measures look poised to basically establish a database of your personal information, just begging to be hacked.

The BBFC are reportedly going to be in charge of classifying our porn, with parameters loosely based on the Crown Prosecution Service's Obscene Publications legislation. You've probably already seen that face-sitting and fisting are reportedly on the list of unacceptable acts. Under the CPS' porn laws, the BBFC are also banned from classifying a host of others, including drinking wee, urinating on the body, vomiting on the body, and use of excrement.

Although someone having explosive diarrhoea during sex is the last thing I'd be likely to crack one off to, it still seems relatively harmless in the scheme of things. I'm no expert though, so I got risk assessment expert Danny Clarke of Elas Business Support to have a look. He assigned each act a rating based on the likelihood of something bad happening, the potential severity of the consequences, and the overall risk level. I also spoke to sexual health expert Dr Patrick French. Here's what they had to say.

Face-Sitting

Clarke: The hazards are strangulation or suffocation, bloodborne pathogens – tiny living things in the blood that cause diseases like hepatitis B and C – and exposure to bodily fluids. There's the risk of cramp causing the full weight of the individual to rest on the face, physical harm, and psychological trauma too. I've assigned it a "catastrophic" consequence rating due to the potential for this type of act to result in a fatality.

However, the likelihood of this occurring is unlikely if appropriate consent, timeouts and other control measures are in place. People could set up clearly defined consent protocols, use appropriate technique and have a first aider present, while making sure there are no traces of blood-borne viruses.

Likelihood: Unlikely.
Consequences: Catastrophic.
Overall risk rating: Medium

Dr French: As long as you make sure the sat-on person can breathe, it's fine.

Fisting

Clarke: Here the hazards are bloodborne pathogens and people being exposed to bodily fluids, sharp objects (nails, rings, watches, bracelets etc) during the fisting as well germs, dirt, bacteria, etc. You could also deal with physical harm including internal trauma and muscle damage, and psychological trauma. The main risk relates to the transmission of blood-borne viruses, again.

Provided appropriate consent, lubrications and control measures were in place, it would be unlikely to occur. Control measures that people could use are health assessments confirming that there are no traces of BBVs, an appropriate vaccination programme, hygiene measures to ensure cleanliness, lube, clearly defined consent protocols and ease of withdrawing consent, ensuring that females are not menstruating and clinical waste processes.

Likelihood: Rare.
Consequences: Major.
Overall risk rating: Low.

Dr French: Fingering or even putting a fist into the vagina is something that some women enjoy, and is safe to do with practice, proper guidance, and an understanding and involved partner. But there is a definite risk of skin tears and breaks if it's done roughly or without building up to it carefully with your partner.

Drinking Urine

Clarke: The hazards are bloodborne pathogens and exposure to bodily fluids, infections, choking on the wee and psychological trauma. Provided appropriate consent and control measures were in place, they'd be unlikely to occur. Clearly defined consent protocols and making it easy to withdraw consent would help, as would health assessments, having a first aider present and clinical waste processes.

Likelihood: Rare.
Consequences: Major.
Overall risk rating: Low.

Dr French: Urine in your bladder should be sterile, and consuming it is no more risky than having unprotected oral sex with your partner. Theoretically, you could get infections like gonorrhoea and chlamydia, but it's unlikely.

Urinating on the Body

Clarke: Again, the hazards are bloodborne pathogens, exposure to bodily fluids and psychological trauma as well as urinary tract infections and open wounds. The main risk relates to the transmission of blood-borne viruses. Provided appropriate consent and control measures were in place, it would be unlikely to occur. Control measures that could be used are clearly defined consent protocols and ease of withdrawing consent, health assessments including those to confirm that there are no traces of BBV, making sure there's a first aider present and implementing strong clinical waste processes.

Likelihood: Rare.
Consequences: Major.
Overall risk rating: Low.

Dr French: It may seem odd to say, but this is one of the safest sorts of sex you can have in terms of sexually transmitted infection and HIV transmission.

Vomiting on the Body

Clarke: The hazards are bloodborne pathogens and exposure to bodily fluids, open wounds, choking, psychological trauma and physical harm. The main risk relates to the transmission of BBVs. Like lots of the other acts we've looked at, provided the appropriate consent and control measures were in place, the risks would be unlikely to occur.

Appropriate training on technique (inducing vomiting so as to not cause damage to the inner part of the mouth or throat and avoiding objects that could cause choking) could be used as a control measure, as could having a first aider there, and making sure there's a process for those in the scene to withdraw their consent at any time.

Likelihood: Rare.
Consequences: Major.
Overall risk rating: Low.

Dr French: Vomit on intact skin should be completely safe, as should vomiting on someone when you're otherwise well. I'm assuming that this isn't done when you have food poisoning!

Use of Excrement/Poo

Clarke: The hazards are bloodborne pathogens and exposure to bodily fluids, open wounds, choking if the poo's ingested and psychological trauma. The main risk relates to the transmission of BBVs. Provided the appropriate consent, lubrication (if required) and control measures were in place, they would be unlikely to occur.

You could keep things under control using clearly defined consent protocols and making sure it's easy for the actors to withdraw their consent to the scene, have a first aider present, handle clinical waste processes well and give those on-set appropriate training on technique – inducing the release of faeces so as not to cause damage to the inner part of the anus and avoiding object that could cause internal trauma, for example. Of course, an appropriate use of lubrications could help too.

Likelihood: Rare.
Consequences: Major.
Overall risk rating: Low.

Dr French: It may sound a bit gross, but there are plenty of people who enjoy this. The problem is that a whole lot of infections can be potentially transmitted from poo even if only a tiny amount is consumed. This includes things like hepatitis A and infections that can cause diarrhoea. At the moment in the UK, there's a particular problem with a gastroenteritis bacteria called shigella, which is being passed on in this way.

@NickChesterv / @_joelbenjamin_

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The Pervert Who Changed America: How Larry Flynt Fought the Law and Won

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Larry Flynt spends his days sitting in a gold wheelchair on the top floor of a building that's shaped like a big gold dildo. His office is covered in money-green carpet sectioned into squares by gold lines. On one side sits a golden life-size statue of Julius Caesar. On the opposite wall, there's an end table with green marbling and gold trim on top of which sits a pair of gold statuettes that from a distance resembled Oscars but up close reveal themselves as busts of nude female torsos. On the surface of Flynt's desk, which is accented with even more gold trim, there are two decorative gold pens, a gold-framed photo of him and Bill Clinton, a bowl of gold paperclips, and a gold stand that holds a 9/11 "Deception Dollar."

A few feet away from a gold chandelier that's so big you have to duck in order to walk under it, Flynt sits, facing the window. As he looks down on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, a pair of large men sporting matching suits and identical haircuts descend upon him. One of them combs Flynt's thinning gold hair, while the other stands behind him, adjusting the collar of his suit, which has a gold lapel pin in the shape of a hand clutching a single diamond. There are two gold rings on his left hand, and one gold ring on his right pinky. He wears a gold, diamond-studded watch on one wrist, and a gold, diamond-studded bracelet on the other. His face, once boyish and chubby, is now gaunt, and vestigial skin billows around his neck like an Elizabethan collar.

The man behind Flynt lifts him up by his armpits, suspending him 18 inches or so above the seat so that his blood can flow more easily down into his lower body. Flynt closes his eyes, and his face goes blank, as if he has momentarily receded into himself. Almost reflexively, I divert my gaze to a nearby table, where I find a miniature sculpture of two people fucking doggy style. This is not a subtle office, but then again Flynt—once the most provocative, most reviled pornographer in America, now an old man in the twilight of life—was never a subtle guy.

By its late-70s peak, Flynt's flagship publication Hustler reached 3 million sweaty palms per month, transgressing every boundary under the sun and earning the scorn of both the religious right and the feminist left. In his quest to piss off the entire world and make himself rich in the process, Flynt developed a bull-headed insistence upon contesting every single lawsuit and obscenity charge that came his way, transforming him into an unlikely canary in the coal mine of First Amendment law.

Photos by Adam Ianniello unless otherwise noted

In 1978, Flynt was shot in the gut by the white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin for running a photo spread depicting interracial sex in the December 1975 issue of Hustler. Franklin's bullet caused such severe damage to a cluster of nerves near the base of Flynt's spine that he never walked again. He spent years combating the excruciating pain stemming from his shooting by injecting pharmaceutical opiates, writing in his 1996 memoir An Unseemly Man that he has suffered multiple drug overdoses and twice been declared legally dead. In 1984, he spent six months in prison on a contempt of court charge, where his already bum legs were mysteriously broken, and he developed bedsores so severe he eventually had to be hospitalized.

Despite this, Flynt, now 74, has outlived his rivals and survived to watch the cultural epoch he was a part of fade into history. His list of enemies, once Nixonian in scope, has dwindled as his old sparring partners have either died or simply given up. But as he scrapped, sued, and screamed in pursuit of a world in which pornography and outrageous language are accepted as facts of life, Flynt helped create precedents that are still with us. He won. Even if it doesn't look like it.

Flynt's attachés wheel him over to his desk, where my photographer asks him to smile. He does not. "I've got a lot of work to do," he says to Evan Roosevelt, a large guy in his early 30s who serves as VP of marketing for Hustler's various brands. Flynt speaks slowly, often wheezing between sentences and gurgling as he struggles to enunciate his words.

Smile or no, the photographer begins snapping away. As if in protest, the left half of Flynt's face slackens, drifting downward to join the skin that has collected at the base of his neck. Flynt gradually tilts his head back, and his mouth falls all the way open, as if he's trying to parody the way old people look when they fall asleep in front of the TV.

As a last-ditch effort, someone calls in Flynt's fifth wife, Liz—his former nurse who now works down the hall as a Larry Flynt Publications executive—in the hopes that she will get a rise out of her husband. "Say money!" she says cheerfully, using her index fingers to widen her own mouth into a smile as if she's coaching a third-grader on picture day.

Flynt closes his eyes and retreats into himself again.

