Conspiracy theorists say the darndest things.

Like that a motion asking the government to study an approach to quell systematic racism will bring about Sharia law.

Over the years we have heard that Sharia law is imminent in Western countries for many, many reasons. The most recent is focused upon motion M-103 brought forward by Liberal MP Iqra Khalid entitled Systemic racism and religious discrimination. The motion will be voted on in parliament on February 16.

This motion terrifies some people.

The theories, as they often do, prey on the immense fear many have of creeping Sharia—religious laws derived from Islamic faith. The thought process' imply, either implicitly or explicitly, that it will create a Sharia inspired blasphemy law and the beginnings of a Sharia complacent Canada.

The most popular of the theories was put forward by Leslie Stoffel, a journalist writing for conspiracy theorist Pamela Geller, who published an article titled "Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, Smears all Canadians with Islamophobia Lie to Create a Sharia State."

The article is full of confused ramblings and unfounded claims. But poor writing and bad ideas won't stop people from reading anymore and the article was shared thousands of times and the underlying ideas spread like wildfire across the Facebook accounts of the family members you avoid.

"The Prime Minister of Canada will be holding a vote on February 16, 2017, Motion M103, that if passed, will enact Islamic Blasphemy Laws in Canada creating a defacto Sharia compliant [sic] state on the Northern border of the United States," reads the article.

A screenshot from the article on the Pamela Geller website.

Others, like the Daily Caller, say "the motion demands that Islamophobia be treated as a crime without even bothering to define the offense." Which is a completely false and purposely misleading reading of the motion. The Rebel Media—Canada's reigning dog-whistle champions—got in on the fun as well, starting a petition against the motion and publishing two videos, both rife with fear-mongering, on how it will quell freedom of speech and mentions Sharia several times.

"Your constitutional right to free speech is at risk and Canadian law is about to become Sharia compliant," says one of Rebel activists in the video attached to the petition.

The list goes on and on. So, what does this terrifying, terrifying motion that people have spent so many words on actually say?

In reality, the motion (which you can read in full here), asks for the government to recognize the "need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear,"and "condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination." Those two points are merely symbolic grandstanding, the real meat of the bill is the third point.

Here it asks the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to conduct a study into a "whole-of-government approach to approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia" and to "collect data to contextualize hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities."

It seems to be the fact that M-103 was brought forward by a Pakistan-born Muslim MP and name checks Islamophobia several times that set the theorists off because they mention it every third sentence.

The motion was born from a petition, signed by more than 70,000 people, initiated by Samer Majzoub and sponsored by Quebec MP Frank Baylis. The petition asks for the government "call upon the House of Commons to join us in recognizing that extremist individuals do not represent the religion of Islam, and in condemning all forms of Islamophobia."

Furthermore, the majority of the conspiracy theorists don't seem to understand simple things about the Canadian parliamentary system—like the difference between a motion and a bill.

"Their anti-Islamophobia motion (which will, in all likelihood, be voted on during this parliamentary session) resembles a kind of blasphemy law in favour of one preferred religion above all others," reads the Rebel petition. "If this motion passes, Canadians can be persecuted for expressing any criticism of Islam, even when warranted."

This statement is completely wrong and really rather dumb.

Motions are not intended not to change the law. If accepted, and it most likely will be, M-103 can not bring about anything but a study.

As a dear colleague and former political scientist told me, "you would have to be a fucking idiot to think this is the beginning of a blasphemy law."

So, by all means criticize ideas and use your freedom of speech (creeping Sharia isn't coming for it) but, for god's sake, stop being so goddamn stupid.

Lead photo of Iqra Khalid via Facebook

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter

When the Army Corps of Engineers cleared the way for completing the Dakota Access Pipeline on Tuesday, the agency also canceled something the Standing Rock Sioux have been asking for since the project started: a full report on the environmental effects to the tribe's main water source.

The Corps granted the easement on Wednesday to allow Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the pipeline, to build on federal lands at Lake Oahe on the Missouri River — a move the Standing Rock Sioux say could contaminate their main water supply and destroy sacred land. The Corps also canceled an environmental impact statement, which had never been completed for the area.

In abandoning the report and granting the easement, the Army Corps referenced one of Donald Trump's first acts as president: a presidential memorandum, expediting the pipeline. But that may not be good enough to clear the legal hurdles, according to environmental experts who say the agency needs to provide a reason for reversing course on completing the report, which the Army deemed necessary just a few months ago.

Read more on VICE News

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric was often vague but generally focused on a couple issues: a wall that would (theoretically) keep undocumented migrants from crossing the southern border, and the mass deportation of "bad hombres," i.e. immigrants who had committed crimes. But as president, Trump seems to be encouraging deportation on a much broader scale, and immigration authorities look happy to take him up on that.

Immigration attorney Ajay Singh, who works in New York State, has heard stories recently that point to a crackdown on all immigrants. He met with a client last week who said an officer stopped him driving merely to check his identification; that same week, Singh told me, saw immigration agents raid a factory in Monroe, New York, looking for undocumented workers—a tactic authorities haven't used in years.

But Singh wasn't surprised, given the nature of a recent Trump executive order that targets nearly all immigrants for deportation, not just those who have been charged with wrongdoing.

"Working illegally is considered a crime. Crossing the border illegally is a crime. So for Trump to say the priority cases are people with criminal records can be anything," Singh told me. "People are so scared. There are so many consultations I'm having right now because people say, 'What's going to happen?'"

Though the executive order signed on January 25, "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States," emphasizes the supposed danger undocumented immigrants pose to the public, it's written so broadly, many lawyers say, that even "removable aliens" who have done nothing wrong could be deported—even if they are in the country legally.

"Almost everyone is a deportation priority," William Stock, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told me of the guidelines, which are a strict departure from the Obama administration's stated focus on removing criminals, undocumented immigrants in the country less than two years, and individuals caught while crossing the border. Trump's order, by comparison, includes a vast range of categories, allowing immigration officers to pick up anyone.

The categories include any immigrant (documented or not) convicted of, charged of, or thought to have committed a crime— that could include undocumented immigrants who crossed the border illegally (a criminal misdemeanor) and legal permanent residents charged with minor offenses.

"The new enforcement priorities also apply to green-card holders and people here on temporary visas," Cornell University immigration law professor Stephen Yale-Loehr told me. "For example, if I am a green-card holder and am arrested for jumping a turnstile in New York City, I am a priority for deportation, even though it is a minor crime."

Yale-Loehr, who warned that the order would likely "have more impact on our immigration system than the travel ban," said that "because everyone is a priority no one is a priority" to deport. That could also lead to immigration officers conducting workplace raids—such as the recent one in Monroe—and targeting easy-to-seize immigrants, since individuals with serious criminal convictions are harder to apprehend.

"Because of the new executive order, officers can round up basically anyone and therefore increase their [deportation] numbers," Yale-Loehr said.

The guidelines also serve a key use in immigration courts: If an individual falls into a priority category, it can be nearly impossible for an attorney to defend his or her case.

"If someone was not a priority before, we could argue that rather than waste enforcement resources, let's let this case lie," Yale-Loehr said. "But now relatively few people are not covered under the immigration priorities, so it's going to be harder to argue that deportation is not appropriate."

Watch a VICE News Tonight report on asylum seekers being turned away illegally at the US-Mexico border:

Trump's stated priorities also include undocumented laborers who have ever said on government forms they could legally work—such as an Arizona woman ordered deported this week over local protests—people caught driving without a license, and undocumented individuals who have received federal food aid.

But the categories are not exclusive: Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents can add any other individuals to the list of priorities.

"This order gives ICE virtually free rein in terms of whom to target," Avideh Moussavian, a policy attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, told me. She added there had been issues with accountability in ICE for years, allowing for abuses of the agents' power. "There have been issues around ICE being an agency that is unchecked, and there is a concern that this order is decentralizing a lot of the [enforcement] activity."

Trump has also paved the way for more fast-track deportations by drastically expanding the use of expedited removal—a process in which an immigrant can be removed without seeing an immigration judge or attorney. In a border security order issued the same day as his deportation priorities, Trump announced that expedited removal should now be used throughout the country—not only within 100 miles of the border as it is now.

