Kiss and Tell is Waypoint's column, written by Kate Gray, examining the depiction of love and romance, sex and intimacy in video games, across its many and varied forms.

The game development industry is obsessed with boobs. They come in all sizes, though most of them are comically large and weirdly ovoid. They jiggle like jelly, they wobble like cheesecake, and they bounce like toddlers on a rigid diet of Skittles and Red Bull. They're usually everything but realistic, but in-game boobs are like a separate thing to real-life boobs: people love them despite their anatomical inaccuracies.

But where are all the dicks? People love to make the argument, every time I write something complaining about boobs, that I'd probably just love it if everyone had their wangs out, wouldn't I? Yeah, we bet you'd like that, you double-standard-having sexist.

Actually, yeah, I am up for that. Nudity in games should be cool, like it is in mainland Europe (heads up: if you go to a beach over there, eeeeveryone's gonna be naked). It's not so much that I have a problem with boobs in games; it's more that there's generally only two types of them in games. There are stiff, unmoving boobs, and there are boobs that yearn to want to escape their fleshy confines forever.

So, yes. More dicks. Dicks in every shape, size, color and girth. Dicks with bends in them. Dicks with huge veins. You know how diversity is normalized by saturation? The same applies to genitals, my friends. I'm not talking full penetration of games—I don't really fancy having todgers all up in Tetris—but more people making games with male nudity will hopefully make it more culturally acceptable.

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Last year, Dr. Jean Twenge published a study that found millennials today had significantly fewer sexual partners than members of Gen X or baby boomers. Now, Twenge is back with a new study in Archives of Sexual Behavior, and it looks like millennials aren't the only group not having sex—US adults today are banging a whole lot less than they were 25 years ago.

Twenge (who teaches at San Diego State University and wrote the book Generation Me) worked with her team to tabulate data from the General Social Survey between 1989 and 2014. They found that Americans over the age of 18 had sex between seven and nine fewer times per year in 2014 than they did in the 90s. Back then, people were smashing 62 times a year on average. Now that number is down to 53 times a year, or about once a week. Researchers saw a drop regardless of age, race, gender, and religion.

At least one reason adults are having less sex could be the fact that more Americans are single now, which is an obvious obstacle if there's not someone ready, willing, and able in the next room. In 2014, only 59 percent of Americans were living with a partner, compared to 66 percent in 1986. Married people are also just less willing to bone—husbands and wives were having sex just 55 times a year in 2014 on average, compared to 73 times in 1990. In fact, 2014 saw single people having more sex than their married counterparts, at an average of 59 times a year.

Twenge has some theories as to why there seems to be such a steep, general drop off for all adults today. Sex is now competing with our cellphones, the internet, and digital streaming services to occupy our attention—it's no longer just a fun thing adults do to pass the time. It may also just be garden variety fatigue, considering more couples feature two working individuals today. Additionally, people are more depressed than they used to be, which could be a direct cause or an effect.

"Are they less happy and thus having less sex or are they having less sex and therefore less happy? It's probably some of both," Twenge told the Washington Post.

While those in their 20s are still having sex more than any other age group—at about 80 times per year in 2014—they're getting it on a lot less than previous generations did at the same age. People born in the 1990s were having the least amount of sex in their 20s, whereas people born in the 1930s had the most. Apparently our grandparents really knew how to get busy.

It's not clear what all these sexless nights will do to the country's population, but it might be time America takes a page out of Spain's book and appoint a special Secretary of Sex to get us back on track again.

Tomorrow is International Women's Day, a day when women worldwide are celebrated for their achievements and where we honour how much further we have to go until women get what's theirs. Basically, it's pretty much the only day of the year that belongs to women.

For this year's occasion, the Women's March organizers are urging women to go on strike everywhere so the world can experience what a day without women would mean and also show just how much women contribute to a world that treats them like shit.

But you know who we should really be focusing on this International Women's Day? Men. They do so much to help us out. Without "men" the word "women" wouldn't even exist, you know. Does that sound right? Oh well, our weirdo of a Canadian first lady Sophie Grégoire Trudeau seems to think so!

In an Instagram post of her and husband Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holding hands—gazing at each other lovingly and dressed as though they just robbed a Mountain Equipment Co-op—Grégoire Trudeau suggests we should spend tomorrow (again, I must press—this is the only day women have all year) giving it up for the boys!

The caption written in both of Canada's official languages for maximum misguidance begins with a promising, "Let's ignite some change!" But it gets it all wrong almost instantly after by saying, "as we mark International Women's Day, let's celebrate the boys and men in our lives who encourage us to be who we truly are." Apparently we should also be celebrating men who do the bare minimum of treating "girls and women with respect."

To celebrate International (Wo)Men's Day, she suggests holding hands with your male ally  (we've all got one!!) and share it on social media using a hashtag she literally made up called #TomorrowInHand, because without men—there would be no feminism!