From left: Larry Flynt at age 14; Larry Flynt (right) in his Navy uniform in Italy; Larry Flynt wearing the American flag as a diaper. All archival photos courtesy of LFP Publishing

Larry Flynt was born in 1942 in a literal log cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky. His memoir describes an early life filled with sexual trauma and strangeness. When he was seven, a girl six years his senior fondled his penis as his cousin watched. Two years later, he caught one of his grandmother's chickens, penetrated it, and then killed it in a panic. At 15, he ran away from home only to return after an armed man claiming to be a police officer picked him up on the side of the road, ordered him to undo his pants, and performed oral sex on the terrified teen. A few weeks later, he used a forged birth certificate to enlist in the Army and, during basic training, lost his virginity (what was left of it, at least) with a prostitute who was in her 40s.

After being discharged from the Army due to personnel cutbacks, Flynt, still just 16, joined the Navy. While awaiting deployment, he married a woman he met in a bar in order to have sex with her, only to divorce her when the sex was bad. At 19, he married his girlfriend Peggy, who at the time was pregnant with another man's child. When Flynt left the service for good, the couple settled in Dayton, Ohio, and had a kid. The marriage, which had seemed doomed ever since Flynt had gotten institutionalized for firing a pistol at Peggy's mother, dissolved completely when Flynt resolved a marital argument by spitting in his wife's face.

Newly single and out of the service, Flynt became an entrepreneur, operating some dive bars and a vending-machine business before finding success with a chain of go-go bars he named the Hustler Club. It was while interviewing women to dance at his clubs that he met and fell in love with Althea Leasure, a teenage runaway who quickly became an integral part of Flynt's business enterprises. She took over the management of the Hustler Clubs as Flynt worked to convert its newsletter, which highlighted the chain's new dancers, into a national publication positioned as a blue-collar alternative to Playboy and Penthouse. The magazine went from an also-ran jerk-off magazine into a bona fide sensation in the wake of its August 1975 issue, in which Flynt published paparazzi photos of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the news. The issue flew off newsstands—Flynt wrote that he sold a million copies "in a matter of days," including one bought by the governor of Ohio—and just like that, Flynt's fame and fortune were made.

Before Hustler, the two primary sources of one-handed literature in America were Playboy and Penthouse (which both turned down the Jackie O photos before Flynt bought them). These targeted readers who Playboy's Hugh Hefner once described as "urbane fellows" who enjoyed "good food, drink, proper dress, and the pleasure of female company." They listened to jazz and read Nabokov, and when they weren't having sex with their totally real girlfriends, they enjoyed considering artful photographs of bare-breasted women, genitalia obscured and flaws airbrushed out.

Flynt did not try to sell porn to this rarified (and maybe imaginary) audience. He sold porn to regular blue-collar men, horny dudes who wanted to jerk off and did not give a fuck about art—dudes like him, basically.

"Larry Flynt was king of the hillbillies," says Robert Ward, a writer and former Miami Vice showrunner who cut his teeth as a prominent figure in the 70s-era New Journalism movement. He spent two weeks with Flynt in 1976 for a profile that ran in New Times. Ward found the flamboyant pornographer fascinating and repulsive in equal measure. Flynt had just risen from the forgotten underbelly of the American underclass to fabulous wealth and carried himself like an unconscious parody of Hugh Hefner's libertine intellectual persona. He wore a gold pendant in the shape of a vagina around his neck, flew around in a pink jet that once belonged to Elvis, talked openly of massive orgies, and lived in a mansion with a replica of his childhood log cabin in the basement—complete with a statue commemorating the time he fucked that chicken.

Though Ward found Flynt to be an unrepentant hedonist and cynical businessman, the budding mogul was also charming and whip-smart, and his more unsavory tendencies were tempered by a whiff of naiveté. By 1976, he'd recruited Althea to help him oversee the magazine's production, and the pair seemed in over their heads. In one of their conversations, Ward recalls, Flynt, desperate to find better writers for his magazine, went to the journalist for advice. He asked Ward to tell him the best writer he could think of. "James Joyce," Ward responded. Flynt then asked how to get in touch with the famed author, not realizing he'd died in 1941.

"He spoke to a segment of men who felt disempowered by women standing up and saying, I'm not gonna take it anymore."

Carolyn Bronstein is a media studies professor at DePaul University whose 2011 book Battling Pornography recounted the anti-pornography efforts of the women's movement during the 70s and 80s. Much like Hefner of Playboy and Bob Guccione of Penthouse, she tells me, "Larry Flynt had his finger on the pulse of the culture and realized there was money to be made by selling sex." But unlike his competitors, Flynt took a more reactionary stance toward progress and the sexual revolution. Bronstein says, "He spoke to a segment of men who felt disempowered by women standing up and saying, I'm not gonna take it anymore. He saw that anger; he knew he could feed it and make money off of it."

Hustler was crass where Playboy was classy, grotesque instead of tasteful, joyful and depraved. Sex was dirty, and Flynt's magazine reflected that filth. "Nothing was too low for him to make fun of or sexualize," Bronstein says.

Many of Hustler's editorial cartoons trafficked in obvious—and obviously offensive—racial stereotypes, while others featured a character called Chester the Molester (which was drawn by a man who was later accused of molesting his own daughter). "We will no longer hang women up like pieces of meat" declared a quote from Flynt on its June 1978 cover—a quote paired with a drawing of a naked woman being stuffed through a meat grinder. The magazine once ran an interview with Charles Bukowski in which the author defended the psychological makeup of pedophiles and rapists, then delved into the granularities of fucking a high-heeled shoe. One of its recurring columns was dedicated to the character assassination of politicians, anti-porn activists, and anyone else Flynt felt had acted hypocritical. The column was called Asshole of the Month, and its goal, says its longtime author and former Hustler editor Allan MacDonell, "was to make the subject cry."

David Gordon worked as an editor at Hustler in the mid 90s; his debut novel, The Serialist, was in part inspired by letters he received from convicts back then. "There was this sense of not really being answerable to anybody because we'd already gone too far," says Gordon of his experience. "In a way, I felt like I was onboard a pirate ship, like I was in this swashbuckling, libertarian outlaw crew."

Flynt's wheelchair

But not everyone felt that Hustler was a liberating force. The women's movement in particular balked at the magazine, which contained extreme content that often made women feel cut out of the cultural shifts that had made porn part of the mainstream.

"I think if you pull back the lens a bit, not everybody is comfortable with . Many feminists then and now don't consider it an appropriate way to represent women—especially if men are at the helm of the operation," says Carol Queen, a writer and activist who holds a doctorate in sexology and co-founded the San Francisco-based Center for Sex and Culture. "The fact that so many women found Hustler to be oppressive is what it is, and it doesn't matter whether the intent was to oppress."

In its own way, though, Hustler's content shed light on what was then the sexual fringe. Its early issues depicted erect penises, interracial sex (neither of which Playboy and Penthouse had touched), bondage, MMF threesomes, a nude pregnant woman, and a pre-operative trans woman, which the academic Laura Kipnis referred to in her essay "Disgust and Desire: Hustler Magazine" as "a true moment of frisson for your typical heterosexual male."

And even if he showcased non-traditional sexualities with all the subtlety of a carnival barker, the fact that Flynt was presenting them at all is significant, says Queen. "There are multiple ways to slice it," she says. "Yes, the framing was problematic, but at the same time, it increased visibility and gave people who hadn't figured out this piece of their identity a feeling of what might be possible."

In a weird way, Queen says, even Hustler's offensive and at times alienating imagery had progressive, though completely unintentional, effect. "That's part of the gift of Larry Flynt," she says. "He gave us a discussion that helped us understand how problematic sex could be for some people."

Left: Hustler's way of commemorating the US bicentennial in 1976; Flynt gives an interview during one of his many court battles. Right: Flynt in his famous "FUCK THIS COURT" T-shirt.

Meanwhile, Flynt's life continued on its bizarre, winding course. In 1977, he befriended President Jimmy Carter's sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, who converted him to evangelical Christianity while the pair was sharing a ride on Flynt's jet. Though religion didn't take, he made overtures at distancing himself from the day-to-day filth of Hustler. He turned his eye toward more respectable publishing, buying up a few alternative newspapers. He also hired Paul Krassner—the former editor of the underground satirical newspaper the Realist, who'd also put in time with Ken Kesey's band of Merry Pranksters and co-founded the Yippies—to head up Hustler's editorial direction.

Flynt also set about clearing his conscience. In an unreleased excerpt from her memoir My Life on the Road provided to VICE by her publisher, feminist icon Gloria Steinem and longtime Flynt antagonist (who is now a host on VICELAND) recounted that following his conversion Flynt reached out to her through the Carters, asking her to formally forgive Flynt on behalf of all women. "If I offer give $1 million toward the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment," the proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal rights for women. But Flynt's well-known penchant for publicity stunts made Steinem suspicious, and she declined the indecent proposal.

As the 70s bled into the 80s, Flynt was repeatedly sued for obscenity, shot and paralyzed by Franklin, and increasingly erratic thanks to his undiagnosed bipolar disorder. While a national debate over the potential dangers of pornography whirled around him, Flynt became reclusive, surrounding himself with armed guards and rarely leaving his mansion near Hustler's new Beverly Hills headquarters.

Though Flynt had always shown an interest in free speech due to his enmity toward anyone who dared tell him to shut up, it's during these years that he began surrounding himself with icons from the previous era of radical protest. He palled around with comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, tripped acid with Timothy Leary, and commissioned Terry Southern to write a movie about Jim Morrison. Of all his unlikely relationships, he says, "Probably my two best friends were Gore Vidal and Madalyn Murray O'Hair of American Atheists... I was always like a sponge when I was around them, just absorbing everything I possibly could."

"He was pulling these people in for different kind of inspiration and trying to really stir things up," says former Hustler executive editor Allan MacDonell, who started with the magazine in the spring of 1983, just as Flynt came into his own as a self-styled dissident. In the months after MacDonell signed onto the mag, Flynt leaked a videotape of struggling auto magnate Bob DeLorean being arrested by the FBI as part of a cocaine sting, sued the government for press access to the Grenada conflict, and ran for president as a Republican (partially as a way to circumvent obscenity laws, and partially on the advice of Dennis Hopper, who'd been laying low in Flynt's Bel Air mansion after being institutionalized for trying to blow himself up with dynamite).