He also ordered ICE to detain all individuals the agency suspected of violating immigration laws, making it even harder for immigrants to access counsel.

"Expedited removal is something a lot of people who work outside of the border are unfamiliar with. It makes people subject to mandatory detention and on a fast track to deportation and severely limits any access to counsel or a judge," Amy Fischer, policy director for the Refugee And Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), told me.

The hasty process can prompt ICE to deport immigrants who deserve to remain in the US. Last year, for example, ICE picked up Central American families in a raid and almost deported them—but lawyers scrambled to their cases, and an immigration judge found they actually qualified for asylum.

Trump's pro-deportation policies will likely tax a system already under strain. The president has ordered the growth of immigrant detention beyond the country's current record 40,000 detainees, but he has not provided for more immigration judges, despite a backlog of more than 500,000 cases. This means apprehended immigrants can expect to spend even more time detained, with some immigrants likely choosing to be quickly returned to their home countries rather than languishing behind bars. And Trump's request to hire 10,000 more ICE officers, Yale-Loehr noted, would require congressional approval and could take up to one and a half years to implement.

As the courts struggle to keep up with Trump's demands, immigration advocates emphasize that the new priorities serve to turn Americans against their foreign-born population.

"The number-one thing deportation priorities say to me is that the goal isn't to designate priorities—it's to push a narrative which is the increasing criminalization of all immigrants," Mary Small, the director of Detention Watch Network, a nonprofit opposing immigrant detention, told me. "Trump is playing a game telling the American people he's just focusing on criminals—but he's changing criminals to include all immigrants."

Follow Meredith Hoffman on Twitter.

From seemingly nowhere in June of 2012, an up-and-coming band from Vancouver called Japandroids dropped Celebration Rock, the summer album to end all summer albums. With its shout-along choruses, fuck-it-all attitude, and unabashed guitar worship, the record was instantly gratifying, and only sounded better as the Saturdays of July and August offered the chances to blast its eight songs out of car windows on sunny drives to the beach.

The album brought the Canadian duo a flood of new fans, the band became the stuff of rock writer wet dreams, and their meteoric success proved that there was still some bite left in indie rock after an abysmal few years of Garden State soundtrack variety mush rock. Celebration Rock came to define the band's sound, and its title became the perfect descriptor of its creators' ethos. And although Japandroids had only one other album under their belt, 2009's Post-Nothing, the consensus among their fans was that Celebration Rock might just forever be their unmatchable crowning achievement.

Read more on Noisey

A ruling Thursday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a judge's temporary restraining order (TRO) that blocked the "travel ban" executive order from President Donald Trump that halted refugee admissions and entry to the US by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries.

The initial ruling on February 3 from federal circuit court Judge James Robart, a George W. Bush appointee, temporarily suspended the sweeping executive order that caused chaos and protests at the nation's airports after citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen were detained abruptly.

The Ninth Circuit—notorious for being one of the most liberal in the US—was not ruling on whether the executive order should stand, but whether the TRO should stay in place. On that score, they were unanimous, writing that the government's lawyers had failed to demonstrate that the Trump administration would succeed "on the merits of its appeal." It also noted that the government had not proven that the stay "would cause irreparable injury."

Trump, whose public criticism of Robart earned him criticism from his Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, responded to the ruling immediately and in all caps:

It's not clear whether the Trump administration will appeal to the Supreme Court, which only has eight justices at the moment with Gorsuch unconfirmed.

There's perhaps nothing more viscerally infuriating than being ghosted on—by a free meal. But that's exactly what happened to countless Torontonians (read: a bunch of people on Twitter) Thursday night, who were told they would be delivered free Delissio pizza via UberEats in honour of National Pizza Day.

I will preface this by saying I have no idea what National Pizza Day actually is, but I was hungover today and wanted pizza nonetheless. Lo and behold, like a literal walk-on-water miracle, when I logged onto UberEats, there was a deal for #PizzaNight by Delissio. It sounded too good to be true: one margherita pizza, a tub of Haagen Dazs salted caramel gelato, and two cans of Perrier for free. There was even a promo code to remove the delivery free. TBH just writing these words is making my mouth salivate and my heart ache.

I tried ordering the meal, along with a couple of my friends. We waited for a while, but the orders wouldn't confirm. I cancelled and tried again twice. The third time I tried, I got a message that said, the deal was "temporarily unavailable," which has since graduated to "sold out."

Naturally, I went on Twitter to see what others were saying. Was there hope that I would have free pizza in my tummy tonight? As is often the case, I saw more bad than good.

"What gives @UberEATS .. is this a pizza lottery?? Currently sitting at 0/7 for order attempts", tweeted Corey Brendan, who later complained that in addition to being bailed on, he was charged $1 for cancellation.

A man named Marc Cormier has been steadily tweeting shade at Uber for over an hour, exhibiting the kind of bitterness normally reserved for divorce proceedings.

Marc, it seems, had his pizza cancelled on him six times, despite placing the order the minute the promotion started at 6 PM.

"And it's time to #delete @UberEATS," he wrote, screenshotting himself doing just that and noting that someone on Uber's marketing team "better polish his resume." Echoing his sentiments, a dude called David told Uber: "you can't be trusted."

Heartbreakingly, one woman said her order was cancelled a minute before it was set to arrive.

Some people, like Eric Bye, threatened to turn to Foodora for future take-out.

"@UberEATS just bombing while the city starves," he said.

Personally, my feelings aligned the most with someone called Ev who described this screwup as the #Trumpofpizza.

Who knows if we'll ever know what really happened on #PizzaNight. But one thing is clear, instead of the delicious combination of cherry tomatoes and cheese, I am sitting here with nothing but a sour taste in my mouth.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

This story was published in collaboration with the Marshall Project.

The first and only wedding I ever attended was in prison, when an inmate I knew only in passing invited me to serve as his best man.

Why would this virtual stranger invite me into one of the most personal moments of his life? Instinctively, I knew that his asking me suggested more about the walls inmates set up around our private lives than it did about any personal relationship I had with him. The truth is, Dee (at the time I only knew his nickname), was looking for someone who wouldn't embarrass him in front of his family. Someone who wouldn't talk about prison stuff all day—like who is snitching, or who owes who, or how corrupt the system is.

In fact, here in prison, family is off-limits. Many incarcerated men, when they receive mail, immediately rip off the return address and flush it down the toilet. If you see someone on the phone, the unspoken rule is that you never approach them for any reason. If you see someone you know in the visiting room, you should wait for them to make eye contact with you to see if it's acceptable for you to approach, because they are in the presence of their family. It doesn't matter if this is a prisoner you've known for 20 years. Family is off-limits.

So prison becomes a strange blend of intimacy and emotional distance. When you share a four-by-eight cell with a person, you get to know him pretty well, but only in certain ways. My cellie likes to get up about 4:30 AM to read while the building is still quiet; he's passionate about politics—our most heated argument came when I made a dismissive remark about Bernie Sanders. He loves grilled-cheese sandwiches with ice-cold milk.

What I can't tell you is if he has kids. Or if his parents are still alive.

When I arrived at Dee's wedding, I was immediately overwhelmed—the smell of cologne in the visiting room was overpowering. The hundreds of incarcerated men in the small space had clearly attempted to drown out the stale prison odor.

The visiting room itself was bracingly loud with the squeal of children, and the joyful, foreign sound of women's laughter.

I carefully stepped to where Dee and his family were seated.

I'd seen Dee plenty of times in the yard, but we ran in different circles and had never really conversed. He was in his mid-20s but didn't carry himself like a lot of the other youngsters. Perhaps it was his slender build, or his state-issued glasses with the black plastic frames, or the way he always seemed to be headed somewhere.

Most state employees, or free people who come into prison, can't see past our state-issued uniforms

But at the wedding, within minutes, I was learning that Dee is actually Daniel. He has a little sister who will begin her first semester of college very soon. She's interested in social activism. Her love for her brother was clearly capable of trumping her fear of being in a prison for the first time. She adoringly caressed his hair.