I have so many questions: How did she mess this up? I'm genuinely so curious as to how she could have flubbed such a simple task. Who let her write this? Doesn't this shit get vetted?

Let's unpack this. Men are the reason why being a woman can sometimes suck—that is a fact. For some reason, Grégoire Trudeau thinks we should celebrate them for doing the bare minimum of respecting us. And also by holding hands with them and taking a photo, we will somehow encourage others to want to treat us like human beings worthy of our rights.

This, of course isn't the first time Grégoire Trudeau has missed the mark. Remember when she made a Martin Luther King Jr. tribute all about herself by singing an original song, because that's what MLK for sure what have wanted?

I have a free idea for Black History Month, if she's interested. How about all of us black people take a photo with a white person in our lives who respects us and encourage us when we're not feeling super black. And then we can hold hands and start a hashtag that will solve racism, just like she solved sexism!

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A bookstore that primarily sells romance and erotic novels, specifically curated to empower women: The premise sounds ripped straight from Portlandia or this recent SNL sketch. But the shop is real, in Los Angeles' Culver City neighborhood, and it manages to pull off its feminist goal with a playful level of self-awareness that prevents it from ever tipping too far into the realm of fodder for internet trolls.

Founded by Chicagoan sister "proprietresses" Bea and Leah Koch, The Ripped Bodice is the only store in America that specializes in love stories, with everything from Jane Austen classics to euphemistic beach trash to hardcore erotica lining its shelves.

Photo by Jenn Leblanc

The store, which recently celebrated its one year anniversary, was dreamed up by the sisters as they were finishing school, in part, as a way for them "to avoid getting regular jobs."They always knew they wanted to open a store to support women in some way and, as lifelong fans of romance novels, a genre predominantly by and for women, the Koch's had the perfect opportunity to leverage their interest into a unique retail experience. After a successful Kickstarter campaign provided seed funding, the Koch's were in business.

At first glance, the inside of The Ripped Bodice might appear to be any other independent book store. Cute, Etsy-ish aesthetics, small displays selling soaps or tchotchkes—all by women-owned independent businesses, of course—and ornate couches and reading chairs conjure up images of boozy book club meetings. But just a few moments scanning the shelves reveals the inventory's common theme that distinguishes this shop from others, and it's a theme spread across a wide spectrum of lasciviousness.

"We organize our book store differently than any other book store in the world, with the one exception being the other romance book store in Australia," says Leah. "Because we only sell one genre, the store is divided by sub-genres. We have four main areas: historical, contemporary, paranormal, and erotica."

Scattered amongst these four main categories, the store has islands of other specialty sub-genres like LGBTQ, suspense, cowboys, and one the Koch's themselves coined as "I Love Rock & Roll," which Leah describes as "all bikes and tats." The store even has a kids section that I was relieved to learn was not filled with stories of Elmo's sexual awakening, but instead is stocked with children's books the women hope will engender a love of reading and a healthy relationship with all varieties of love.

"This is a very personal section for us," says Leah. "These are the kinds of books that made us romance readers."

One of The Ripped Bodice's main competitors is the eBook marketplace. With big box and major online retailers hiding titles and covers deemed too steamy, romance authors have turned to the privacy offered by Kindles and Nooks as a way of peddling their inexpensive novellas. Leah notes that the nature of these digital marketplaces makes categorization there intrinsically easier than for a brick and mortar shop.

"How do you shelve a book that's lesbian vampire erotica? Does it go in the lesbian section, the vampire section, or the erotica section? These are real questions we find ourselves asking."

This intimidating surplus of categories and stratification is where the sisters' encyclopedic knowledge of their field comes in handy. As I toured the store asking questions, Bea and Leah's arcane familiarity with the novels was on full display as they yanked books off the shelves to show me examples of writing styles or esoteric themes. The sisters want to use this wealth of romance expertise they've acquired over lifetimes of fandom to help introduce new romance fans to the categories that might most interest them, all in a judgement-free space. But as accommodating as the store is for preferences and kinks of all stripes, there are still sub-genres the Koch's don't allow on their shelves.

Referred to as Non-Con (non-consensual) and Dub-Con (dubious consent) in the romance space, the Koch women feel that, while they "have no issues with the people who read or write it," to include these works in their store would jibe with their mission statement "to portray healthy sex." This is the same reason they give for not stocking the mainstream romance breakthrough, 50 Shades of Grey. ("That's not a healthy BDSM relationship and people can get that pretty much anywhere else.") Ironically, the shop's namesake comes from the term "bodice ripper," a historical romance sub-genre often featuring clothes-destroying non-consensual sex scenes.

Photo by the author

Like all art, romance novels are products of their time. And with such a large contingent of romance authors self-publishing online, the genre now ebbs and flows with the zeitgeist at a quicker pace than its major publishing house competition.

For instance, Bea notes that an entire sub-genre of Prime Minister-themed romance novels popped up "like five minutes after Justin Trudeau was elected." Leah also predicts that there may soon be protest romances, perhaps with Black Bloc rioters going at it in a burning limo. But just as some cultural events carve out new niches, others shut existing fantasies down.