Perhaps most notoriously, Flynt attempted to represent himself in front of the Supreme Court, only to be forcibly removed from the chambers for calling the justices "Eight assholes and a token cunt" when his request was denied. He then took off his dress shirt to reveal a T-shirt that said, "FUCK THIS COURT" and was later taken to the police station in his own limo, which defiantly flew a pair of American flags.

"When that happened," MacDonell recalls, "I was just like, What the fuck, this is the guy I'm working for?"

Shortly after his stunt in front of the Supreme Court, Flynt was called to testify about the DeLorean leak. He showed up to the hearing with an army helmet on his head, a purple heart medal pinned to his chest, and a diaper made out of the American flag pinned to his ass. He was held in contempt of court; during his arraignment, he told the judge, "Take my ass to jail, cocksucker." At a follow-up hearing, he told another judge, "Fuck you."

"It was kind of an amazing time to be at Hustler," says MacDonell. "Larry wasn't necessarily talking truth to power, but he was talking rage to power."

The fake Campari ad that would become the center of one of the most famous First Amendment cases in Supreme Court history

Flynt's pattern was to print something that broke new ground in the field of bad taste, getting sued, then fighting that lawsuit until he either exhausted his options or won, thereby setting some sort of legal precedent. He was an explorer on the outer edges of the First Amendment, testing just how far free speech protections could be stretched.

A Hustler article about autoerotic asphyxiation yielded a suit that in turn helped establish that publishers can't be held liable if readers harm themselves or others based on something they read in a piece of journalism (Herceg v. Hustler Magazine, 1987). Flynt's personal vendetta against fellow pornographer Bob Guccione sowed the seeds for a ruling in Flynt's favor that furthered the standards by which a public figure can be deemed "libel-proof" (Guccione v. Hustler Magazine, 1986). The United States Postal Service once sued Hustler because Flynt wouldn't stop sending copies of his jerk-off magazine to members of Congress—he won that case, too, in the process reinforcing the idea that congressional offices cannot refuse mail from constituents, a ruling that Flynt takes full advantage of to this day (United States Postal Service v. Hustler Magazine, 1986). Jokes former Hustler staffer David Gordon, ", you knew if you took him on you were basically going to the Supreme Court."

True to form, it was an errant kiss-off to the powers that be that spurred the years-long court battle that cemented Flynt's place in legal history. In Hustler's November 1983 issue, Flynt ran a parody of a popular series of ads for Campari liqueur that consisted of a fake interview with the televangelist Jerry Falwell in which the conservative preacher talked about losing his virginity to his mother in an outhouse. Given that the previous month's cover had featured a nude woman spray-painting "George Bush Has AIDS" on a brick wall, the Falwell parody was by no means the most tasteless thing to appear in the magazine that year. In all likelihood, the issue would have come and gone without anyone noticing—except for the fact that Falwell himself caught wind of it.

"He was selling religion, and I was selling porn. We were both good at what we did, and we were both making money."
–Larry Flynt on Jerry Falwell

"Falwell was pissed. He claimed he read the ad and collapsed," says MacDonnell. Within weeks of the fake interview's publication, he sued Flynt for $45 million, and then helped cover his legal bills by sending the ad to his congregation asking for donations.

"He was a charlatan," Flynt says with a distinct note of admiration when I bring Falwell up. "He was selling religion, and I was selling porn. We were both good at what we did, and we were both making money."

Falwell claimed that Flynt and Hustler had committed libel, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. A judge threw out the invasion of privacy claim before the case even began, and a jury eventually ruled that Hustler had only committed intentional infliction of emotional distress. By the trial's conclusion in late 1984, Falwell's requested $45 million in damages were whittled down to a much more manageable $150,000, which for the wealthy Flynt was tantamount to pocket change.

Flynt refused to pay up, however, appealing on the grounds that parody and satire were protected speech under the First Amendment. After a pair of higher courts shooed Flynt away in 1986, he appealed a third time, asking the Supreme Court to hear the case. The justices agreed, and in 1987—four years after Flynt had gotten kicked out of the court's chambers for screaming obscenities—he found himself yet again appearing in front of the highest court in the country, this time wearing a suit.

When I ask Flynt about that day, he sucks on his teeth. "I remember sitting in the gallery of the Supreme Court. It was Falwell and his family on one side lookin' like a Norman Rockwell painting. I figured, 'I'm going down for the count. They're not gonna rule in the pornographer's favor.'"

And yet, the pornographer won in a unanimous decision.

"The Supreme Court's opinion in Hustler was a triumphant celebration of freedom of speech," wrote the legal scholar Rodney Smolla shortly after the decision, making note of its "profound First Amendment significance." The decision was a widening of a previous ruling, 1964's New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which had established that a publisher couldn't be sued for libel unless they'd shown "actual malice"—which the court defined as "knowledge that statements are false or in reckless disregard of the truth"—when printing false information.

".... Two, it expands the Sullivan rule to non-libel cases where a public figure is complaining about humiliation caused by an article's publication."

Even after the Sullivan ruling, public figures such as celebrities and politicians could still control what was printed about them, to a degree, through the possibility of filing suit against a publisher on the grounds of "intentional infliction of emotional distress." In this case, Falwell was suing Hustler for intentional infliction of emotional distress on the grounds that the magazine knew he wasn't an incestuous drunk but printed a deliberate lie in order to hurt his feelings. Explains Turner, "Satire is a deliberate lie," but it's also something he calls "rhetorical hyperbole—a statement no one would believe to be factual." He concludes, "The fact that something is malicious character assassination doesn't mean it's not protected by the First Amendment." For that protection, we have the precedent set by Flynt to thank.

A DVD archive in the Hustler office

These days, Hustler is a shadow of its former notorious self. You can find traces of its penchant for bomb-throwing in a great many publications of the online era—especially Gawker, which went down in a blaze of lawsuits after pissing a lot of people off and posting a snippet of a Hulk Hogan sex tape. But Hustler itself isn't in the conversation.

It's Evan Roosevelt's job to change that. The 34-year-old has a background in both politics and tech consulting, and is currently attempting to revive the flagging Hustler brand by mirroring successes in the worlds of music and traditional publishing. He recently helped broker a licensing deal with the avant-streetwear brand Hood By Air, which he views as the first step in introducing Hustler to a millennial audience. "The marketplace of adult entertainment is changing, and we want to change with it," he tells me. "I think anyone under 30 or so isn't really familiar with Hustler as much as they could be."

Though Flynt still comes into the office every day and remains involved with the company he founded, the Hustler brand is very different from what it used to be. Most of the company's revenue comes from a pair of casinos in nearby Gardena, as well as the company's chain of Hustler Hollywood sex stores and a new generation of Flynt-affiliated Hustler Clubs that they launched with a third party. The magazine itself has a circulation of fewer than 100,000 and employs a full-time staff of two, relying largely on freelancers.

Still, Flynt himself remains an icon in the world of porn. "When Larry Flynt comes into a room, people stand up. He's a godfather-type figure," says the porn producer, director, and performer Joanna Angel. And Hustler the company is still a key player in the industry: Its pay-per-view channels often pay production studios for content; porn stars can make money by appearing at Hustler Clubs or selling branded sex toys at Hustler Hollywood stores. "They keep a lot of people in business," says Angel.

Just as Flynt did with Hustler in the 1970s, Angel spied a hole in the market and carved out a niche. She's the owner of the BurningAngel Entertainment production house, and is one of the pioneers of "alternative pornography"—think performers with tattoos and piercings getting it on to punk and metal. She was a featured model and had a spread in an issue of Hustler, and for a brief period in the mid 2000s was a part of the company's in-house production team. "When I first started my company, I dreamed of making something like Hustler," she tells me over the phone. "They were the first people to make hardcore sex mainstream."

Larry Flynt's rings

Flynt himself was made mainstream by the 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt, a prestige-y picture that sanded over the man's roughest edges and recast the pornographer (played by Woody Harrelson) as a renegade free-speech icon. His Supreme Court victory against Jerry Falwell was rendered as the ultimate vindication of a pure-hearted pervert who defended the nation's ideals even when he was rejected by the nation.

Though the film underperformed at the box office and high-profile feminists like Steinem accused the creators of glossing over the retrograde sexual politics of vintage Hustler, The People vs. Larry Flynt received rave reviews, and Harrelson earned an Oscar nomination.

"I'll tell you what the movie did, see," says Flynt. "Everybody knew who I was, but nobody knew my story. , they could get some continuity on my life."

The People vs. Larry Flynt helped reframe Flynt as a more conventional figure, and the internet soon made his magazine seem mostly harmless. Hustler may have shocked in the 70s and 80s, but with computers giving everyone easy access to the most depraved images and fantasies you could dream up, the publications no longer seemed so cutting-edge in the 2000s. And Flynt's personal provocations no longer seem so provocative.

In 1998, during the heat of the Clinton impeachment scandal, Flynt ran an ad in the Washington Post promising a bounty of up to $1 million for "documentary evidence of illicit sexual relations with a Congressman, Senator or other prominent officeholder." He wound up with dirt on Republican representative Bob Livingston of Louisiana, who was set to become speaker of the House but resigned instead.

In some ways, that affair (pun intended) was the climax of Flynt's long crusade against hypocrisy. But it's also just one sex scandal among many. When the Washington Post published a leaked tape of Donald Trump boasting about groping women this fall, it capped off nearly two decades of politicians being publicly exposed for sexting, shooting off creepy emails to congressional pages, taking "wide stances" in airport bathrooms, and disappearing to canoodle with their secret Argentinian mistresses. Flynt recently offered up a million dollars in exchange for dirt on Trump, but he came up empty—anyone sitting on a juicy tape or photo would have plenty of buyers.

The world Larry Flynt helped create has left him behind. Many of the tools he once used to punch up against power have now become a tool to kick the oppressed. In the culturally conservative eras of Nixon and Reagan, even the Hustler jokes that crossed into racism and sexism, or made light of rape and pedophilia, yielded conversations about topics that the mainstream had deemed too taboo to even address. In the age of the internet, wrote Kelefa Sanneh of the New Yorker in a 2015 article about free-speech fights on campus, " instinctive preference for 'free speech' may already be shaping the kinds of discussions we have, possibly by discouraging the participation of women, racial and sexual minorities, and anyone else likely to be singled out for ad-hominem abuse."