And Daniel: gone was the weary, wary look and the body language that is universal to the incarcerated male. In its place was an attentive, respectful demeanor that left no doubt his mom ran a tight ship. He was polite and humble, and in his eyes shone a light that you never really see in prison.

Suddenly, I realized that around the visiting room, that same, rare light was everywhere: genuine smiles, open expressions, intimacy.

The wedding itself was brief. I expected a state bureaucrat with a certain grudging efficiency, the type who is impatient with anyone who doesn't already know the routine, to lead the ceremony with one eye on the clock. Instead, a retired military chaplain came in and within moments said something that blew me away.

"I can tell that you two really love each other," he said, with a kind smile.

Most state employees, or free people who come into prison, can't see past our state-issued uniforms. They rarely look us in the eye, and usually don't say anything to us at all.

But this chaplain hung out with us as we took pictures, ate microwaved buffalo wings from the vending machine, and laughed and joked as we did. And not once was there a disapproving glance at the bride-to-be for marrying an incarcerated man.

Check out Broadly's short doc on the history of birth control.

Occasionally, as the couple said their vows, one of the incarcerated men in the room would see me gazing his way, and immediately his walls would snap back into place.

What exactly are we so on guard against, I thought? Was it that soon enough someone would be sympathizing with you, and then demanding that you help them out with a few things, like commissary? By now, didn't we know that each of us was basically alike, a person just trying to get through the day so that one day we can get home to our family?

But that final level of trust eludes us.

As Daniel and I re-entered the yard after his marriage, he lightly touched my arm to get my attention, then looked me straight in the eyes. "Thank you," he said.

I wanted to tell him that he had given me a far greater gift than I had given him. But as I searched for the words, I felt the prison environment washing back over me.

"It was nothing," I replied.

James King, 47, is incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, California, where he is serving 30 years to life for second-degree robbery. (He received the life sentence because the crime was his "third strike" under California law.)

Raf Simons is arguably the most influential menswear designer in the world and it has been like that way for quite sometime. Back in 2004, New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn said that it was Simons who had made Hedi Slimane, former creative director of Dior Homme and Yves Saint Laurent, "possible." Even Kanye West humbled his fashion ego for Simons, hailing the designer as his "idol" in 2008. In 2012, Vogue's Anna Wintour called him a "rock star in his own right." And just last month, style icon A$AP Rocky tweeted that the Belgian designer is "our fashion god," going on to claim that everyone "bites" his ideas.

Simons acknowledged the long shadow he casts on menswear in a interview he did with GQ Style last month, where he placed himself alongside Miuccia Prada, Marc Jacobs, and Phoebe Philo, calling this elite group of designers "the activators" and musing that "fashion doesn't exist if we don't exist." Simons even went on to throw what some took as shade shade at Virgil Abloh of Off-White for not creating more original designs. Abloh is a talented young designer who might take the reins at Givenchy. He's also so obsessed with Simons's work, he once did an entire interview with Vogue on the topic of his vintage Raf Simons collection. And of course, there have been times when Abloh's designs have looked like carbon copies of Simons's.

The reverence shown by people like Abloh, West, and Wintour for Simons isn't that surprising. Simons has spent more than 22 years pioneering new trends and serving up boundary-pushing ideas with his eponymous label, as well as his high-profile work for Dior and Jil Sander, and his collaborations with accessible brands like adidas and Fred Perry. These days, it's almost impossible not to find traces of Simons's DNA in most modern menswear collections.

During the most recent New York Fashion Week: Men's, Raf Simons's spirit seemed to be especially ever-present. That's partially because, thanks to his recent appointment as the Chief Creative Officer of Calvin Klein, he moved the operations of his namesake label to New York for a much-discussed NYFW: Men's debut. It's also probably because, simply put, he's Raf.

Later today, Simons will debuting his first collection for Calvin Klein during New York Fashion Week. In honor of this momentous event, we decided to trace his massive influence throughout the shows and presentations we saw at last week's New York Fashion Week: Men's. Considering he's a fashion "God," it wasn't that hard at all.

Keeping It About the Music

Photo via Grailed.com

Music has always been an important component of Simons's designs, and it makes sense given his childhood. Having grown up in the small village of Neerpelt, Belgium to working class parents, the designer didn't have the opportunity to visit museums or get much exposure to the arts. Music was his only connection to culture from the outside world.

"In school, creating was kept away from young people," Simons told Kanye West in a Q&A for Interview magazine from 2008, after he had taken the reins at the minimalist Jil Sander label. "The village was so small there was no outlet except for one little record store. I think that is where it started for me—just picking up records." His first LP? Bob Marley. Later though, he got into experimental electronic music and post-punk, and these countercultural sensibilities are still with him today.

For "Radioactivity," his fall/winter 1998 collection, the designer went beyond just finding inspiration in music. He directly referenced Kraftwerk's Man Machine album cover, dressing his models in their iconic red-shirt and black-tie ensembles and he played their music during the show at the Moulin Rouge. But that was just the beginning of his explicit nods to music.

In Simons's "Closer" collection for fall/winter 2003, he presented fishtail parkas with the iconic album artwork for New Order's Power, Corruption and Lies and Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures on the back. This artwork was originally created by Peter Saville, a graphic designer known for his work with Factory Records, who gave Simons complete access to his archive. That collaborative relationship has been incredibly fruitful for Simons, considering Saville—who also happens to be a mentor to Virgil Abloh—recently helped Simons revamp Calvin Klein's logo.

Photo via Rochambeau

Simons's embrace of music and the culture around it set a precedent in menswear that's influenced countless young designers. During the recent NYFW: Men's shows, this was best reflected by Rochambeau. Co-founded by Laurence Chandler and Josh Cooper, Rochambeau got its start almost a decade ago as a small street-inspired luxury brand. But it has grown season after season, becoming finalists for the prestigious CFDA / Vogue Fashion Fund and winning the US regional Woolmark Prize, both in 2016. This season, the brand built their collection around a punk rock theme. Naturally, they tapped legendary Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh, who's been focusing on his visual art in recent years, to give them some of his rebellious spirit. Mothersbaugh was credited with contributing the dripping-paint graphics that the designers used on several pieces and curating the music for the show. The standout pieces were the chunky corduroy top coats and pin-stripe, high-waisted pants.

Bringing Streetwear into High Fashion

While streetwear was historically looked down upon by the high-end fashion industry, there was a shift in the early aughts. That change came, in large part, from Simons's embrace. "He changed the perception of things by putting streetwear on the high fashion runway," David Casavant, the owner of one of the world's largest private collection of Raf Simons archival pieces, told me over the phone. "Raf did a lot of appropriating when he started. In my archives, the bombers that are the most iconic and the most expensive are ironically just bought from a military surplus and he sewed graphics on them." But as time passed, that approach became more refined.

By the time Simons designed his fall 2014 collection, he completely immersed his work in graphics and art with a graffiti spirit. Sterling Ruby, an artist who favors spray paint on canvas, collaborated with him on the collection. The two turned out a range with paint and bleach-splashed prints formed into boxy, oversized jackets and dress shirts. Elsewhere, striking graphic images of sharks and feminine hands along with words like "Father" and "Abus Lang" were printed onto pieces like camel trench coats and sweatshirts. This idea of plastering images onto pieces is an on-going theme for the designer, turning up again in his spring 2015 collection, where he put his own personal photos of his parents on garments and his spring 2017 collection where he covered his garments in portraits by famed-photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

Simons's willingness to bridge high and low and mix graphics and street-inspired art with fashion has been taken on by most of the exciting menswear brands today. Steve Aoki followed in this tradition, putting two half-pipe skate ramps in Skylight Clarkson for the NYFW: Men's debut of his Dim Mak fashion line, which he has been developing in Japan for four seasons. With a cast of 20 skateboarders as models, the DJ-turned-designer used the graphics of controversial graffiti artist David Choe on the backs of trench coats and sweatshirts.

Photo via Stampd

The LA-based Stampd also elevated traditional streetwear to high fashion. "Stay in your lane," was written across the back of one shirt. The former Fashion Fund nominee and Puma collaborator is known for its smart approach to sportswear. Titled "Asphalt Wave," the brand's latest collection, highlighted their usage of color (yellow, orange, and dark green), and showcased everything from graffitied sweatpants to shearling coats and plaid shirts.