"There's a whole sub-genre known as billionaire romance and, uh… GOODBYE," says Leah, referring to Donald Trump's de-sexifying of the archetype. "If anything, we'll be seeing the rise of alternative billionaires that bear no resemblance to the traditional white male ones. There's a fantastic Alisha Rai series that features an Indian-American businesswoman billionaire. Expect more like that."

Just like themes, words and phrases come in and out of vogue. The Kochs both immediately named "cock" as the current favorite way to describe male genitalia within the genre, the charmingly self-censored "members" and "organs" of yesteryear are in short supply these days. They also note that despite the cliches of romance novels as euphemism-laden exercises in restraint, no naughty words are really off limits anymore, even for the stuff being sold in Walmart. Some of the legacy novelists like Nora Roberts, who eschews popular vernacular and still describes female orgasms as "floating away on gossamer wings," will always have an audience and a place in the Koch sisters' hearts.

While the Kochs are working hard to keep expanding their inventory and stocking shelves with romance that appeals to every orientation, age group, kink, and level of profanity tolerance, they have enough perspective to recognize the inherent humor in their trade.

"You can't take all this stuff too seriously," acknowledges Bea. "It can be hard for people to understand that we take our business seriously even when we're discussing the various ways that people describe penises. We have so much love and respect for people who read and write romance—Hello, it's our entire lives—but, c'mon... it's a little silly sometimes."

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Laura Marling considers The Empress tarot card. Tucked away in a corner of The Ear Inn, an over 200 year old pub and warm place of refuge on Spring St. in Manhattan, she wrinkles her brow, puzzled, and then smiles when I say her new record Semper Femina reminds me of The Empress more than any other card in the deck. Marling, who sometimes uses tarot as guidance, laughs, saying she is unsurprised by this choice. Part of the Major Arcana—cards with more broadly tailored symbolic guidance cards than suit or court cards—The Empress features a woman sitting on a cushioned seat in an open field near a forest with the feminine symbol in a heart lying at her feet. The Empress is usually symbolic of material and sensory abundance. The card is also often representative of mothering and motherhood, but its meaning also extends to femininity as a whole.

Roughly translated from Latin, semper femina means "always a woman." Out on March 10 via her own label More Alarming Records, Marling's sixth album isn't a declarative feminist piece. This isn't her first foray into an explicitly feminine-centric work: last year Marling worked on her podcast The Reversal of the Muse, interviewing female engineers, producers, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, to name a few, about working in the music industry and the limitations women so often face in it. Semper Femina is a different conversation. It is a record that negotiates the ways in which each person carries both feminine and masculine qualities in them and how each are prioritized culturally.

Read more on Noisey

This Wednesday, women from more than 30 countries are going on strike.

Last month, a diverse group of feminist activists and academics announced the plan for an international strike on March 8th in an op-ed for the Guardian. They called for what was later named A Day Without a Woman: a mass mobilization of "women, including trans women, and all who support them in an international day of struggle."

The organizers hope to achieve "a day of striking, marching, blocking roads, bridges, and squares, abstaining from domestic, care and sex work, boycotting, calling out misogynistic politicians and companies, striking in educational institutions." With this protest, the organizers are also aiming to achieve "feminism for the 99 percent," to represent the women that "lean-in feminism ignored," the women working in the formal labor market, in social reproduction and care, and the unemployed.

Now the day of the strike is quickly approaching, and throughout the world women and their allies are being called to action, ready to ring in this year's International Women's Day with an international strike. A map of planned protest activity depicts an Earth splattered with pinpoints representing 250 locations. The planned protest activities are broad in scope, and the size of each varies by locale. However, one thing resonates across all: the notion that women are here, women are powerful, and women will demand for what is right. What should scare the old guard most is that all these women know each other; they are connected by both the internet and shared goals and are creating an international coalition of resistance. Broadly spoke to organizers of women's strikes in Argentina, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, the US, and Thailand to learn about the connections that have created such an international movement, what they are striking for on Wednesday, and what they hope happens next.

Read more on Broadly

As a political scientist, Tatishe Nteta studies how racial resentment affects attitudes toward public policy. But it took Colin Cowherd for him to realize that the same dynamic also might be influencing the ongoing debate over paying college athletes.

It was the spring of 2014, and Nteta, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, was listening to sports talk radio while driving to work. Cowherd, then an ESPN host, was discussing a federal antitrust lawsuit brought by former University of California, Los Angeles basketball star Ed O'Bannon against the National Collegiate Athletic Association—a much-publicized case that sought to allow past and present campus athletes to be compensated for the use of their names, images, and likeness.

"I don't think paying all college athletes is great, not every college is loaded and most 19-year-olds [are] gonna spend it—and let's be honest, they're gonna spend it on weed and kicks," Cowherd said. "And spare me the 'they're being extorted' thing.