Thanks to social media, battles over free-speech rights are now often battles over the right of others not to be verbally attacked, and they're adjudicated not in courts but by the private companies that control the online conversation.This summer, for instance, the right-wing agitator Milo Yiannopoulos declared himself a "free-speech martyr" after being banned from Twitter for directing a vicious harassment campaign against the black comedian Leslie Jones.

"You pay a price for living in a free society, and that price is tolerating things you don't necessarily like."

When I ask Flynt if he thinks forms of communication widely recognized as "hate speech" should be censored or regulated, he responds by challenging the validity of the term. "I think the Democrats are splitting hairs when they talk about hate speech," he says. "When you kill somebody, does it matter if you killed him because you hate him or you were just having fun?"

To Flynt, the right to shock, prod, and offend people is still something worth fighting for. "Free speech is not free," he tells me. "You pay a price for living in a free society, and that price is tolerating things you don't necessarily like." Flynt feels that not too many young people understand that. "They've been born into a culture with so much apathy that they take all their civil rights and individual liberties for granted, without realizing they can lose them as fast as they can gain them. It's not being concerned about your free speech expanding, it's just being able to hold it. It's very fragile. Even our democracy is fragile."

On Flynt's desk, resting next to a neatly arranged grid of dirty magazines, sits the book One Nation Under Sex, which he wrote with the historian David Eisenbach and is an examination of how sex scandals have shaped the untold history of our nation. Its first chapter, "Founding Flirts and Fornicators," seems to offer an implicit comparison of Flynt and Benjamin Franklin, who according to the book "became the first American printer to make a profit from his newspaper" through "attracting readers with salacious stories and an open discussion of sex." The book adds that when it came time for the United States to select its first ambassador to France, that Franklin's "irrepressible sex drive, unconventional personal history, and raunchy public writings made him the perfect choice."

I bring this passage up to Flynt. Does he hope history will reframe his legacy yet again and place him within the tradition of rabble-rousers instead of opportunistic titillators? Instead of selling sex, will we remember him for selling speech?

Flynt takes a moment to suck on his teeth. "I'll leave that for the historians," he says. "I'll probably be a footnote somewhere."

Follow Drew Millard on Twitter.

Visit Adam Ianniello's website to see more of his photography.


Everything We Know So Far About the Double Bomb Attack in Istanbul

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This article originally appeared on VICE Greece

At least 38 people are reported dead and another 155 wounded as a result of two explosions that went off on Saturdar night after a football match in Istanbul, Turkey. The blasts occurred at 10.29PM, more than two hours after the game had ended, according to Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, speaking at a press conference.

According to Soylu, a remote control detonated a car bomb for the first explosion. Shortly afterward, a suicide bomber caused a second explosion at Macka Park. The two locations are less than a mile apart.

Thirteen people have have been arrested in connection with the blasts, as of Sunday morning. "According to the latest information, 38 of our nation's children have reached martyrdom after last night's cruel attack," Soylu told a news conference earlier. "Sooner or later, we will have our vengeance. This blood will not be left on the ground, no matter what the price, what the cost."

The first explosion came from a moving car that directly targeted riot police near the stadium. The second attack came 45 seconds after the first one, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at Maçka Park just across from the stadium, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said in a press conference. According to the BBC, 30 of those killed in the attacks were police officers.

"There will be an announcement once the investigations are over. We cannot say anything definite for now," Kurtulmuş concluded. He said Turkey's allies should show solidarity with it in the fight against terrorism.

No one had claimed responsibility for the double-pronged attack by early Sunday afternoon, but Soylu and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said early indications pointed to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). "The evidence so far points to the PKK," Soylu said. "The ministry has some of the information on framework about how it was planned and organised but for the sake of the investigation please forgive that I won't share any details."

The bombings come five months after Turkey was shaken by a failed military coup in July, in which more than 240 people were killed, many of them in Istanbul. Istanbul has seen several other attacks this year, including in June, when around 45 people were killed and hundreds wounded as three suspected Islamic State militants carried out a gun and bomb attack on its main Ataturk airport.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, issued a statement. "Istanbul had once again witnessed the ugliest face of terror stepping on all values and morals," it read. "Together with the help of Allah, as a country and a nation, we will overcome terror, terror organizations, terrorists and the powers behind them." A national day of mourning was declared on Sunday, according to a statement from the prime minister's office. Mr Erdogan cancelled his official visit to Kazakhstan.

We will continue to update this story as we get more information.

More on VICE:

How Facetime Saved Erdogan from Turkey's Failed Coup

We Spoke to Turkish Shopkeepers in London About July's Coup Attempt

How It Feels to Be a Dissident in Turkey After the Coup

The Beards, Beer and Street Dancing of Santacon London

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This post originally appeared on VICE UK

There's probably no easier way to rile up the tabloids in December than with Santacon. The annual festive fancy-dress street parade and pub crawl was branded a display of "XXXmas carnage" by one red-top and a bunch of people "on the naughty list" by another, as thousands of people in Santa costumes walked along four routes across London.

We sent photographer Sam Sargeant over to the east London route, working its way from Hoxton Square to Bishopsgate via Boundary Gardens, Brick Lane and that pub near Liverpool Street station called Dirty Dicks. It was a day of tinnies clutched in hands peeping out from red Santa suits, dancing in the street and a spot of limbo being played under wrapping paper. Here's what Sam – and the other onlookers taking photos on their phones while leaning out of their windows – saw.

@sargeantmuel

Why I Left a Polygamist Colony but Stayed in My Plural Marriage

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Twyla Quinton, former member of the FLDS. Photo by Jackie Dives

When Twyla Quinton was growing up in southeastern British Columbia, she was pretty sure everyone had "lots of moms."

"When I was really small, I thought the only difference between us and the rest of the world was the way we dressed," she told VICE. It wasn't until the late 90s, when media started pushing into her rural fundamentalist Mormon community, that she started to understand other families were different, and hers was technically against the law.

When I recently visited Bountiful, the polygamist colony where Quinton grew up, people joked that they've got the same divorce rate as anyone else on the planet. Some research says splits are even more common for "plural" families, so I was especially surprised by Quinton's story. During the past decade, she's left nearly everything about her old life in Bountiful—her church, her siblings, her friends, her home—but kept her three-person marriage.

Polygamy has been illegal in Canada since 1890. Just this summer a BC court upheld the right to charge Bountiful leader Winston Blackmore with polygamy, and three other polygamists faced trial for child trafficking this month, with a judge's decision expected by February next year. In the case of fundamentalist Mormons across North America, the practice is strongly linked to forced marriage and the sexual exploitation of children.

Quinton's story highlights the strange and slippery legality that justifies a ban on a particular family arrangement. "I recently got a new job and they're like, 'We can't hire anybody if they've broken any laws,'" Quinton recalled to VICE. "And I'm like, maybe I did? Is it illegal for girls, or is it just the guys that go to jail?"

Lawyer Tim Dickson found this out quickly when he argued polygamy shouldn't be a crime in a 2011 legal reference. He made a case that the law should target specific harms, like statutory rape.

In an era of open relationships and cheating websites, he says it's increasingly hard to understand why the marriage part matters to lawmakers. "You can have a man who has another family in secret. And there's nothing criminal about that. He can lie to each side, hiding the existence of the other family," Dickson told VICE. "The odd logic of section 293 is that it's only a crime once those multiple relationships are brought into the open and formalized by way of a public ceremony."

Dickson says the reason Chief Justice Robert Bauman upheld polygamy as illegal was because of the cultural baggage that comes with it. "Part of that was a cruel arithmetic idea: the idea that in a small community you are going to have to force out men, that you're going to have to compel women into marriage, and that polygamy cannot arise by way of free and informed choice," he said.

Quinton's experience certainly supports the baggage theory. She says the pressure to marry young was very real, and the only thing she knew. She was taught not to ask questions, to put her feelings "on a shelf" and to obey her parents and religious leaders no matter what. To her, it was "a matter of life and death."

Quinton remembers she was first asked if she was ready to get married at age 14. Though she blushed and declined at the time, two years later decided she was ready. "We had been told that the world would end in the year 2000, and I wanted to be a mother before I died," she recalled. "I was like 'Mom, I want to move on with my life! I'm like 16 and I only got like two years left!'"

In Bountiful, religious leaders arrange marriages, and brides often didn't meet their spouses until their wedding day. Quinton was married on Halloween night, a few hours after she was told who her husband would be. Two years later, Quinton asked Bountiful leader Winston Blackmore if her sister April could join the family.

"April and I were very close, we were sisters, and we spent all our time together anyway," she told VICE. "I thought how cool would that be if April could just be part of our family?" Though it felt like a third-wheel thing at first, Quinton says they figured out their own way of coexisting.

Quinton says it was her husband that decided they would leave the church and start a new life outside of Bountiful. At the time, she and her sisterwife went along with the move for the sake of their kids. "It was like landing on the moon—nobody lives the way you had lived your whole life. We moved 30 minutes down the road, but it was so different," she said. "We didn't know how to make decisions for ourselves. The church decided everything."

Though a scandal at the time, Quinton has settled into her new community of Yahk, where she works with autistic adults and volunteers as a firefighter. "It took me a long time to stop wearing the dresses and change my hairstyle," she said. "I didn't cut my hair for years."

Managing two houses full of kids comes with its obvious headaches, but Quinton is quick to highlight the benefits. "I feel like I've had a lot more freedom with my kids, especially when they were young and I lived with my sisterwife," she told VICE. "We actually shared a job. We didn't have to worry about babysitters or daycare."

Even though she rejects the way the church controlled her life, she hopes polygamy will be decriminalized. "If you find yourself like I did, that was what I knew, we stayed together, and I feel like we should have the right to stay together."

It's a sentiment that rural BC seems increasingly open to, at least judging by Quinton's interactions with her kids' public schools. "Families are so diverse. It's 2016," she said. "Sometimes when the kids say they have two moms other kids think that we're lesbians. But we're not and that's normal, and it should be normal."

Even though the courts struck down his argument in 2011, Dickson doesn't think that push for decriminalization is going away.