At Represent's NYFW: Men's runway debut at Cadillac House, the brand presented hoodies that said "If you're going through hell, keep going." Titled "The New Breed," the British grunge themed show encompassed everything from ripped denim and combat boots to a velour suit and some standout tartan outerwear.

Clothes Fit for a Rebellion

One of Simons's most referenced collections is the one from spring 2002 titled "Woe Unto Those Who Spit on the Fear Generation… The Wind Will Blow It Back." In that collection, along with the "Riot, Riot, Riot" collection that preceded it, Simons plunged into a militant, rebellious spirit of youth. In "Riot," he showed camouflage bombers patched with printed newspaper quiltings. In "Fear Generation," he wrapped models in balaclavas and hoodies. The color palette was mostly red, white, and black, but the vibe was punctuated with some models holding flares, and appearing barefoot on the runway. In case those messages weren't enough, a hand grenade was used as a motif in some of the designs. The guerrilla warfare, insurgent aesthetic was personified with the phrase "we will not be ignored" printed on a sweatshirt in French. Conceived before the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent War on Terror, and pre-dating the murder of Carlo Giuliani at the G8 Summit, the collection was apt for a time of international unrest and angst.

Photo via By Robert James

It seems appropriate that designers would mine this approach today, considering a former reality TV star who grabs women "by the pussy" is the leader of the free world and we're in the midst of the gravest global refugee crisis since World War II. At By Robert James, models held signs that said things like "#resist," which was an obvious shot directed at President Donald Trump. Another sign read "#refugeeswelcome, likely in opposition to Trump's travel ban. Although the spirit of this show aligned with Simons's "Fear Generation," the Ohio-born, Fashion Institute of Technology-trained designer's collection featured sharper silhouettes with business-like attire like tailored blazers in camo, styled with black hoodies and fingerless gloves.

This political spirit wasn't just isolated to By Robert James. In fact, it ran through several shows at NYFW: Men's. Willy Chavarria, a queer Latino who used to design for Ralph Lauren, cast a diverse line-up of models and dressed them in pieces featuring statements "hate is fed" and "it is a luxury." The brand Private Policy also wrote messages—but not on it's clothing, on the faces of their models with words like "refugee," "drug dealer," and "terrorist" in references to some of Trump's most inflammatory statements. Though the aesthetic of the collection included slick, luxury takes on military staples like the A-1 Bomber, it bore Simons's spirit of capturing the political climate through fashion.

Photo via Raf Simons

But this season, for his own collection, Simons didn't seem militant at all. As a somewhat oblique address of the political situation, at his Gagosian Gallery-hosted runway show, the designer sent out models wearing garments bearing the phrase "I [heart] New York" standing in contrast to the hate that had been propagated by the current president. He also cinched overcoats with duct tape bearing phrases like "walk with me" and "youth project." While that styling trick felt fresh, it didn't distract from the most covetable looks: satin overcoats paired with luxurious oversized trousers.

With Raf Simons's typical team-minded mentality, the designer collaborated with the Woolmark Company on the sweaters of the collection, which came cropped and slung over long graphic tees, and the striped arm bands that were styled on top of boxy overcoats. While the sweaters are already primed to be some of the most coveted items from the collection, on further inspection, they appear to be a clear continuation of the boxy knits he's been doing in recent years, most spectacularly in his previous fall 2016 collection. I guess sometimes even Raf has to reference Raf.

Photo via Raf Simons

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(Photo: DEA, via)

The Netherlands is the world's capital for ecstasy production. Not much of a surprise, then, that police there have announced they've seized a haul of raw material that would have been enough to make a billion ecstasy pills.

The materials found included 100,000 bottles of hydrogen gas, 15,000kg of caustic soda and 3,000 litres of other chemicals, and were stored inside a truck trailer parked near Rilland, a village close to the Belgian border.

In recent years, the Netherlands has had the highest rates of MDMA in their ecstasy pills, more potent than any others found across the globe. "Super pills" are also making their way throughout Europe, with some containing a ridiculous 270-340 mg of MDMA, up considerably from the average of 50-80 mg in pressed pills in the 1990s and 2000s.

Police haven't given many details – an estimate for the obviously ridiculous street value of a billion pills, for example, or if anyone has been arrested, or how this will affect the supply of ecstasy in the coming months. They have, however, said they are investigating who was behind the drugs haul.

More on ecstasy:

WATCH: High Society – Ecstasy

How Your Menstrual Cycle Can Affect Your Reaction to MDMA

What a Legal Drugs Market In the UK Would Look Like

(Photos: Chris Bethell)

It's a strange place, London: a city that doesn't really seem to function for the majority of people who live there. Stroll past the barren luxury flats, artisanal kitchenware studios and appointment-only candle shops, and you'll see it's certainly not for you. Watch as rents rise faster than house prices and the idea of "home ownership" becomes a funny little thing people reminisce and laugh about, like shag bands or how we used to put asbestos in walls, and realise you do not belong.

But if there's one clear-cut reminder that London is not for you, it's the density of private members' clubs in this city. Those tastefully-lit, expensively-furnished places of refuge for the world's elite. Somewhere you can sip a negroni in peace, without the risk of encountering some satellite town pleb asking to pinch a filter.

The thing is, of course, that I very much am that satellite town pleb, and so have always wondered about what luxury lies behind the doors of these places. Problem is, there are certain barriers to me ever finding out: my Midlands accent, my muddy Converse, my lack of an actual membership to even one private members' club. But you know what? I'm not going to let any of that stop me. Instead, by hook or by crook, I'll finally find a way in.

Starting with:

FLOWER POWER

Okay, so getting into a private members' club is basically just finding a way to get past the doormen, right? Which really can't be that hard. I've seen Daniel Craig pout his way into enough places in the last few Bond films to know that. So my first ruse is a simple one: pretend to be a flower deliveryman.

One backwards cap, a bouquet and a pair of denim shorts later, and I've got a one-way ticket into Shoreditch House, a private members' club in east London aimed so directly at media types that there's a no-tie rule, because exactly nobody who works media wears a tie.

I strut through the lobby, whistling absentmindedly and looking down at my clipboard.

An "Excuse me?" rings out, hitting me like cold water down my collar. "Can I help you?"

"Sure, I've got some flowers here to deliver to the upstairs bar for a… Simon?" The lobby guy's face folds in on itself.

"We've got hundreds of Simons. Do you not have any more information?" I shake my head. "What company are you from?" I feel my temples tighten.

"'That's Flowers.'"

"'That's Flowers?' Okay cool. Let me google them." Fuck. "Nothing – that's weird. Can I have a word with your boss on the phone?"

"Sure, let me just grab my phone out of the car."

Within seconds I'm barreling down Brick Lane. No matter – let's bin that one. Next up:

IF YOU CAN'T BEAT THEM, JOIN THEM

Who do members' clubs have in mind when they're deciding which cut of tuna to include on their sashimi platter? You know the types: the guy who plays squash before work; the woman who takes clients for three-hour afternoon tea sessions at Claridges; the trust fund kid who's developed a cocaine habit in lieu of a personality. And the reason clubs roll out the red carpet for them is simple: they smell the hot wad of Queen Elizabeth's face in their pockets. What I'm saying is: this isn't a matter of tiptoeing through the back door. This is a case of putting on my best suit, stealing some hair gel, filling my wallet and blowing the bloody doors down.

So I look one million bucks. But I don't have one million bucks – I have £20. And how am I going to tip the doorman, the manager and the concierge with that? I need to somehow turn that amount into more. But how?

Yowza! Read it and weep: 7,200 Hungarian forint. Now it's time for me to make my name known at one of London's finest business-oriented private members' clubs, The Devonshire Club.

Swaggering up to the door, I wink at every businessman I see to get me in the mood.

"Good evening, sir!"

I offer my hand and slip the doorman a 500 ft note. We maintain eye contact, shaking hands, and he takes my umbrella from me. This is going to be easy. I'm led down a lowly-lit hallway, through to a lobby where a man offers me a warm towel. A woman calls me over.