"Listen, 90 percent of these college guys are gonna spend it on tats, weed, kicks, Xboxes, beer and swag. They are, get over it!"

Read more on VICE Sports

People won't stop beating up the man who was convicted of torturing and killing three people—including a five-year-old boy.

On Monday night, Douglas Garland was found unresponsive but breathing in his cell after being beaten unconscious, however, the extent of his injuries are unknown at this point in time. On the morning of the day he was beaten, Garland had been transferred from the Calgary Remand centre to the Edmonton Maximum institution.

In February, Garland was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty for the horrific murders of five-year-old Nathan O'Brien and his grandparents Alvin and Kathy Liknes. Garland captured the trio, held them prisoner while he tortured them before eventually killing them and burning their bodies in a barrel at the Airdrie, Alberta, farm where he lived with his parents.

It came out in the court that Garland killed the three people over a patent dispute he was having with the Liknes—and O'Brien was having a sleepover at the house when Garland abducted them. A forensic analysis of Garland's computer found that he had searched "most painful torture" and had researched autopsy tools and dismembered bodies.

This isn't the first time that Garland had the shit kicked out of him. On the same day he was sentenced, he was attacked by several inmates and had to be treated in hospital for soft tissue injuries.

Four inmates were charged as a result of the first beating.

Lead photo via The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh

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On Monday, New York City reached a tentative deal to settle two longstanding lawsuits designed to protect Muslim residents, political activists and other potential undesirables from discriminatory and invasive surveillance by local cops.

This is the second time the NYPD and the plaintiffs' attorneys have tried to settle the suits, Raza v. City of New York and Handschu v. Special Services Division, which were filed decades apart but have since been combined because they rest on similar issues. Raza, filed in 2013, focuses on the NYPD's surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers as documented in a series of Associated Press articles first published two years earlier. The Handschu lawsuit, meanwhile, dates to the 1970s and centers on the local police force's infiltration of left-wing political groups.

The new settlement terms, which expand on those reached in another deal last year before being rejected by a judge, were met with lukewarm approval from civil liberties advocates. A "welcome improvement," is how Michael Price, who serves as counsel for the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, described the deal, while a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union lauded the revised agreement because it "expands the independence, authority, and responsibilities of a civilian representative who will act as a check against surveillance abuses by the NYPD."

What remains to be seen is how enduring these new safeguards against police surveillance prove in the Trump era. After the initial Handschu suit was settled in the 80s, so-called "Handschu guidelines" were put in place by a federal judge to rein in local police. But the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were used to justify loosening the guidelines and massively expanding the power of the NYPD. Now a new administration in Washington seems to view Islamic terrorism as the chief national security threat facing the country—second only, perhaps, to illegal immigration—and has an uneasy relationship with the truth and the law.

The settlement represents a test case, then, for how local law enforcement can hold itself to higher standards even as the feds seem poised to pull back on police oversight.

The initial revised settlement, announced last winter, outlined a number of changes to the Handschu Guidelines, which restrain the NYPD's power when investigating political or religious groups. The proposed changes included: prohibiting investigations in which race, religion, or ethnicity is a substantial or motivating factor; placing preemptive time limits on investigations; and installing a civilian representative tasked with ensuring the rules were being followed, among other changes.

Over the spring and summer of 2016, Judge Charles Haight of the Southern District of New York held several fairness hearings on proposed settlement, where members of affected communities pressed him to reject it. A report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the NYPD, released last August, underlined how city cops were failing to adhere to the existing guidelines, including by continuing investigations after their legal authorization had expired. In October, Judge Haight declined to accept the deal and called for specific changes that might greater protect Muslim New Yorkers.

Meanwhile, Trump was elected and the national political landscape upended. Advocates and lawyers began to fear that the candidate's dog-whistle promise to return "law and order" to the United States, and his lavish praise for something resembling the NYPD's disbanded Demographics Unit, might embolden cops to spy on and infiltrate black and brown communities once he was sitting in the White House.

Ramzi Kassem, a professor at CUNY School of Law and an attorney in the Raza suit (he has also previously written for VICE), believes that in this new political moment, the settlement is more crucial than ever. "Trump himself and people in his entourage have held out the Muslim surveillance program as a model for nationwide adoption," he told me. "It's particularly important in that context for these rules and restrictions to come into place."

The new settlement terms, if approved by Judge Haight, would give the civilian representative greater latitude to alert the judge if they suspected cops were violating the guidelines. Under the new terms, the mayor would also be prohibited from abolishing the civilian representative position without judicial approval.

Watch our short doc about Marty Baum, the Florida 'river-keeper' who protects his local water.

Within the city's Muslim community, word that a settlement has been reached brought both celebration and concern that even these changes do not go far enough. "Brave Muslim communities stood up for their rights and a federal court heard them, forcing the NYPD to provide mild but important improvements," said Iman Boukadoum, a member of the Arab American Bar Association and a pro bono immigration lawyer at the law firm at the Hussain and Khan. "Of course, these new guidelines are incomplete and are mere first steps as we continue to push back against continued, widespread surveillance and injustice."