"Regardless of the decision in the reference, the issue remains unsettled for some people, I think, because they continue to see the criminal prohibition as being overbroad. They come back to that basic question: if three or more people want to live polygamously and that is truly their choice, then what is the problem?"

Follow Sarah Berman on Twitter.

Wilmer Valderrama Wants to Be a Voice for America's Immigrants

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Last month, actor Wilmer Valderrama left his Los Angeles home for Brownsville, Texas. The Mexican border town sits just opposite the Rio Grande from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and has a population that is more than 90 percent Latino.

"I felt like I was seeing the future," Valderrama said of the experience when I caught up with him last week. "With Brownsville, you can see how both cultures—American and Mexican—influence each other, and how they've created this hybrid culture that's infused with both flavors. That is what the future of our national community culture is going to be like—influences coming together to create one common vision."

Born in Miami to a Colombian father and a Venezuelan mother in 1980, the That 70s Show star spent most of his childhood living between his parents' two home countries. In 1993, his family sold everything they owned, packed up, and moved to the US. Here, Wilmer and his sister enrolled in public school, took ESL classes, and got jobs, instilling a work ethic that he credits for his Hollywood successes.

With this in mind, Valderrama has spent the past ten years advocating for US immigrants on issues ranging from workers' rights to legislative reform. Leading up to the presidential election, he was hard at work with Voto Latino, a national nonprofit that seeks to educate and empower Latinos to get involved politically. Now, in the wake of Donald Trump's win, the NCIS newcomer is stressing the importance of unification.

VICE: What made you want to visit Brownsville?
Wilmer Valderrama: I started the campaign with the idea that we could start fueling the positivity behind the word "immigration." I think it's important that we're at the very least disarming the conversation, so that we're able to get to more positive outcomes with whatever discussion we have next. The idea was to remind ourselves of who we are and what is beautiful about that, and what is beautiful about having a multicultural country, and what the strengths are behind that.

What surprised you about the people living down there?
It actually really reminded me of who I am. I was raised in Venezuela—my mother is Colombian, my father is Venezuelan—and Colombia and Venezuela share a border together, so I grew up with that same perspective. We were all so close to one another, so I could completely see the influence that both my mother and my father's cultures had on our household, and how I became so bi-country. When I went to Brownsville, I could see how both America and Mexico influence each other, and it was really inspiring. I feel like we live so separated from one another. Even in the same country, I feel like people stay in their lane, and going down there I really started to realize that.

You were 13 when your family immigrated. What do you remember from that time?
I didn't know how to speak English—I couldn't even count to three—but I learned how to speak it fairly quickly because we realized that my sister and I needed to be the first ones to speak English in our family. When I got here, I was an adult at 14 years old. I'd had my childhood and I was a clown and I was silly and I was fun, but I also had a very mature perspective on things. We knew when we sold everything we had in Venezuela that we were coming to America to work. That was a fact. I remember my dad saying, "We didn't come here to go to Universal Studios and Disneyland." We did do those things, but those were rewards, and that my dad made very clear.

It's not exactly an easy age to make a transition like that. Did you deal with bullying?
I mean, yes. Kids can be super cruel, and I grew up in a time in our country where there was very little representation and very little awareness of other cultures, not only in media, but in entertainment. Entertainment in the 90s was the dictator of what we considered normal. When you had an accent, you were considered uneducated. I was constantly dismissed because, "Oh, he doesn't understand." That was my experience in school, but it fueled the fire for me to learn English. It pushed me to get the tools I needed to survive. From the beginning, our culture feeds us this story that minorities were really, truly minorities, and I had a tough time feeling like I was really part of the national community. I think we've definitely seen the evolution of that, and the acceptance, and the platform that has been extended for all cultures to do extraordinary things out loud and have the world hear it.

How did that reality factor in when you decided to pursue acting?
You know, it really didn't, and I think that was one of my biggest assets. I was so naïve about the whole situation and that kind of made me look the other way. I honestly believe that was my biggest advantage. To not live through anyone else's eyes, and not take anyone else's horror story as something that would possibly parallel my experience was the best thing I ever did.

Looking back, I think that not knowing how crazy the industry could be—how twisted it could be, how dark it could be, how lonely it could be—really helped me. The moment things got a little sad I just turned the music louder, because that is what Latinos do. Things get bad, we turn up the volume and start fucking dancing.

Was there something in particular that inspired you to get involved on the activism side?
It was when I worked on Fast Food Nation with Richard Linklater and Eric Schlosser. I played an immigrant who crossed the border and took a job at a slaughterhouse alongside his wife. At the time, and probably still today, the job was considered one of the most dangerous jobs in America. That was the first time I really got the perspective that comes with playing an individual who is alive, who breathes, who is out there working his ass off from 4:30 in the morning till 9 at night and going to bed and waking up and doing it all over again. I felt there was a certain sense of ownership and responsibility that came with that part, and I really started thinking hard about what I said to the media. Richard and Eric were really my mentors as an activist. They taught me that if you speak up on a personal level, and if your story and what you speak about and what you stand for is organically rooted in who you are, then no one can really disagree with it. They taught me that what you're passionate about will always be true.

Now you're involved with Voto Latino.
Yes, as a chairman. Eleven years ago the organization sought to get as many minorities as possible enrolled in the census, and when we saw the numbers, we thought, imagine if they all registered to vote and imagine what that could do. That's how it started, and then it kind of progressed into the human issues. Speaking on these things became a huge part of my heart, and a huge part of who I am. Reminding people that it's OK to be different, and it's OK to be from somewhere else, and it's also OK to consider this your home. A lot of immigrants consider themselves guests here, but if America is your home, you have to take charge of it. You have the right to be in control of it, and you have to do what's right for you and your family.

Donald Trump's platform has instilled a newfound sense of fear in a lot of immigrants. Where do we go from here?
In times like this, I feel like we have to remind ourselves what's really, truly important—what we really do have. We have to come together and remember who we are as a community and as people in this country. I think that now more than ever we need to continue to bring hope, to fuel positivity, because it is a really hard time for people who have immigrated here. That to me is the next phase of this moment we're living in.

The Future of Incarceration: How Do You Sell a Jail?

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This article originally appeared on VICE US

Building a jail or prison is unlike any other construction project. No matter what it's replacing, or how fancy the building might look from the outside, there's a good chance the people living near its eventual location aren't going to be happy about it. When officials announce plans to erect a new hall of incarceration, it's often just a matter of time before a public campaign is launched to stop it by any means necessary.

In the United States, the reigning world capital of mass incarceration, this routine plays out with alarming frequency. Take, for example, Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 2009, the state's governor proposed building a treatment and detention center for young girls who run away from home in a highly residential area in the city. Neighbors quickly formed the "Derail the Jail Committee," citing concerns of public safety and real estate value, and last year, the site became a playground and dog park instead.

NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard) has proven a reliable roadblock for local jails, where a significant chunk of America's inmates are held. But as cities and states look to downsize their incarcerated populations—whether due to budgetary concerns, or a larger desire to keep human beings outside of cages—the idea of bringing jails closer to communities is gaining currency. Inmates should be near relatives and legal services, advocates increasingly argue, so as to boost their chances of a successful reentry.

Even though Donald Trump prevailed in the presidential election while running on a tough-on-crime platform that often criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, municipalities across the country still command space to explore alternatives in the coming years. And with ongoing demands to downsize, figuring out what to do with massive inmate populations is one of the greatest challenges ahead.

In a 2006 Department of Justice document called "Building Community Support for New Jail Construction," the question is posed: "How can we sell the jail?"

If governments want to build a new jail, the pitch to the public needs to be honed in a way that appeals rather than angers. It's not a sympathetic subject, like building a school, so an effort must be made to raise awareness of what a jail actually is: a part of the community, the author notes. Inside of those walls are neighbors—neighbors who, without the right to vote, might even boost your political power, perverse as that may seem.

"I would argue that most people would want individuals treated the way they'd want one of their loved ones treated."—Fred Patrick

"I think getting people to better understand when we talk about jails, what we're talking about are folks who have been alleged to have done something, and we believe in the system of folks having their days in court," Fred Patrick, director of the Center on Sentencing and Corrections at the Vera Institute of Justice, told VICE. "Well, many of these folks haven't."

"I would argue that most people would want individuals treated the way they'd want one of their loved ones treated," he added, "which would be with respect and human dignity, with access to the programs and services that allow them to leave better off than they were when they arrived."

Patrick used to be deputy commissioner for New York City's Department of Correction. During most of his tenure, he noted, the city had a community jail in four out of the five boroughs—some of which were closed as jail populations decreased—and the only complaint he can recall was the constant traffic of court buses.

Take, for example, the Tombs, a jail in the heart of downtown Manhattan that hasn't exactly scared off investment in the neighborhood. Or the Brooklyn House of Detention, which is nestled in a gentrifying neighborhood. Then there's Chicago's enormous Cook County Jail, which, according to some reports, has actually made nearby citizens feel more safe.

"When you tell someone, 'That's a jail,' people have all of these strange thoughts, mostly from fictional accounts on television, and all the sensationalism," Patrick said. "The reality is, in most places where you have jails and other correctional facilities in the community, it's generally not a problem."

Still, as talk of replacing New York's massive Rikers Island complex with neighborhood alternatives accelerates, NIMBY issues are sure to come into play. Former NYC correction commissioner Martin Horn actually tried to eliminate the massive complex back in 2006, but when he took the idea to the public, as he recently told the New York Times, he was "buzz-sawed."

With that in mind, the concept of public safety has to be redefined, according to Patrick. "We're sort of stipulating that jails should be safe, that their operations should be accountable and transparent, and be focused on human dignity and preparing folks for release—and, more important, success upon release," he said. "That's very much about public safety."

"I think the jails of the future have no walls."—Nancy La Vigne

When I brought up community blowback to Nancy La Vigne, a former DOJ researcher who focused on the prison system and now heads up the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, she almost scoffed.

"When you think about what the future will look like, I think it's going to be increasingly electronic, and I think a lot of that will render these NIMBY issues moot," she said. "I say that because there's an increasing body of evidence and data that suggests that people can be released safely, and, arguably, the vast majority of them should not be confined at all.