"It's fantastic to have you this evening. May we take your jacket?"

"Quite a chill on out there, isn't there?" I'm rounding my vowels like John Cleese.

"Absolutely! And what is your name?"

"It's Richard."

"Your second name? Just so we can check against our membership lists."

"You see" – I lean over the counter – "I didn't think that would be necessary." The woman's eyes shift from side-to-side, and I continue. "I'm not a member, but seeing as I just want a quick sip of something before I head to a gala dinner nearby, how does 500 sound?"

She looks at the note, then up at me, and then back at the note. I raise my eyebrows.

She doesn't accept the note. I say I'll "sort it out", and then pretend to speak on the phone for at least ten minutes. Sweating and running out of ideas, I give up and make my escape.

Next, my final ruse – and the one that has to come off:

GRANT + ME = THE PLEASURE

Bounding through central London, stinging from the cold slap of failure, I'm pulling my hair out. What do members' clubs actually look for? Who can they simply not refuse? Eureka: celebrities! Of course! Finding an A-lister to roll up with is all that's standing between me and sweet success. And within 45 minutes, I've got my man. My key to the city of London. A priceless asset, for the cost of £300. Meet:

HUGH GRANT! Or Simon. Simon is a Hugh Grant impersonator, who, like Hugh, was prolific in the 90s, but has been a little quieter since. Until tonight.

The plan is simple: we're going to trick Soho's finest members' club, The Groucho, into thinking Hugh Grant (Simon) and his PR (me) have shown up for a quick drink. Trouble is, Simon has a thick Essex accent, so he needs to let me do the talking. And for added effect, photographer Chris is going to pretend to be a pap, desperate for a picture of the Love Actually star.

Sunglasses on and with Chris waiting around the corner, it's show time. We spin onto Dean Street and the flashes begin. Chris lunges out abrasively. I shield and protect my client.

The door lady lunges into action, swinging the portal open, ushering us in.

"Can we help you?" the receptionist asks.

"Yes," I reply. "We'd like a table."

"Okay, do you have a membership name?" I feign shock.

"I'm with Hugh." I look over my shoulder, back to Simon, who is staring into a roaring fire. "Hugh Grant."

The receptionist's jaw drops. Soon, we're being led through into the lounge. I order a beer for me and a gin and tonic for Hugh. They take my card and hand over some pretzels. This is good. This is a win. But I want to see how far I can push it. I tell Simon to look pissed off.

"Hugh is a little bit uncomfortable down here. Do you have anywhere quieter?" I ask the barman.

"Of course, sir."

Up the stairs we go, until the man opens a concealed door and smiles.

Simon and I dance and clink glasses in our very own private room. For a bit. And then we get bored. Private members' clubs aren't really that great, are they? As far as I can see, they're just well-decorated pubs that you have to pay hundreds of pounds a year to get into. Enough of this – time to get out of here. I ask for the cheque.

"Oh, you're going?" asks the man. "Is it something we've done? Because we can make this right if it is?"

"Well," I feel a lightning bolt go through my body. "Perhaps two glasses of champagne would do it?"

"Of course!" He stops. "But can I come deliver them myself?" I feel a rock in my throat.

Turning back up the stairs, I wonder if I've gone too far.

Yep, I have. I definitely have. I explain this to Simon, who immediately panics. We switch seats so his back is to the door, and cross our fingers. In the guy comes. We fall silent. Placing the glasses down, he turns to Simon. "Hugh," he smiles. "I hope you've had a good evening."

Feeling very bad about what I've just done, I feel it's time to go. We drink up and I text Chris so he's poised and ready to pap.

Coming out the door, the flashes are mightier than ever. I almost yell at Chris, telling him to stop, but this is not Chris. This is not Chris at all. This is a man clutching a camera the size of a mortar, rapidly firing flashes as bright as the sun into our eyeballs.

"Had a fun game of tennis this morning, didn't you, Hugh?" he cackles. Initially stunned, we start pacing down the street. "Hey Hugh!" the gentleman prods. "Had a few drinks tonight, have you, Hugh?"

Ducking into a bar and taking a seat, I try to make sense of what's just happened. Is this the price you have to pay for being the kind of man who storms into private members' clubs and demands champagne? Is this treatment why Hugh Grant always looks miserable? Simon and I look at each other, wide-eyed, and start laughing. I slap his shoulder and he smiles back, looking at me warmly and saying:

"Can I go home now?"

I hand him his money and he leaves.

Today has cost me £361, £11 more than an annual under-30s membership to the Groucho Club.

Fuck you, Simon, and fuck you, London.

@Oobahs / @CBethell_photo

More on VICE:

I Pushed 'All You Can Eat' Restaurants to Their Absolute Limits

We Went On a Tour of London's Worst-Rated Nightclubs

I Hacked the British Public Transport System

(All photos by the author)

Remember shag bands? Those thin pipes of coloured rubber you wore around your wrist. They looked cheap, they didn't match what you were wearing and there was nothing cool about them whatsoever. But they did have a non-aesthetic purpose: if someone snapped one off your wrist, it meant you had to shag them. Except you were probably 12, so no one was actually getting shagged.

But where did they come from? Although they'd been around since Madonna wore them in the 80s – a time when wearing a ton of bracelets on one wrist was the height of rebellion – they didn't mean much to anyone until the 2000s. So who injected all the meaning into these inert bits of plastic?

It was the year 2004. Life was about Runescape, Anglo Bubbly, Limewire, scented gel pens, maintaining your Myspace top eight alongside your side-gig trying to breed alien babies. People started wearing those Livestrong wristbands and all the charity spin-offs. They also began to wear shag bands bought from newsagents and Claire's Accessories. Except they weren't called shag bands at this point, but "gel bracelets".

The year before, mostly unbeknownst to young Brits, these gel bands had become "sex bracelets" in America. In October of 2003, a school in Gainesville, Florida banned them, with the principle telling parents in a newsletter that some students had been making inappropriate sexual references about the bracelets. Third, fourth and fifth-graders of Alachua Elementary were no longer allowed to wear them to school. "It's better to eliminate the problem before it gets going," said Principal Brandenburg at the time.

It took slightly longer for these connotations to reach the UK, but when it did, everyone was ready. And we had the word shag.

The meaning of shag band, according to Urban Dictionary

Word got around that each band's colour represented a different sex act, from the PG (yellow for hugs and light pink for love bites) to the more X-rated (brown for anal sex, black for full sex and the illustrious gold for full sex plus everything else). Pinks, reds, whites and blacks were a favourite among punks and grungers graduating to Myspace, and became a classic emo accessory.

In a 2005 study, nearly two-thirds (60 percent) of 15 to 19-year-olds said the wristbands signalled their owners' sexual preference and availability. At the time, people would rampage around the playground snapping wristbands or cutting them as a joke. Questions were raised: if you broke your own wristband, did that mean you had to have sex with yourself? What if you didn't have sex with the person – what punishment would you receive?

Entrepreneurs began to sell them in playgrounds, picking up a fine profit on rare colours and glittery numbers – the ones that were generally more difficult to acquire at your local newsagent.

The question of the day on 'The Wright Stuff' (Screen shot: YouTube)

Eventually, in September of 2009, years after the whole shag band thing had started, newspapers caught on. According to The Sun, this was part of a "terrifying wave of promiscuous behaviour". A 12-year-old girl told the paper: "A gold band is the most important and means you have to do all of the above. They are pretty rare, so if you find a gold band in a shop, you have to get your mum to buy it."

The Daily Mail went full Daily Mail, writing: "It is their name that causes alarm bells to ring: Shag-bands. Each colour denotes a physical act, from a hug or a kiss to showing body parts, to other acts that would make many adults blush." Oral sex and sex, then. Case study parents told in horrified tones how they found out what the bands really meant from the children themselves, while some guy called Richie who owned a corner shop in Croydon sat on the other side of the fence, saying children don't much buy into the sexual side – that they're more a fashion trend, with parents having more to worry about than bracelets.