Indeed, some fear that the settlement represents a modest political concession by a mayor who campaigned on reining in the NYPD, rather than enduring or systemic changes that will make it harder for leaders to spy on citizens in the future.

"At a time that the President is promoting bigotry through policing and policies, and police unions are declaring their eagerness to do so, we need actual dismantling of the NYPD's surveillance apparatus," said Fahd Ahmed, the Executive Director of DRUM-Desis Rising Up and Moving, a group that organizes low-wage South Asian workers and youth in New York City.

After all, even with the election of Bill de Blasio, who campaigned on police reform, civil liberties advocates contend that some form of NYPD spying has continued. In recent years, they've pointed to cases where the NYPD apparently infiltrated both Muslim student groups and Black Lives Matter activists. And even though the settlement creates more stringent restrictions on investigations—by requiring, for example, an allegation or information that is "articulable and factual" in order to open a preliminary probe—the information does not have to be verified as true or accurate. These preliminary investigations will be allowed to continue for up to 18 months before safeguards kick in, and the NYPD has been known to use undercover cops and confidential informants aggressively, even in a manner that can amount to entrapment, advocates say.

In other words, there will still be plenty of opportunities for America's largest police force to abuse its powers.

Regardless of its shortcomings, that a deal with substantive oversight for New York cops is near the finish line shows importance of fighting at the local level to rein in police powers. In that sense, the settlement is a living testament of just how many communities have been targeted by American police in recent decades, and how long and hard they have fought to obtain justice.

"[The NYPD] has an opportunity to be transparent about their policies, and I hope they embrace these reforms, and don't try to sweep them under the rug or dismiss them," said Price, the attorney with the Brennan Center. These reforms "are important and they are more important now than ever."

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In 1995, Richard Avedon's photo series In Memory of the Late Mr. and Mrs. Comfort was first published in the New Yorker. Ostensibly a fashion shoot, it features, as most shoots do, a model (Nadja Auermann) clothed in exquisitely designed garments. She is caught in a series of scenarios: sweeping up, posing for a camera, embracing her partner. The catch? Her partner is an actual human skeleton. He is also clothed, and his suits hang awkwardly from scapula and rib cage, a trilby tilted jauntily across the skull. As a visual narrative it's both disturbing and deeply beautiful, with flesh, bone, and fabric in close proximity. Here, life and death, quite literally, rub shoulders.

The photos also figure as a clever examination of the relationship between fashion and death, a relationship that remains continually fascinating. Clothes stay close to the skin during life, and continue to exist long after the body has decayed. No wonder we're often aware of their status—sometimes intimately, sometimes devastatingly—as memento mori.

But clothing's relationship with death is more complicated than that of a mere reminder or relic: Over the years, garments have also, with surprising regularity, been a cause of death, too. As art historian Alison Mathews David argues in Fashion Victim: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present, "clothing, which is supposed to shield our fragile, yielding flesh from danger, often fails spectacularly in this important task."

Read more on Broadly

The French magazine Têtu used to be a lot like other gay magazines—nearly all of its covers featured men, nearly all of whom were white, many not even gay, nearly all muscled. A similar homonormative attitude graced the inside of its pages. Têtu, which launched in 1995, went bankrupt in 2015.

Last January, the company was purchased out of bankruptcy by advertising startup iDyls, its website was relaunched, and a new editorial team, with an average age of just 26, was granted more freedom to shake things up. Last week, they announced the magazine would be back in print, available for purchase on newsstands this week throughout France.

The move was surprising, not only because many print magazines are hanging on by a financial thread, but because the relaunched Têtu looks very different to how it once did. Its first cover features three normal-looking, diverse queer people, one of whom is transgender. And while the magazine's editors promise the magazine will still showcase plenty of skin, it has also expanded its coverage into new frontiers in queerness and social justice.

The relaunch may be a sign of things to come for LGBTQ media around the world. American LGBTQ media, in particular, found itself in hot water last year after #gaymediasowhite began trending on Twitter, drawing attention to the covers of magazines like Out and The Advocate,which (like Têtu) tended to feature a preponderance of white and straight men.

"In France, there's no real link between gays, lesbians and trans people," Adrien Naselli, Têtu's editor in chief, told me. "The cover is a way to say, 'This is how it should be.'"

Naselli said the relaunch served as part political statement, part business decision: in his eyes, young, politically engaged French people demand LGBTQ media that showcases diversity and social justice more than their older peers do.

"We had to make the owners accept that this was the way they needed to go," Naselli said. The new owners originally "wanted to keep the usual coverboy, and we explained that this is the way things were going."

Today, more LGBTQ media outlets than ever are diversifying who and what graces their pages, shifting their editorial strategies to become more relevant to non-white, non-cisgender readers. But a year out from #gaymediasowhite, there's a long road ahead for gay media companies to become as diverse as much of their audience wants them to be.