"So I think the notion that the jail of the future is still a place of confinement, with bars and razor wire, is an antiquated one," La Vigne said. "I think the jails of the future have no walls."

In San Francisco last December, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted against plans for a local jail after sustained protest, with one supervisor calling it "a return to an era of mass incarceration, an era San Francisco is trying to leave behind." Instead, the board voted to use funds for pretrial diversion and mental health services.

Similar fights have broken out all over, from Philadelphia to Ithaca, New York. Champaign County in Illinois has eliminated money for jails in its budget entirely. So could a NIMBY attitude about jails shift to one where people are less and less interested in jailing fellow humans, period?

One of the more recent battlegrounds has been Seattle, where local officials pushed for a juvenile detention facility at the site of an existing jail. The proposal was greeted by a serious backlash from civil and human rights organizations alike.

"Fundamentally, putting a kid in jail is shown to have no positive impact and have tons of negative impact for the kid and the family," Knoll Lowney, the attorney who recently filed a lawsuit against the city on the advocates' behalf, told me. "So it's not an evidence-based approach, and basically ruins lives."

These sentiments demonstrate a dramatic change in both the tone and public awareness surrounding jails, as concerns of mass incarceration have gone mainstream. And one election isn't going to reverse that.

"Twenty years ago, when I published an article on racist incarceration and crack laws, there were people working hard on it then," Lowney continued. "But I think the broader discussion has only happened more recently. Billions of dollars and millions of lives ruined later—now there's a bigger discussion."

This article is part of the VICE series The Future of Incarceration. Read the rest of the package here.

Follow John Surico on Twitter.

New York State of Mind: Mobbing in London with Kirk Knight

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Kirk Knight has always been one of our favorite artists affiliated with the Pro Era hip-hop collective. We were first introduced to the rapper/producer back in 2012. The Brooklyn native grabbed our attention with his guest appearance on "Where It's At," a stand out track from Joey Bada$$'s 1999 mixtape. Last year, Knight dropped his debut mixtape, Late Knight Special, which garnered a lot attention for its intimate story-telling, stellar production, and skillful rhymes.

Earlier this fall, we caught up with the artist on the streets of London. Photographer Verena Stephanie Grotto followed him as he kicked it in the park, hung with his homies, and smashed on some delicious-looking take out. Check out the photos below and read Brain Josephs's feature story on the talented young rapper on Noisey.

Photographer Verena Stefanie Grotto was born and bred in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. The small town is not known for hip-hop, but they do make a very tasty grape-based pomace brandy there called grappa. Stefanie left Bassano del Grappa at the age of 17 to go and live the wild skateboarding life in Barcelona, Spain, where she worked as the Fashion Coordinator for VICE Spain. Tired of guiding photographers to catch the best shots, she eventually grabbed the camera herself and is now devoted to documenting artists, rappers, style-heads, and more. She recently directed a renowned documentary about the Grime scene in UK and has had photo features in GQ, Cosmopolitan, VICE, and many more.

Check out her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

I Taste Tested Flavoured Lube in Search of a Culinary Climax

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All images by Ben Thomson

This article originally appeared on VICE Australia/New Zealand

Generally speaking, sex is quite nice. People seem to like putting their mouths on vaginas, putting their dicks in asses, putting their skin on other people's skin. And I get it. Kissing a sweaty person when they are a little bit salty? That's the best. Looks good, feels good, smells sort of okay. Frankly, sex is just a fiesta for the senses.

Objectively though, it doesn't taste great. That's just a fact, my friend. For example, if you were served a dish at a restaurant that tasted like someone's vagina, you probably wouldn't say, "Delicious! Compliments to the chef!" In fact, you'd probably be thinking, Something's gone very, very wrong in this kitchen.

What if sex could be both fun and conventionally delicious? That might well be the whole premise of flavoured lube—feeling like you're eating a pussy and drinking a Piña colada at the same time.

But does flavoured lube actually taste good? Honestly, I'd never tried it. So I decided to taste test five different flavours to see if I could find a properly delicious lube. A lube I could plate up in front of the MasterChef judges and tell them, with tears in my eyes, "This is me on a plate."

Juicy Lube Piña colada flavour

PIÑA COLADA

Taste: The ingredients for the cocktail this lube is based on are rum, coconut cream, and pineapple juice. Honestly, I'm about to coconut cream my pants after tasting this lube. Absolutely delectable.

One problem: The aftertaste isn't so great. It's actually much closer to what I'd describe as "a bit painful." If I really wanted to hit the nail on the head I'd say, "It feels as though someone is melting plastic wrap directly into my mouth."

Realism: I mean, sure. If I didn't have the package to guide me, I would probably still be able to guess that this is supposed to resemble a Piña colada. At the very least, a pineapple.

Packaging: Very stupid. It looks like a rejected design for the cover art of A-ha's "Take On Me." If I were you, I'd keep this out of your sex partner's eyeline, because they might genuinely think you stole it from your parents.

Serving suggestion: Obviously, for making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape.

Rating: 4/10. The cling film thing ruined it for me.

Swiss Navy's Candy Cane lube

CANDY CANE

Taste: Oh, man. This one really stands out because it makes your mouth tingle a little bit, as mint often does. I really only tested these with my mouth, so it's hard to say what might happen if the tingle was brought into contact with genitals. But sex is quite a lot about tingling feelings and sensations, so I reckon throwing this into the mix would work out quite well. Maybe test it on a small patch of skin first as you would a hair dye. I don't want to be responsible for second degree burns on somebody's dick tip.

Packaging: I like it. It's thematic, but in a tasteful way. They didn't literally cover it with candy canes, they made it look like a deconstructed candy cane. Not ramming the message down your throat, you know? And, at the very least, it doesn't resemble a can of deodorant like some of the others did.

Best of all: You could have this fall out of your bag and roll the entire length of a restaurant without anyone being the wiser, because it looks like a Glossier face mist. Cute.

Serving suggestion: Christmas Eve, with somebody you really love. It's a lube that says, "You're not a novelty to me, baby."

Rating: 8/10. Tasty, classy, tingly.

Wet Stuff Salted Caramel lube

SALTED CARAMEL

Taste: Are you there God? It's me, Isabelle. I know we haven't talked in awhile. I didn't really believe you were "real" per se. I'm sorry. I now know that you do exist. How did I figure it out? This. This lube. It's the culinary miracle I set out to find.

Somehow, presumably through your divine intervention, humankind have managed to capture the exact flavour of a salted caramel—a solid, sort of brown-ish coloured treat, within a completely colourless liquid. It's incredible. It truly is.

Realism: Fucking. Identical. Like, worryingly so. If I was in the salted caramel business, I'd be shaking in my boots.

Packaging: Again, really knocked it out of the park. The pump system that other lubes employed frequently resulted in disaster—I was constantly overshooting and over-delivering. Potentially humiliating, in a bedroom situation. A simple tube is the way to go.

Serving suggestion: Masturbating to the Food Network.

Rating: 10/10. There's no weird aftertaste! None!

Juicy Lube Passionfruit flavour

PASSIONFRUIT

Taste: I had high hopes for this one, given it claimed to emulate one of my favourite fruits. However, I was also wary of the general rule, "If it ain't broke, don't turn it into lube and drink it." But I'd already thrown all caution to wind. I took the risk. It paid off. This stuff smells really good, albeit a bit like a Victoria's Secret shop. Taste-wise, it's actually pretty multifaceted. That is to say, there's flavour notes here. Like, at least two notes. Maybe three.

Realism: Does it taste like a passionfruit? No. Absolutely not. I'll tell you what it does taste like though: a passionfruit UDL. As far as I'm concerned, that's almost better.

Packaging: This is made by the same company as the Piña Colada lube, so its packaging is almost identical. And yet, somehow... it's less offensive. I think because it's hot pink. It looks trapped-in-the-80s in a cute, gaudy way. Not a sad, my-band-did-not-end-up-changing-the-face-of-music-so-I-make-my-kids-busk-in-the-cbd-instead way.

Serving suggestion: This is for festival sex. It really is destined to be used in a tent.

Rating: 7/10. Because passionfruit UDLs are, in a word, bellissima.

Durex Play Sweet Strawberry

SWEET STRAWBERRY

Taste: Not many people know this, but Nikki Webster's tune "Strawberry Kisses" was actually written about getting eaten out with this lube. Crazy, huh? Well, that's the kind of stuff the ARIAs won't tell you.

Here's another unfortunate fact—this tastes like biting into one of those huge rolls of Hubba Bubba tape gum as if it was a biscuit. Genuinely sickening.

Realism: You didn't even try. You absolutely did not attempt to make this taste anything like a real strawberry. That's probably why you called it "Sweet Strawberry," so when people realised they'd be ripped off and misled, you could point to the "Sweet" and be like, "Hey, we warned ya!"

Packaging: This one is half the size of the others, which makes me feel.... weird. It looks like fun-sized lube. Show bag lube. Or lube for children. That's not good.

Serving Suggestion: Backstage at the ARIAs, just to spite them.

Rating: 5/10. It induced heart palpitations, but not the good kind.

Follow Izzy on Twitter


Scenes from My Time in a Psychiatric Hospital

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The author in her hospital room. All photos courtesy of the author

This article originally appeared on VICE France

I don't remember arriving at the hospital. All I remember is waking up in a room that wasn't mine, in a pair of pyjamas I didn't own.

Moments later, I walk into the common room to see a man talking to himself, while putting up posters on the walls. I later find out that the posters are letters, addressed to God, the President of France and the butterflies. He even sticks a poster on the TV screen, which doesn't seem to bother the patients who are watching. None of them are wearing shoes – they are all in socks or barefoot. A woman approaches me and asks if I can help her cut her hair like mine. "I've always wanted a fringe," she says.

Several people have their eyes fixed on the television but no one is paying any attention to the programme. I hear some people discussing new music videos – mainly the latest of French rapper Kaaris. It strikes me that some of my fellow patients seem completely normal. For example, there is Patrick*, 23, who was sectioned against his will two weeks earlier, after an altercation with the police. He's blond and generally calm. He spends most of his days reading newspapers and the rest of the time trying to escape from the ward.