By the end of that month, outrage had peaked. Schools were banning students from wearing them and Wakefield MP Mary Creagh called for under-16s to be stopped from buying them. Regurgitating the semi-myth, she claimed each colour represented an intimate sexual act. The issue apparently came to her attention after hearing from her local newspaper about parents who had bought the jelly bands to put in children's party bags, but were "absolutely horrified" when they read details on the packaging. It's very unlikely that any packaging ever detailed the sexual acts, of course, but that's by the by.

This week I went to Claire's – the best place to get shag bands during the glory days – to see if they were still being sold there, but I couldn't find even one. There were none at Poundland either. I managed to find some on Amazon, but considering you can get literally anything on there I'm not sure that represents any kind of continued popularity.

I wondered, then, if anyone remembered what they were. And there was only one place to find out: Camden, spiritual home of the shag band.

Jerod and Caitlyn

According to Jerod and Caitlyn, both 18, they were called "snap bands". "It was the black one that was really taboo," said Jerod. "It'd be, 'Oh, look out, she's got the black one – she's a nutter!'"

"I just remember they were a thing and had something to do with sex levels, and whoever had the most up their arm was the coolest," offered Caitlyn.

Both agreed that the craze ended with their generation, and that their younger friends would have no idea what they were.

Sarah and Taityana

Sarah and Taityana, also both 18, disagreed on the meaning of the bands, but both wore and loved them. Sarah thought they were "just called bracelets", while Taityana knew them as "sex bands" and thought they were worn as an indicator of how far you'd gone with someone.

Boombastic Nathan and Khari

Twenty-four-year-old Khari knew exactly what they were straight away.

"I was wearing them from around year four or year five, so I must've been about 8 or 9," he said. The guy working with him, who went by the name "Boombastic Nathan", couldn't remember them at all. Their conversation went like this:

Boombastic Nathan: How did you know about shag bands when you were that young?

Khari: Because people had older brothers and sisters and they gave them to them and they brought them to primary school.

Boombastic Nathan: ...Is the black one sex?

Khari: Yes.

Boombastic Nathan: Is it a game?

Khari: No... I just had them on my wrist for no reason.

Which sort of sums it all up, really.

Today, shag bands are nothing more than a Todayskidswillneverknow hashtag and a point in a Buzzfeed listicle. But whether it's rainbow parties or vodka tampons-slash-butt chugging, every generation has a teen-related moral panic they hold dear, and for many, shag bands are just that.

@hannahrosewens

More on urban legends:

High School Urban Sex Legends

I Went In Search of the Brown Noise That Makes You Shit

That 'S' Thing Everyone Drew In School – What Was It?

Chunni Babu lives in the rich Melbourne suburb of Brighton. These days he's a real estate tycoon, but back in the 80s he lived a completely different life. Amidst the tyranny of Zia Ul-Haq's dictatorship, Chunni set up invitation-only swingers parties catering to the upper echelons of Pakistani society. They were a raging success for several years, until the whole thing imploded.

I've known Chunni for a long time but had never heard the full story. So recently I paid him a visit to smoke hookah on his balcony and ask the big questions about how his parties came about, when they met their end, and how he justified swinging under his Muslim faith.

VICE: Hey Chunni, let's start with Pakistan in the late 70s. What was the political mood when you started these parties?
Chunni Babu: It was heavy. The country really derailed under the military dictatorship of Zia Ul-Haq [Pakistan's dictator between 1978­–1988]. Zia Ul-Haq enforced his ideals like a tyrant and reversed all the progressive socialist ideals of the previous government. I worked as a property developer. My family started converting the old traditional markets into modern shopping centres and leasing them out. But, socially, my wife and I spent a lot of time indoors. It was our own remote Pakistan, away from the humdrum outside.

Talk me though how the parties started.
Well, our social circles were quite small. We were always around the same people most weekends, so we got to know each other very well. One night, we had two couples visiting us and they propositioned us. We were all quite high, listening to Rafi's ballads, and we thought why not?

How did one night turn into several?
Well, I put my hand up to host another party because I was somewhat of a virgin to the swinger scene. I was curious but I had trustworthy contacts that would provide musicians and dancers. We began a mailing list and we sent out some beautiful gold-trimmed invitations handwritten by a Peshawari artist who specialised in Arabic calligraphy. The first few were small and just our [friends] but, like everything in Pakistan, word got out, the bureaucracy took over, and upper echelon guests would invite whomever they pleased. My poor guards suffered several beatings from brutes and politicians who couldn't be turned away.

So people just started turning up at your house?
Yes, but I wanted the people I loved to be free, to experience and indulge in the small amount of time we have on this planet. Sexual liberation is an old idea that we've fogged up as we've become more "civilised" whatever that means.

I've heard about practices that occur in secrecy on the fringes and in wealthy parts of the Arab world.
Yes, apparently they called it "the night of Ifada," where the candles would be blown out and fate would allow you to indulge in whatever act happened with those around you.

All images by Ben Thomson

How did you get away with this in the midst of a dictatorship?
The police were paid off, of course. And the dictatorship made it all the more exciting. Everyone wanted a taste of freedom and I am of the opinion that whenever you enforce an ideology that's too hard, the people will rebel—it's just in our nature. So rebelling is what we did, in the crudest way possible.

Crude?
More sexual, more liberated, and eventually more sinister. At first, I assumed it was influences of Western freedom—with hippies constantly visiting northern parts of India and even Afghanistan—but I was wrong. The higher classes, social groups and orders have an almost sacred ritualistic view of sexuality with roots that are entrenched in history and tradition.

How sinister did these parties get?
Our last party had over 50 guests. This was in the mid-80s and I had the house decked out in a Mughal-style theme. It was a warm night but I was feeling frantic, patrolling the house to make sure everything was going well because there were people I didn't really know. They'd arrived with friends from very high places, sons of politicians and rich gangsters connected to mafia syndicates. In Pakistan, these two types of people are sometimes the same.

As I went in to the guest quarters, one of the servants was sweating and panicking, saying he had seen something he shouldn't have. He was scared. My initial reaction was, Okay, he must've seen two men having sex. But I was wrong. Apparently, one of the goons had give two of our dancers heroin, and one of them was convulsing. The culprit had left, shouting at one of the servants to clean up the mess. I sobered up, sharp, like waking into a strange nightmare. I could hear the ghazals being sung downstairs, and an English couple romping in the kitchen area. It was bizarre and frightening.

Was the dancer okay?
I'd rather not talk about it. But I will say nobody at the party even bothered to ask how she was. That was extremely upsetting. It all ended in that bloody mess.

How long had your parties gone for?
We ran them pretty regularly for about five years, usually at my home. When we finished a lot of the guests splintered out and began their own private circles. They began organising secret parties that were strictly not spoken about, just in order to keep the local gangsters and thugs out. These parties trickled down to India, and even back to London as well. Some are still running in private today. Whenever I go to Mumbai, Dubai, or Karachi, I'll receive a phone call from an old acquaintance asking if I want to party like the old days.

It's interesting... You don't think any of this jeopardises your faith as a Muslim?
Maybe it does, but usually the people who will tell you that are so are hung up in their own insecurities. Religion to me is a personal thing, a direct relationship with Allah. I believe in right and wrong. I've never harmed anyone in my life, and I believe if I'm ever judged that the good will outweigh the bad. We had a great time and allowed people to explore their relationships and themselves more then they ever thought possible. It was like a taste of heaven and hell in a world that didn't seem to have a place for us.

Do you find yourself still reminiscing about those days?
All the time. We had so much fun, we were really out there exploring, not like the youth today stuck behind their computer screens. We had big ideas and the courage to pursue them. The further I've moved away from that era and place, I've found myself gravitating toward a suit and tie affair, a very sober conservative lifestyle. But maybe that's the spirit of the times we live in today.

Follow Mahmood on Twitter or Instagram.

Hitting puberty was tough. There was all that acne and awkwardness, not to mention the sex scenes you had to sit through with your parents when they took you to the movies. Of course, sex scenes were fine with your friends, but with your parents those sounds of puffing and panting became unbearable. So unbearable that you probably remember it to this day.