Seven months ago, Out hired journalist Zach Stafford as an editor at large to help diversify the magazine's offerings. The move came shortly after the Pulse nightclub shooting, during which Stafford realized that a lot of white gay reporters were covering the tragedy differently than reporters and writers of color, who centered the race and ethnicity of the victims (most of whom were black and Latinx) as opposed to just their sexuality.

Out was one of the main targets of #gaymediasowhite. An analysis by Fusion found that 85 percent of those featured on its cover over the last five years have been white, and 28 percent have been straight, white, cis men. Only one percent featured trans or nonbinary people of any race. Stafford pointed out that the magazine's more recent covers—including for their annual Out 100—have been more diverse than in the past. Its content is becoming more diverse, too; the site has broken news on several web series run by queer people of color, and Stafford said the reaction has been great, commercially speaking.

"When we work with communities and the communities see that we're covering them they appreciate that," Stafford said. "I remember when I looked at our most popular stories recently and every piece doing well was written by and for trans people and people of color."

But Stafford admitted that changing old habits at a nearly 25-year-old institution like Out (or any old-line media property, really) is hard work.

Media has a history of upholding the views of the rich and powerful (usually white people), Stafford said. "That goes way beyond Out. That's changing, but it's a battle going against what we used to think of as 'media.'"

John Paul Brammer, a 26-year-old gay Latino who has written for BuzzFeed, The Guardian and Huffington Post, agreed that the problem goes beyond token diversity.

"The way the system's set up, it's still married to gay pop culture, which still worships certain kinds of people," he said. "There's a real underestimation of the audience happening—people see it as a false dichotomy," where editors believe they are forced to choose between catering to certain sub-groups within the LGBTQ umbrella over others.

That underestimation means that diversification comes slow, and many within the LGBTQ community often feel left out.

Viv Liu, a queer 21-year-old art history major at Stanford, said they follow mainstream gay publications on social media because they remain one of the only ways to get LGBTQ news, but the stories they see don't reflect people like them. While Liu appreciates diversity attempts, they're skeptical the trend will last.

"It's in vogue to be more diverse," Liu said. "It feels more like jumping on a bandwagon than an attempt to decolonize desire."

In the last few years, many queer people have seemed to recognize that the march toward diversity in mainstream gay media will be slow, and have instead launched outlets of their own. There's Elska Magazine, focusing on men from a different country in every issue. Or Hello Mr., which tends to have more diverse covers and stories than its mainstream counterparts. Food 4 Thot, launched last month, is a podcast hosted by four diverse queer men who have made it a point to focus on the intersection of race and queerness.

"I was shocked that something like this didn't already exist," said Tommy Pico, a poet and co-host of Food 4 Thot. "I wish we didn't have to be some of the only representatives of a more diverse media."

Fran Tirado, another host of the show who also works at Hello Mr., agreed that smaller operations help usher in more diversity, but wishes that more mainstream outlets would follow their lead a bit quicker.

"Just because we have lower circulation than other places doesn't mean we're not having an impact," Tirado said. "We have set a higher bar for the larger places. But they have more robust digital presences, they have media groups behind them, they have greater resources. They could be hiring more people of color. They could be doing more."

Follow Peter Moskowitz on Twitter.

At one point in the 1990s, I nearly plotzed with shock as I was carded at the door of a bar. This hadn't happened for quite a while; most night spots didn't card at all, and besides, I was rapidly approaching middle age. But it was the Giuliani era, and some venue owners were starting to realize how strict they were going to have be to stay in business. No chances could be taken when it came to the law, even if my ID was practically an AARP card!

I'm all for making New York City nightlife safer and more livable. But I'm not in favor of sucking all the life of it, so it becomes a terrified place full of people minding their Ps and Qs while looking behind them to see if they're going to get busted for having fun.

As mayor of NYC from 1994 through 2001, Rudy Giuliani demonized nightlife as our city's bastard child, trying to smooth it over in order to make things safe for tourists and co-op owners. Ignoring the fact that nightlife pumped money and creative excitement into the city (which many tourists and co-op owners would have loved), he steamrolled over the industry, at the same time taking the porn out of Times Square and making it ready for people in Mickey Mouse costumes.

Squashing nightlife was part of the mayor's broader initiative to reduce crime and improve the city's so-called "quality of life." To that end, he used both new and existing regulations to monitor nightclubs, including taking the cabaret law—a bit of archaic legislation that decreed there couldn't be more than three people dancing in a boite without a cabaret license—out of mothballs and using it to punish places full of happy feet.

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Trevor Winfield was taking a dump when he saw the water that was running in his sink turn bubblegum pink—so, while pooping, he decided to take a video.

"My water is broken," he wrote when posting the video to Facebook. "Thanks town of Onoway."

Poopin' Trev wasn't the only person to notice the pink water in the town of Onoway. All across the small town north of Edmonton, Alberta the water was turning that colour.

Yeah, that's right, the whole town got a little pink in their sink.