Last October, I had a series of manic episodes brought on by my bipolar disorder. As a result, I was admitted to the Centre Hospitalier de Saint-Anne in Paris, one Tuesday around 3.30AM. After spending the first two days of my time there asleep and high on Valium, I decided to venture outside my room to see what life is like in a French psychiatric hospital in 2016.

About 12 million people suffer from psychological problems in France – basically one in five. Of the 45 million French adults, 18,5 percent are considered to have some sort of pathological, psychiatric problem. In 2013, 31 percent of French people aged between 25 and 34 were affected with differing degrees of depression. In the UK, one in four people will experience a mental health problem in any given year, while mental health problems account for 28 percent of all annual health issues – compared to 16 percent each for cancer and heart disease.


A game of chess in the activities room

In a psychiatric hospital, everything is timed. Dinner is at 7.10 PM. If you arrive at 7.20 PM, you're too late. My first meal and every meal that follows are underwhelming. The "turkey curry" is actually just a sad piece of turkey floating in water. New arrivals, by the way, are not allowed in the restaurant. According to the hospital's rules, if you've just been admitted, you have to stay on your own floor and the nurses will bring you a tray. On my first night, a woman comes into my room as I'm eating, and says: "If you don't give me your biscuits, I'll start crying." I hand over my stash without blinking.

On the second day, I don't do much more than roam the corridors in my blue pyjamas. It's also obligatory to wear pyjamas – no doubt so it's harder for us to escape. To go down I take the lift because access to the stairs is blocked. But the lift is terrifying – you can see red stains that look like blood on the floor. "I think that someone just dropped a strawberry tart," Patrick assures me.


Patients watching TV

Every day is punctuated by various tests – blood, blood pressure, urine. Sedatives are mostly administered in drops, because that way you can't hide them underneath your tongue. The staff are caring and lovely, and they listen to us.

I make one more friend – Antoine*, who's 27 and bipolar like me. He sits next to me and tells me in a solemn tone: "This place is a little like prison, so I'm going to take you under my wing and tell you who you should and shouldn't hang out with." We get on well. We spent our time smoking, playing backgammon or he reads me his poetry – he's convinced that he's the new Proust. That is when he isn't lost in thought, with a vacant look behind his tortoise shell glasses.

Antoine and I make a nice group with Patrick*, T* and Sofiane*. Antoine and Patrick are true gentlemen – when we go outside they always argue over who's going to lend me their coat. They make me laugh a lot. We are all survivors and sometimes we think we're in a summer camp or on holiday with friends. What I like here is that even the most affected people are treated like humans and never like freaks.



The author's room during her time at the hospital

The more I get to know Antoine, the more I notice his problems. He recently arrived here to find a treatment most suited to his condition, and it turns out he's right in the middle of a manic phase. One night after dinner, he tells me that he has "something very important" to tell me and that I should prepare myself for it mentally. Then, he reveals to me that he's a medium, capable of communicating with spirits and trees. He says that he is able to transform into an animal. He is also apparently a disciple of the son of God, who has returned to earth in the form of Abel* – another young patient in the ward.

At first, I think that he is taking the piss. Then I realise he really believes what he says. I try to make him understand that he's not the only one here who thinks that he's got a direct line to God, and that he should keep that theory to himself if he wants to be let out one day. Of course, he doesn't listen.

Abel, who Antoine believes to be the reincarnation of Christ, is a boy as sweet as he is strange. Convinced of being the personification of the second coming, he swears he can kill people by rolling dice. And a birth mark on the palm of his hand indicates, according to him, where he was nailed on the cross in his previous life.

One day, he hits his head really hard against a wall. When I ask him why, he replies: "Anger." With the few words that his medication allows him to utter, he confides in me that he's also HIV positive. The treatment he's taking for his condition – mental and physical – is so intense that it slows him down and makes him hallucinate.

People here tell each other their most intimate stories – I guess there isn't much else to do. A woman of about 50 tells me that for the past 22 years, she's been madly in love with her wife. "I will love her to the very end," she says. As soon as she gets out, they'll "go around the world, in both directions." She shows me photos of when they were only 20. They both look so beautiful.


Lunch at the hospital

Another woman of about the same age often comes to talk to me, but she makes me so uncomfortable that I try to avoid her in the corridors. I don't know how to respond to her pain. She's said to be a nymphomaniac, sent here because she was stalking someone. She tells me that she is "pathologically in love" with a man she hardly knows – a man she visited at his place of work once, to harass him. She writes him dozens of letters every day and plans on seeing him as soon as she is allowed to leave. She tells me that she can't get better if she doesn't sleep with this man, that she needs to know what he's doing, where and with whom he is at all times .

According to author and university professor Jean-Louis Senon, less than one percent of crimes in France are actually committed by people with serious mental health problems. But they are more exposed to violence, because of their fragile state.


Some walls of the hospital were decorated with graffiti. This one reads "Hospital of shit"

The days go by and I am slowly taken off my medication. The first night without sedatives is hard. I'm sharply aware of everything around me – the wind gently shaking the blinds, the clunking of the pipes, people laughing or crying in rooms nearby.

One afternoon, I get permission to go out for four hours, accompanied by a carer. My friends have asked me to buy things for them – cigarettes, nail files, tangerines, ingredients to make a cake for Abel. His birthday is coming up.

We celebrate Abel's 24th birthday on the following Friday. We gather all the patients on our floor who aren't sleeping, and we eat the cake Patrick and I made. Antoine's mother has made a jam that we can dip biscuits in and Antoine has spent the day writing a poem for the birthday boy. Abel cries.


Abel's birthday celebration

A few days later, Sofiane gathers the people he likes best to announce that he's finally going home. He's prepared a little speech. We can't help but make jokes to hide our true feelings. They've all been in the hospital for longer than me and they can't wait to get out, even though its good that they're here. Sofiane gives me a bracelet he made as a memento.

I notice someone new coming in. She's a young Swedish woman – a journalist living in Paris. She is blond and has a beautiful smile that reveals a gold tooth. The men on staff aren't oblivious to her. Two of them try to learn Swedish to impress her. Maja* tells me that she jumped into the Seine two days ago. She says that she's 29 "but 19 at night", and that we'll go on a tour of Parisian clubs when we get out. I find out from a nurse that she's been in here for longer than she lets on. In truth, she just escaped from her sector; the nurses had to go and look for her.

Coca Cola, coffees and drawings in the activities room

The woman affected by nymphomania has been released in the meantime, but she returns. She couldn't help but go see the man she's so obsessed with. She went to his office, but wasn't let in. He has now asked for a restraining order against her. She imagines him making fun of her and that makes her happy. "If I can't make love to him, I can at least make him laugh," she says.

I have dinner with Agathe* and Antoine. Agathe has been here for five months – she keeps getting released and re-admitted. We suggest that getting a job might help her stay out for good because it will give her a purpose. She's always loved doing people's hair, she says, and wants to practise by cutting Antoine's hair. However good it might do her, her chances of getting a job after she's released are slim. 61 percent of working age adults with mental health disabilities are outside of the labour force, compared with only 20 percent of working-age adults in the general population.


More graffiti

Then, I meet Fatima*. Fatima is a young woman of about 20, who comes to talk to me in the common room; she says she suffers from postpartum depression. She keeps talking about how she wants to die, and then she says that she can't breathe. Suddenly, she takes my hands, closes them around her throat and commands: "Kill me, kill me with your bare hands." I panic. I tell her not to move. I run to get the night nurses who seem to find the situation amusing. "We'll help her, but we're not going to be able to kill her," they say. From my room, I hear Fatima crying and hitting her head against the wall.

I go back to the common room to calm down. I've been particularly on edge lately. The nurses notice it, so they give me Loxapac and take away my computer. It's for the best.


The author's release form, approved and signed

On a Monday, I do a lithium test. I am told that I need to stay a little longer to know whether the level of lithium in my blood influences my behaviour, without necessarily putting my health at risk. I am so drugged up at this point, that I don't even feel the needle going in.

The days go by, all more or less the same, and suddenly it's time to leave the hospital. My room is being cleaned and a man moves in. He insults the nurses and refuses to wear the pyjamas. "I don't want your fucking pyjamas," he shouts. "I'll be cold when I go out to smoke my heroin!"

There are no speeches or tears at my departure. I hug Patrice and Antoine, who gives me a poem that he wrote for me.


A polaroid showing Maja trying to roll a cigarette

As I'm waiting on the sidewalk for my taxi, Maja walks up to me. She's trying to get away from the hospital. "Do you want to smoke some weed?" she asks. "I want to smoke some weed with you, because you are the prettiest girl here." As soon as she finishes her sentence, a couple of members of staff grab her by the arms. Her voice carries on as she is being dragged back into the hospital grounds: "If you don't look at them they can't see us! Don't look at them, Louise! Don't look at them!"

I would like to thank the doctors and the nurses, who work with kindness in this difficult environment, as well as the rest of the hospital staff. A special thanks to the lady who always brought me my breakfast in the morning and to the young nurse who always had a smile and a kind word for all the patients.

*All names have been changed.

If you are concerned about the mental health of you or someone you know, talk to Mind on 0300 123 3393 or at their website, here.

More on VICE:

What It's Like When Your Flatmate Has a Psychotic Episode

Why Mental Health Disorders Emerge in Your Early Twenties

Employers Still Don't Know How to Deal with Mental Health

‘It’s Not a Fetish’: An Interview with One of the World’s Leading Furry Researchers

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Images courtesy of Furscience

Furries are misunderstood. Though the fandom has been around for years and has flourished on the internet, most of the misinformation society has gotten about furries has been from media. There was that CSI episode. And then the Vanity Fair article. The 1,000 Ways to Die segment. But, according to Dr. Sharon Roberts, who is part of a team of researchers working on the International Anthropomorphic Research Project, also known as Furscience, those portrayals are largely incorrect.

"The ubiquity of those representations of the furry fandom has been the only source of information that we've had , you're going to see a tail sometimes. Most fursuits are worn exclusively at fursuit events. For instance, with the permission of a bowling alley, they might go bowling in a group with fursuits on. They're always going to have the permission to do that, but they'll show up in their fursuits and have a good time. They might be part of a parade or they'd go to a furry convention. Those are usual special occasions when they wear the fursuits; in terms of paraphernalia, it's up to the individual. There's a lot of furries who don't wear anything—it's just something they know about themselves.