We decided to ask some people at Melbourne film festival Shimmerlands to recall a time they sat through a sex scene with their parents. As you'd imagine we found some stories. Lots of gruelling, terrible stories.

Will, 24

VICE: Hi Will, I'm curious to know, what was the first sex scene you ever watched with your parents?
Will: Oh my god, it was Brokeback Mountain with my Mum in the cinemas. At the time, I was just coming out, but I still hadn't announced it to the world. I was about 14 when it came out and she knew I was gay by then, so she was like "let's go see this together!"

And then the sex scene came on?
It was such an awkward sex scene, even though she was trying to be supportive. It was the scene where Heath and Jake get it on, with Heath fucking penetrating Jake bareback—I mean, let's be real here: they used no lube. It was awkward for me to watch with my mother.

Did she try and give you some kind of sex talk after?
Well, I don't think she really understood the gay sex. She couldn't really give me the sex talk about gay men, I mean, it was like, "what do you do?" I don't think my Mum has ever had anal sex so... yeah. What could you do?

Was Brokeback Mountain the first movie you saw with your mum after you came out?
No way. When I first came out she asked what I wanted to do for my birthday, and I replied, "I want to see Mean Girls." So we watched Mean Girls, and I kinda wish it stayed at that.

Dakota, 21

Hey Dakota, so what was the first sex scene you ever watched with your folks?
The first sex scene I ever watched was when I was 11, where I watched The Notebook with my Mum. We both went into it thinking it was going to be romantic. It was, then there was their first actual sex scene when they were both reunited.

Did you understand what was happening?
I didn't really understand what sex was back then. I think when they were going to—you know, when they're in that big house—I think that was the first time I had seen it. I felt awkward and I thought my Mum would be too, but she just started explaining to me, "they're going to go have sex. They're going to lose their virginity."

Did she explain what virginity and sex was because of The Notebook?
Totally, my Mum was really open to it. She explained what virginity meant and I knew a little what sex already was as a concept. I couldn't imagine it, of course, being that age, I just assumed he was going to place his body on top of her and they were doing sex, whatever that was.

In a way, watching The Notebook became informative?
Yeah, it was. It kind of reaffirmed other ideas I had about sex. I'm a romantic, so watching The Notebook contributed and added to the whole romantic side of me. Throughout my whole life though, my parents always told me true facts. When I asked about sex, they took me to the Melbourne Museum and that's how they explained the human body. From there, things popped up and sex in The Notebook was one of them.

Campbell, 18

Howdy Campbell, what was the first sex scene you remember watching with your parents?
Oh, shit. I mean, that's actually hard to tell. My parents have let me watch random stuff since I was very little, so I've had the cool parents. From memory, my first scene was in Terminator. There's a sex scene between Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor.

What happens in the scene?
Kyle comes back in time to save her from the Terminator and they have sex, leading to them having a kid together, which turns out to be the kid in the next film. I would have watched that sex scene when I was six, so I didn't really understand the full extent of what was going on.

So from there, was sex ever a big deal?
My parents never gave me the sex talk and didn't make a big deal about the scene. I read a lot as a kid and they assumed I would figure it out, which I did. I had science encyclopaedias and I was into anatomy for a while, so those all explained it instead of the movies.

Sandra, 26

Hi Sandra, can you remember the first sex scene you ever watched with your parents?
It was a scene in the movie Black Swan where the main character basically masturbates in the tub. It wasn't too long ago when we watched it, since the film was made about five or six years ago.

It's a pretty dark film, but it's very erotic. How did the scene go down?
It is very erotic and dark. I think masturbation is a pretty normal thing, but it's just really awkward watching something like that when your Mum is super religious. My Mum is catholic, so I was unsure on how she was going to react. Luckily, she was totally chill—it was just very hilarious and weird to be watching it knowing her beliefs.

Was there a way you both relieved the tension?
We were definitely laughing. It was a funny moment between us and when you're watching the film, sometimes you don't know what's happening until halfway through. I'm glad it was Black Swan though—I think it's very poetic and pretty—it's a nice film that just happens to have masturbation.

So would you say it's the perfect film to watch with a religious mum?
Oh yeah, the perfect film.

Raquel, 32

Hello Raquel, can you tell me about the first time you ever watched a sex scene with your parents present?
That's a really good question! It could have been a Filipino movie because I grew up in the Philippines. The closest sex scene, from memory, would have been two people kissing—it's the closest thing to a sex scene by their standards during those times. I don't remember the film, but it was definitely a Filipino flick.

Were your parents very reserved when it came to these scenes or did they speak about sex with you?
No, they just sort of pretended it wasn't happening. I think for them, it was definitely awkward even though I was just a child. It's the only way I can describe.

For them, how did kissing on screen measure up?
I think by Filipino standards—especially in the '90s—two people kissing on screen would be akin to a sex scene in Western movies. If I remember it right, they just stayed silent and they waited for it to finish. They didn't give me a talk on sex from that scene, nut definitely in future there was media that inspired them.

If you sat down with your parents today and a sex scene came on, how would they react?
They live in Australia now so they're used to what Australian and Western movies serve. Back then, if a proper sex scene came on, they'd say "why did you choose this film?" and pretend it didn't happen. I'm grateful the first scene we watched was a Filipino film instead of something more raunchy—if we watched something by today's standards back in those days it would be akin to watching porn.

Zinzi, 21

Hey there Zinzi, what was the first sex scene you watched with your parents?
It wasn't a film, but I remember watching Sex And The City with my Mum. I would have been about 17 and I walked into the living room, deciding to sit next to her. I had no idea what Sex And The City was, but suddenly it cut to an intense sex scene and it was really awkward. I was shocked and tried to play it cool.

What happened when the scene came on?
My Mum laughed and I just kind of sat there. Being 17, I was at that age where I didn't want to be in the same room. It was strange seeing a bunch of white women get it on, but before I left the room I have to admit it was pretty hot—the women in Sex And The City aren't all bad, don't you think? That aside, if a sex scene came on today, it wouldn't be awkward: my Mum and I would just laugh and get over it.

Did watching Sex And the City at that age lead to any kind of sex talk?
No, I've never had the sex talk. I think my Mum just assumed I'd work things out eventually.

So you still don't know how babies are made?
I have no fucking idea. Are there babies in Sex And The City?

Love going to the movies? This article is in partnership with Shimmerlands, where you can experience live music and open-air cinema for the next few weeks at University of Melbourne. Click here for the full program.

Follow Monique on Twitter and Instagram .

Illustration by Ben Ruby

Will Kevin O'Leary be Canada's Donald Trump? There are certainly troubling similarities between the mole-rat resembling O'Leary and the chapped-lip demagogue down south. There are their respective reputations as successful businessmen as well as a trail of lawsuits hinting that that reputation is more a result of bluster and ego than business acumen. There is the unwillingness to play by the traditional rules of decorum and procedures of each of their country's electoral process and how this disregard only bolsters their appeal and claim to being outsiders. A shared belligerence and cruelty all point to O'Leary being the President's Choice knock off of America's TV dinner fascist.

Can he pull it off though? Does he have the madness, the narcissism, and the vindictiveness to rally the resentful masses of Canada behind a cult of his awful personality? To figure it out I decided to do a little research, a dive into O'Leary's cultural output to see if I could figure out if I should be worried about this bird-dicked loser. So I bought myself two bottles of Cabernet Merlot from Kevin O'Leary Fine Wines and settled in for a four episode binge of CBC's hagiography to the wisdom of the investment class, Dragon's Den, to see if I couldn't peer into the appeal/mind of this human embodiment of overpriced douchey leather gloves.

First some tasting notes on O'Leary's wine. The blurb on the back of the bottle states the wine's raison d'etre:

"I love great wine! I hate paying crazy prices for it. That's why I created O'Leary wine. If you like your reds big, bold and brimming with flavour like I do, look no further. If I put my name on it, it's spectacular. That's why they call me Mr. Wonderful - the only Shark you can trust about wine."