(Extra points if you spotted the shower beer in that video.)

The 1,000 or so residents of Onoway were rightfully dumbfounded and a little frightened by this weird occurrence—they didn't know what the hell was going on.

Well, as it turns out, the screw up came from the town. In a statement posted to the Town of Onoway's website, mayor Dale Krasnow, wrote that during the town's routine flushing of the line "a valve may have stuck allowing the potassium permanganate to get into our sump reservoir and thereby into the town's water distribution system." 

Potassium permanganate is a chemical used in water treatment to oxidize dissolved particles that can be filtered out in the water—the only real side effect by the chemical is skin irritation in high doses.

Krasnow said that Onoway was draining their reservoir because of the screwup. He went on to say that the public was safe and apologized for the lack of communication between the town and it's residents.

"Could the town have done a better job of communicating what was going on yesterday to our community—absolutely, without a doubt," he wrote. " And we do apologize for that."

Two representatives from Environment Alberta made their way to the small town to inspect its systems and determine what happened. Krasnow said that the town is working with Environment Alberta and  the"equipment will be taken offline and no further backwashing with potassium permanganate will occur until the system is operating properly."

"All main lines have been flushed and are clear, however there may be some residual in your service lines. Property owners may need to run their water for a few minutes to clear their service lines."

Or, you know, you could just not do that and keep that sweet, sweet pink water running for as long you can.

Lead photo via Facebook.

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On January 27, 2017 Donald Trump signed an executive order barring people from seven majority Muslim countries from entering the United States. The decision sent the nation into a state of confusion, fear, and chaos. Within 24 hours, thousands of peaceful protesters had gathered across the country, swarming airports in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, among dozens of other cities, while green card and visa holders were detained, questioned, and prohibited from continuing with their travel plans into the United States.

Travelers abroad feared they would be unable to return home. Refugees seeking asylum feared being sent back to states overrun with extreme violence and turmoil. American citizens and residents were sent into panic, unsure of when they'd be able to see their family members again. While the anger of those who opposed the ban grew, so did the confusion surrounding the policy. After a week, a Seattle federal judge put a nationwide block on the order, and the Department of Homeland Security suspended enforcement of the ban.

As the nation—and the world—waited for Trump's promised revised ban, many people wrote to us, sharing their outrage; others we met at protests, strikes, and rallies across the US and abroad. All of them expressed their anger, their fear, and often their hope for a dramatic change.

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(Image via Flickr)

Statistics released ahead of International Womens Day this week confirm the wage gap disparity between men and women. The report, commissioned by the Ministry for Women, submits the gender wage gap has plateaued at 12 percent since 2002, despite heavy campaigning for equality in the workplace. Traditionally the campaign for equal pay has been touted as a staple issue for feminism, a denial of equal access to opportunities reserved exclusively for men. But prioritising sexism in the workplace has meant racial disparities have been ignored, morphing into a redundant 'women vs men', 'us vs them' dialogue.

Pākehā women earn between $3 and $6 more per hour than Māori, Pasifika and Asian women; and $1 to $4 more per hour than Māori, Pasifika and Asian men. The complex intersections of race and sexual orientation have been diluted. As the data suggests, it is the experience of racism and sexism for women of colour that demands the most scrutiny.

Gender bias from men in senior industry roles have been blamed as the primary cause for the wage gap. Paula Bennett, in her new capacity as Minister for Women, was quick to push the rhetoric. This is a shallow and frankly lazy interpretation of evidence. The active racial and gender bias from employers in positions of power is the most logical explanation of wage disparity. When we fail to consider race we develop solutions like more women on boards, that tend to advantage already privileged women, not those on minimum wage or in insecure work. The experiences of tokenism, discrimination, prejudice and nuanced racism that plague working Māori, Pasifika and Asian women have long been ignored. The lack of willingness to address instances of micro and/or macro aggressions has stagnated progress. The report is not a revelation to these women; it is their lived reality.

In my own experience, Pākehā women are as complicit in maintaining a racial bias in the workplace as their male counterparts. I have not escaped sexual harassment and sexist jibes from male co-workers and employers. Comments on my body, image, relationships, sex life and insults to my intelligence can be difficult to challenge when those men outrank you. Working in across a range of industries, however, my superiors have been predominantly Pākehā women.

In my own experience, Pākehā women are as complicit in maintaining a racial bias in the workplace as their male counterparts.

In my first professional role I was flaunted as a prop; a "clever little Māori" ploy to appear diverse. My duties were performative, domestic labour; preparing morning tea for all staff, fetching the Herald for my boss every morning and cleaning the kitchen and washing dishes. On top of my daily workload I was also designated projects based on the false assumption I was culturally competent. I facilitated Treaty of Waitangi workshops, despite having little working knowledge, at the time, of its practical application in community development. Towards the end of my time there I was asked to lead 40 new migrants onto a local marae. I sank into a debilitating depression and when I raised concerns of a possible identity crisis prompted by said events, I was referred to an in-house psychologist. The psychologist, being Pākehā, could not fathom the complexities of cultural dislocation from Te Ao Māori.