You mentioned that this is a young fandom and that participants skew to the younger side as well, in their early 20s. Why do you think that is?
I can tell you about the history of the fandom. Science fiction is the root of the furry fandom. Back before geek had been ameliorated from its negative association, back when geek was not cool... At science fiction conventions, you would find there would be these panels from people who had this special interest in anthropomorphism. The internet of course made this explode in terms of helping people find each other.

What are you goals with the Furscience videos you've put together?
The videos are PSA tongue-in-cheek type of videos. They put furries doing ridiculous, mundane things in their fursuits, and the point is of course furries don't do that. But if you'd like to learn about furries, come to Furscience and learn the facts. They're campy, and we've done them intentionally that way.

I saw you're also putting together some resources for parents of furries. Can you tell me more about why that's important?
When I go to furry conventions, I do the information for parents panels. I will host a panel where parents who have come with their kids come, and I see a lot of parents who have only seen the negative stuff on the internet, and they're terrified because that's all they know. They only know CSI and Vanity Fair, and that's problematic. When I sit down with them, I say, "Listen, I'm child-free, but if I had a kid and the worst thing they told me was that they were a furry, I would consider myself homefree. This is great, this is fantastic. We don't have any issues." The furry fandom is about friendship and artwork at its very core.

If I had to sum it up into one word, it would be "friendship." It's a place for social support, moral support, emotional support. It's a place where shy and introverted people can engage with others who are like them in a safe environment that lets them have the benefits translate into their everyday lives. Shy and introverted people engage in conversations, and it's almost like they're able to practice those kinds of interactions in a safe way that make them stronger in their everyday lives. Of course there are people who are not shy as well. Parents' resources have come as part of a larger request that came from the fandom to give people the facts on what a furry is because they were tired of people not understanding that this was a good thing for them.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Follow Allison Tierney on Twitter.

​What Happens When Your Restaurant Side Gig Takes Over Your Life

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Hello life. Photo via Flickr user Louis du Mont

I began working at the restaurant two days after graduating from the University of Toronto. While my theatre degree had taught me a cockney accent and competitive marching, it left me with very few real world skills. I was hired as a food runner and from the start the place was a series of contradictions. The restaurant billed itself as a French bistro but had a club sandwich and fried spring rolls on the menu. The black tie uniform signaled fine dining, but kids under four ate free. Still, a service job in Toronto's most expensive neighborhood was an excellent side gig while I hustled for acting work. I thought it was a temporary stop over and some quick cash. That was five years ago.

Recently the owner of the restaurant—a well coifed forty-something who had taken over the business from his father—accepted a multi-million dollar buyout and decided to close the establishment at the end of the year. He informed staff at a pre-service meeting while wearing spotless white sneakers and expensive looking watch. He said the staff had been like family. I was reminded that for the first two years of my employment I was told that if I looked at the owner I would be fired. I was sure that he didn't know my name.

Later that week the owner made a guest appearance on a nationally broadcast morning show. On the same day I found out that I would not be paid severance or termination.

I never intended to stay at the restaurant as long as I have. The fact that I made it up the ranks from food runner, to junior waiter, to senior staff was surprising considering how clear it was they didn't want me there. I was repeatedly told I was too fat to serve. I was told that my neutral face looked too sad, and I needed smile more, lest I ruin the ambiance. There was a day where a manager made a game out of grabbing my ass. There was another day where a manager showed me an anal fisting video. When a lady started shooting guppies out of her vagina I asked him turn it off. I was demoted to dusting duty for the rest of the shift.

I've had a reoccurring dream since I started working at the restaurant. I dream that I'm walking food to a table when the skin on my hands starts to grow over top of the plates. The skin grows and grows until my hands, the food, and the plates become one monstrous extremity. When I get to the customers they recoil in horror, and in the confusion I begin smashing my hands onto the table. The plates break underneath the skin leaving my limbs a bloody mess of sinew, porcelain, and food. As the customers scream and run away I stand and laugh. I shout: Here you go! Here you go!

Read More: Testing the Limits of Mandarin's Infamous Buffet

Despite the dream, and despite the numerous things that have happened during my tenure in the service industry, there was never a point where I truly felt I could leave. Now that things are ending I've been thinking a lot about why that is.

The obvious answer is money. On a good shift I could walk out with upwards of three hundred dollars, a trickle down from the three hundred percent mark-up on bottles of Jackson Triggs, and the extra tips thrown my way by kindly septuagenarians. In theory that money gave me time to pursue creative interests, but as auditions dried up and anxiety crippled my writing, I ended up spending more time at the restaurant than not. All of the sudden a couple of years passed and I hadn't made any art. At that point I stopped believing I could do anything else besides being a waiter. So I kept working.

There are people in the service industry who love what they do, the type of people who revel in delicious foods and exotic drink pairings. There are people who enjoy the social nature of the work and the flexibility the job offers. Some are just trying to make an honest living for themselves so they can feed their families or pay their rent. Others use restaurants as a stepping-stone between the place they are and the place they want to be. But there is another group that get caught up without ever meaning to. The group who meant to do something else but never got around to it. You'll over hear them talking to customers about a masters program they're going back to, the band that they used to play in, or a long forgotten dance troupe. These people smile and insist they'll start again soon. Then they pause for a second and ask for your drink order.

During my time at the restaurant I saw literally dozens of staff come and go: nineteen different managers, seasonal servers with casual addictions, prep cooks who broke probation, and countless hostesses. When they'd leave I'd make a mental note that I was next in line. I even had a re-occurring joke where I'd tell staff that any day now a marching band was coming to play me off.

The truth is that I was scared to leave. I listened to the managers and owners who repeatedly told me that I'd never get hired anywhere else on account of my depressive attitude and disheveled appearance. They insisted that I was lucky to work there. They told me I was incapable of doing another job, creative or otherwise, and I believed them. I don't know how long I would have stayed at the restaurant, but thanks to the decision of a multi-millionaire socialite, there isn't a choice. This was always supposed to be a temporary gig and now it's coming to an end.

Last Sunday was my second to last shift. On weekends the restaurant hosts a brunch buffet. It was a painfully slow stint, and aside from watching children stick their hands into the chocolate fountain and occasionally clearing a place setting, I didn't have much to do. Eventually I began drinking mimosas with one of the waitresses. We drank out of paper cups and chatted with my favorite regular, a kindly blue hair who loves well-done steak and the occasional Steamwhistle. The regular explained that she lived beside the restaurant. Because of mobility issues it was one of the only places she could eat. She said that after we closed she wasn't sure where she was supposed to go, and asked us what our plans were. The waitress squeezed her arm and didn't say anything. I took a sip of my drink and told her I didn't know. I said I was still trying to figure it out.

Graham Isador is a writer living in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter.




The Oral History of the Money Shot

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All original art by Zoe Ligon

The money shot is inescapable in modern porn. Also known as the cumshot, visibly jizzing on someone has

'Hunter Gatherer' Depicts the Struggles of a Former Inmate

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In a year where black art—and especially black film—has seen nothing short of a renaissance, Hunter Gatherer is another well-executed attempt to capture and display black people in their full complexity. The cast, led by Andre Royo (Empire, The Wire) is almost all black; in the film, we're allowed to see these characters smile, lie, and forge relationships—actions typically reserved for white people in TV and film.

Love and connection are the two biggest threads throughout Hunter Gatherer, as Ashley Douglas (Royo) returns from a stint in jail to try and win back his ex-girlfriend Linda (Ashley Wilkerson), who's since moved on. Rejected, Ashley turns to Nat (Kellee Stewart) and lives with her (in his mom's house) the way he wishes he could live with Linda: kissing, cuddling, cutesy nicknaming. Ashley tells Nat early in the relationship that he will always love Linda, and he continually wrestles with loving the woman he can have while also hoping his ex will someday love him again. This complexity is portrayed uniquely in Hunter Gatherer: We see the awfulness of Ashley ignoring the good woman next to him while choosing to pursue a relationship that no longer exists, but we also see his naiveté and his desire to be sincere.

As Royo put it in our phone conversation, "Ashley loves to be needed. He had an obsession to connect with someone to validate his own self worth." This relationship dynamic is prominent, and it's certainly alive and well in the black community. Art that's thematically similar to Hunter Gatherer reflects how messy human connection is, and how often we can get it wrong; both Ashley's character and how he affects those around him shows how far we've come from one-dimensional black characters that populated 90s television shows and movies.

Similar to recent TV shows like Atlanta, Hunter Gatherer takes its time to construct an extra layer of reality, pushing you to ask whether or not what you see is what writer/director Joshua Locy intends you to see. When asked about what drew Royo to an independent project that required him to temporarily step away from the massive hit Empire, he explained, "This is something special. I'm connected to it in a certain way... I haven't seen this type of movie in some time." He elaborated on the type of show that gives him a similar feeling, mentioning FX's aforementioned critical darling: "Atlanta one of my favorite shows. They don't try to glorify anything. It is what it is, I love the way they portray the world—poor people trying to get it together."

This elusive, impossible-to-describe feeling that connected Royo to both Hunter Gatherer and Atlanta might be what's garnered the film acclaim, which filmmaker Joshua Locy credits to the team around him for "creating an environment where this movie mattered." Locy went on to identify another attribute that makes movies great: the ability to catch an audience off guard with the element of surprise. "Movies that contain possibility... when there's a cut, if anything is possible when the camera comes back on, that, to me, means something. When I'm engaged in a movie is when each cut is full of potential."

Filmed in Los Angeles, Hunter Gatherer uses great editing, memorable cinematography, and surrealistic elements to keep the surprises coming. Part of what Locy said is striking—specifically, the idea of "containing possibility" within the context of a black movie, and how that speaks to the ways that in-depth portrayals of black communities are getting through to those who are creating and producing stories. Films like Hunter Gatherer and Moonlight are part of a larger trend to provide depth to people who haven't been afforded that courtesy lately, and Royo himself spoke to what's caused these stories to be so well received: "When bullshit oversaturates, real artists and real art emerges."

Follow Carl Brooks Jr. on Twitter.

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