Now it is true that the price for the wine was reasonable. I bought two bottles for just under thirty bucks. Also the flavour is big and bold like drinking a cup of melted crayons would be big and bold. You know when you have a massive hangover that causes you to throw up all day, leaving your throat raw and burning, that's what this wine tastes like. The legs on it look like a professional bowler's legs. The mouth feel is the feel of when you accidently drink from a bottle of beer that everyone at the party was using as the ashtray. O'Leary estate wines: the only wine you can get just as fucked up on huffing it as drinking it!

Confession time, Part 1: I really don't know much about wine and I couldn't help but conflate his personality with what I was drinking. Online reviews suggest it is "not bad for a celebrity wine" and "precocious yet petulant!" Also, apparently it's good with "hearty stews or roasted meats from the oven."   

Confession time, Part 2: I meant to drink two bottles of wine of this stuff but I had to tap out after one. Instead of the warm glow that I expect from alcohol it immediately made me feel agitated and nauseous. Drinking this bottle of voodoo economics made me feel like my head was shrinking.

The wine though is a solid pairing for a four episode run of CBC's Dragon's Den, the battery acid merlot complements perfectly scenes of Canadians who have sacrificed everything for a bad business idea having their dreams smashed by the pitilis Dragons. If you're not familiar with the concept of the show, entrepreneurs of all sizes, successes and entertaining ill preparedness present their business ideas to a panel of titans of Canadian business  (like the owner of Boston Pizza, Canada's premier location for parking lot fights) in the hopes that they will invest in them. It's like American Idol meets Thomas Friedman's hairy taint.

To be clear: this show is not great. A shoddy, cheap looking reality show that raises dramatic tension with what seems like a thousand dramatic zoom shots per episode. (If I would have drank every time the camera zoomed there is a 100 percent chance I would have died choking on sleep vomit.) And despite the zooms, the show is boring. So boring. Like I thought this was going to be fun to write, drink some wine, watch some TV, but halfway through the second episode all I could think was: Holy shit another invention. There's five an episode why does it feel like 40? How many entrepreneurs are there in this stupid country? Goddamnit I hate your ingenuity, I hate your pluckiness and I hate people your dreams. Why can't you all be jaded service industry workers like the rest of us?

As a seething socialist, it was impossible to ignore the stench of propaganda coming out of "the Den." The show, so badly, wants you to realize that these Dragons are impressive beasts. Watch them and be in the awe of the way they solemnly write figures down on their leather notepads and the way they sit in grave dignity as they crunch those numbers in there head. Oh look at sultry Canadian investment banker Brett Wilson. He's touching his lips again in a serious manner. I can only imagine his thoughts, divining deals and percentages in his luscious cranium that would make a regular schlub's eyeballs melt. Witness the gravitas of the investor, of the job-creator, those who giants can fathom the depths of trends and markets and triumph over uncertainty. Only they, as they stare incredulously at another dumb plebe with another dumb idea, can hear and understand the whisper of the literal stacks of cash that are placed everywhere around the set. They deserve our adulation, our viewership, and certainly they deserve to be able to take full advantage of all tax loopholes.

But lo they are also humans these Dragons. Titter as they make bad scrotum puns about a powder product meant to soothe jock itch. Swoon as they support one another, acting friendly  praising each other's accomplishments. Squirm as the Dragons hop over themselves to compliment the asses of women modelling jeans with lifts in the posterior. Squirm even harder as one asks of the jeans (and the models wearing them), "Can I touch the technology?" And proceeds to do so. For these Dragons, they are horny, oh so horny. (Seriously, there are so many moments of old man lechery whenever the products involve women and are a smidge sexy that the show could be called Locker Room Talk.)

And the one who asked to touch the technology? The one who loves money more than the rest? The one who is the horniest of all, that's Kevin O'Leary.  While the other Dragons are likeable enough in a passably human kind of way, "O'Leary" is unrepentantly despicable. He spends the episodes mocking and bullying, laughing his villainous weasel in an animated film laugh. His whole vibe is "guy who answers his cell phone in the middle of a funeral." In the scene with Colombian lady selling her butt-lift jeans there is this exchange:

Lady: In Colombia, we want to show our curves, we are proud of our curves.
O'Leary: And so am I. I like it too.

So shudder inducing. More like Kevin O'Leering Through Your Bedroom Window.

He also already acts like a petulant dictator in his constant bullying. In another episode, O'Leary is berating this biker dude Mike from Brantford about how much his presentation sucked (O'Leary is a straight talker, he won't be afraid to yell 'It Sucks!' over and over again at trade representatives from other nations). He asks the guy, "Be honest, have you ever been to the slammer? A heinous crime has begotten you. You've wasted my time, there are two officers waiting outside to take you to jail." Not only is that sentence nonsensical but I see it as a terrible foretelling of what will happen to dissent when O'Leary has triumphed and turned Canada into Mr. Wonderful's Wonderous Wonderland.

The other main characteristic of O'Leary on the show beside his sleazy meanness is how much he loves money. In the four episodes I watched, O'Leary repeatedly says things like: "That's all well and good but how do I make money," "I'm missing the part where I make money. That's the only thing that matters," and "You know what makes me feel positive? When I make a lot of money."

The defining money exchange I saw was when this sweet lady from Sudbury was telling a story about her father creating these sturdy lunch pails that miners could sit on when they ate. O'Leary asked "Did he charge them anything?"

She replied, "He did. He charged them $2.50 because at the time miners made $1.25 an hour."

"Did he make money?"

"He certainly did."

"That's important," he replies, his head bobbing with self-pleasure as if what he said was this glorious truth, "Because I love the story but I wanted to hear that he made some money."

Oh goddammit!  We get it! You love money Kevin O'Leary. For you there is nothing else in society that has any values. Money is your philosophy, your belief, and your morals, but give it a rest you one-note supervillain. Why don't you just dig up Milton Friedman's coffin and slide in there with him you free market sycophant.

O'Leary argues we shouldn't consider his TV appearances when we weigh whether he would be a good candidate. It was just great television he says not actual policy.  But he's mistaken because the character O'Leary plays, this sexist and cruel asshole, is also his credential as a good businessmen. His history is not actually that impressive. There is a trail of lawsuits and failure behind this guy. Instead it is his cruelty, his willingness if not eagerness to play the bad guy that is the evidence that this guy gets money.

As shown with every dismissal of a non-profitable idea brought into The Den, money is cruel. It doesn't care that you had to sell your farm, or take on debt or that you have sick family members, money is here to exploit you, to demand its debts and seize its profits or as O'Leary describes it on the show, "To squeeze your head."

Kevin O'Leary acts the way people think money acts. That's why he could pull this whole thing off. Trump's victory was one big angry, racist fuck you. In Canada, you can feel that same fuck you building. The forces that O'Leary personifies are tightening the screws around the country. Rents keep going up. Hydro bills get more shocking. Employment gets more tenuous and unsatisfying. The cowardly liberalism of Trudeau, with its big statements and promises of a harmonious society followed up with broken promises, unspent millions, and the continued catering to Canada's wealthy will be the perfect target for this resentment. Vengeance will be demanded by all those who trusted in the system, who prostrated themselves in front of the Dragons and were given nothing and who will just want to smash something pretty. And if there isn't a proper leftist alternative to the malicious forces of capital, O'Leary, in all of his rude, bullying, money-embodying glory will be set up as the perfect vehicle for the masses irrational, self defeating "Fuck You."

Though that could all just be the wine talking. I can state now with authority that Kevin O'Leary Fine Wine is evidence that the Conservative party is going to wake up with a massive, fuck-my life hangover.

Follow Jordan Foisy on Twitter.

This article appeared in the February Issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.

We were honored to collaborate on the "The Future of Tech" Issue for VICE Magazine alongside our colleagues Waypoint and Motherboard. The issue investigated how tech affects our lives, from an essay on sex in virtual reality to conversations with a slew of professionals on how we can make technology work better for all of us. For our contribution, The Creators Project selected seven multimedia artists whose work uses technology as a canvas or explores larger notions of modern security and identity. Many of these artists pour themselves into creating 3D worlds or robotic personas, so we asked them to submit self-portraits that honor their creative identities. See likenesses that reveal the wondrous, wild, and computed facets of a few of our favorite artists below.

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