In my minimum wage hospo jobs, my taha tinana suffered. My work ethic was exploited to the limits of physical exhaustion. I developed carpal tunnel in my right wrist and only received treatment after two years because I could not afford to see a GP on my wages. My existing heart condition was in constant jeopardy. Almost all my workmates were new migrants and under similar pressures, many with young families. I was bullied by a few members of the company's head office though I never challenged them because my job was a prerequisite of survival.

Experiences of workplace discrimination are far too common amongst non-Pākehā women. In my opinion, the root cause of the gulf in wages is colonisation and capitalism; and labour market is the systematic maintenance of both social hierarchies. For Māori and Pasifika women, we are overexposed to negative determinants of health and mahi is one of them. The wage gap is a health issue too. It is an issue that demands action from Cabinet, not lip service during question time.

Some progress is being made. Māori and Pacific communities are reclaiming and decolonising the work space from a grassroots level.

Some progress is being made. Māori and Pacific communities are reclaiming and decolonising the work space from a grassroots level. Launched in 2016, Tupu Toa is an initiative that aims to support Māori and Pasifika rangatahi into corporate leadership roles, and to create those roles when they do not exist. Currently less than five percent of senior business roles are held by Māori and Pasifika; and Tupu Toa aims to change the narrative. Local iwi Ngāti Whatua have been instrumental in developing the programme and will be available nationwide by 2021.

In February, a hui of prominent Māori business leaders was held. Their goal was to discuss ways in which to monopolise technology and science to achieve better outcomes for Māori. With a whānau-centric approach, participants explored the possibilities of utilising the collective assets of iwi, with a combined value of around $42 billion. Government resistance to funding research in this sector presents a barrier and requires a significant investment to assist Māori in transforming our socio-economic status.

The Living Wage campaign is also concerned with addressing the widening gap between the rich and poor. The figure, $19.80 per hour, reflects the cost of basic necessities in life; from petrol or transport, to food, housing or healthcare. Employers, such as James Crow of Nice Blocks and Nice Cream, volunteer to trial the living wage for their staff. Crow has since reported that his staff are happier, more productive and present a higher quality of work. It's a simple, effective and ethical accreditation process that values the contributions of employees regardless of role or rank.

Paula Bennett stated yesterday that employers want to treat staff fairly, but the experiences of Māori, Pasifika and Asian women sit in opposition to that claim. She refused to take legislative reform but it is imperative if we are to bridge the gap to higher wages for minority groups. Endorsing initiatives such as a living wage and growing the funding pool for Tupu Toa must go hand-in-hand with abandoning National ventures like the youth wage, drug testing beneficiaries, and raising the superannuation age by two years.

As a show of good faith, the employers Bennett so gallantly defended yesterday require emergency cultural competency training. New Zealand's corporate elite all too often respond to criticism with lip service, rather than action. We need acts of committal, like wealth redistribution from the bottom up; from CEOs and boardrooms across the country. We need to work together to overhaul our current employment model to one where everyone has equal access to opportunity; one where we all prosper.

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Radio personality Ebro Darden knew exactly where he was when he first heard "shETHER," Remy Ma's now-iconic diss track about Nicki Minaj. Along with accusing Nicki of sleeping with Trey Songz in the seven-minute single, the Bronx rapper also floated the rumor that Ebro and Nicki had sex.

To set the record straight, the Hot 97 and Beats 1 Radio host visited VICELAND's Desus & Mero and discussed his alleged affair with Nicki Minaj and the scandal as a whole. Ebro also recounted the most intense interviews that have ever gone down in the Hot 97 studio and talked about the time he had to tell DMX not to smoke weed in the building.

Be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM ET/PT on VICELAND.

After the Women's March the day after Trump's inauguration became the largest mass demonstration in US history, it wasn't clear if it was the start of a new movement or a singular event fueled by anger over Trump's election victory.

We'll see on March 8, "A Day Without a Woman," when half the world's population is being encouraged to effectively opt out of the global economy.

The organizers are asking women around the world to take the day off work, whether their labor is paid or unpaid, and avoid spending money anywhere but at woman- or minority-owned businesses. Calling it an embrace of "feminism for the 99 percent" in an op-ed in the Guardian, the organizers wrote that one of the main goals is to demonstrate women's collective economic power. It's one of ten actions the Women's March organizers are rolling out during the first 100 days of Trump's presidency.

The US organizers didn't invent the idea of a 24-hour global strike. International activists began organizing around the idea, which has roots at least as far back as the early 1900s, to call for equitable pay and pro-choice policies in many European countries late last year. In October, thousands of women went on strike in Poland to protest an extreme anti-abortion bill, an act credited with prompting lawmakers to vote down the bill. And in Iceland, women walked out of work 14 percent earlier in the day than normal to protest the 14 percent wage gap.

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