When Dr. Lee Tae Kyung set out to develop a new program for treating electronic media addiction in South Korea, he wanted to find the perfect manual for his patients. If Alcoholics Anonymous had "The Big Book," he thought, why shouldn't people addicted to computer games or their smart phones have their own self-help guide?

The problem was, there weren't any specialized guidebooks for this particular type of addiction. So Lee took to the library for inspiration. There, he found just what he was looking for: Momo, a fantasy novel written in the 1970s by German author Michael Ende.

Momo depicts a dystopian future in which sinister paranormal creatures, known as the Men in Grey, have convinced humans to give up leisure and socializing in order to save time. For Lee, an addiction specialist who has watched the rise of electronic addiction in his home country, it was the perfect metaphor for how electronic media addiction robs people of their time.

"When we participate in a video game, the time in the game is faster than real time," he told me on a visit to his office at Seoul National Hospital, an uncharacteristically antiquated-looking facility awaiting relocation in the ever-changing capital.

"Gamers do not feel the passing of time in the real world. Because of that, their sleep schedule is disturbed and they forget their scheduleseven what they have to do for the future."

On Motherboard: A Day at the First Video Game Rehab Clinic in the US

Lee was so inspired by the book, which he had originally read in college, that he named his treatment program after one of its main characters, Master Hora, the administer of time who helps the child protagonist Momo defeat the Men in Grey.

"Master Hora asks Momo, 'What is the first thing we have to do when the Men in Grey surround this house?'" said Lee, explaining the parallels to his treatment program's focus on regular mealtimes and daily routine. "The answer is, 'We have to take breakfast!' When I looked at the words, I was very surprised. How did Mr. Ende realize these things in the 1970s? At the time, we didn't have the internet!"

Photo via Flickr user Marc Smith

Globally, internet addiction and other forms of digital obsession have become a pressing concern. One study published last year by researchers at the University of Hong Kong estimated that 6 percent of the population worldwide is hooked on the web.

In South Korea, the craving for electronic stimulation is apparent almost everywhere you look. In countless PC rooms across the country, Korean youth wile away hours playing massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft or League of Legends. A lucky few manage to make it into the ranks of the country's professional gamers, who are counted among the best in the world and can potentially earn millions playing games online.

Step on the subway in Seoul, and you'll see whole carriages of commuters who barely a glance up from a screenfour out of five teens in South Korea have a smartphone, one of the highest penetration rates in the world. Inevitably, some of the country's tech-lovers become literal tech junkies. The problem is especially pronounced among the young: 14 percent of adolescents in South Korea are believed to have an internet or smartphone addiction, according to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

"A small percentage of adolescents who drop out of school and haunt the internet cafes because of an internet addiction problem do not get attention from anybody, which can be a serious threat to the society in the future," said Jung-Hye Kwon, a professor of psychology at Korea University.

Watch: VICE heads to Seoul for the biggest eSports match ever held in Korea

For 24-year-old Kim Sang-ho, the obsession was online computer games, especially Starcraft and League of Leagues, which are practically national pastimes in South Korea. Eventually, his addiction to games began causing conflict with his family, and his compulsion led him to neglect sleep and proper meals. In college, his obsession caused his academic performance to slump so dramatically that, one semester, he failed all of his exams.

Read: Online Gaming Is South Korea's Most Popular Drug

Kim identifies himself as an addict. "If I think about the criteria for alcoholism and substitute gaming for alcohol, it seems correct to say I'm addicted," he told me matter-of-factly. He recalled one marathon gaming session that lasted 27 hours. "I just sat down in a PC room and just started playing games," he said. "I just got up two times to go to the bathroom."

Still, there is some question as to whether being hooked to the internet or computer games is a legitimate addiction, on par with say, substance abuse or gambling. There isn't a medical consensus on this point, and the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the manual of the American Psychiatric Association, does not recognize any such disorder.

Lee acknowledged the controversy over classification, but insisted that treating the issue as a mere morality problem won't work. "We think that by defining this phenomenon as a disease, we can find a solution to this," he said.

Classifications aside, Kim, at least, seemed glad that he has sought help. After eventually heeding his parents' pleas, he entered Lee's clinic for treatment with a group of people suffering from various addictions. There, he underwent the treatments that Lee has incorporated into his fledging program HORA, or "Happy Off to Recovery Autonomy."

For a month, Kim went cold turkey from all electronic devices. With computer games off the table, Lee prescribed reading and music for stimulation. When I visited the clinic, a dozen or so patients of all ages were making a din in a room off the main corridor. The tambourines, shakers, and other percussion instruments were all part of the patients' regular music therapya way to help them break their fixation on electronics and reenter the real world.

To work through the roots of his problem, Kim also participated in group counseling. He also had to keep a regular schedule, waking at 6:30 AM and sleeping by 10:30 PM each day.

When we met at the clinic a few weeks after his discharge, Kim told me he still plays computer gamesbut now it's never for more than two hours a day. He said that, unlike before, he is no longer obsessed.

"I can think clearly," he said. "I can concentrate on other things more, I can focus on things. I don't feel tired anymore."

Before, Kim explained, he "played computer games because I had no will to achieve other things." He said he has found a purpose now, something to work toward besides high scores on a computer screen. "I discovered my dream of wanting to become a doctor while I was here," he said.

Lee said that giving hope to gaming addicts, most of whom are young men, is one of the main goals of his program. Dazzled by stunning visuals on screen, he said, young people may be losing the ability to imagine their own future.

"Their experience has reduced their capacity to produce they own fantasies," he explained. "We can see that game addicts have lost interest in their own lives. They are absent at school, they do not have any plan for the future."

This, again, is where Momo comes inas a form of bibliotherapy, or therapy through literature. Lee said his patients have been assigned the novel in the hope it will inspire them to dream again.

"Because when you read a book, you can make your own image," he said. "I want this effect to be applied to this program."

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Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of child abuse.

If you're like me, your internet curiosity sometimes carries you to things that make you feel like you need to wash out your head. When I was in high school, like many kids with internet access and an attraction to the morbid, I browsed Rotten.com, the grossest place on the internet at the time. The site's smirking misanthropy didn't appeal to meI wasn't there to laugh at photos of people who had died violentlybut I did think it was important, for whatever reason, to actually see Chris Farley's corpse, and Rotten was happy to help me out with that. I've also watched the full video of journalist Daniel Pearl getting beheaded, and listened to the audio records made during the Jonestown massacre.

I'm far the only one who's wandered into those darkbut easily accessiblecorners of the internet. Earlier this year journalist Brianna Snyder wrote an account for Wired about her experience watching horrific videos of murder and her attempts to rationalize her viewing habits. "I know I am contributing to the humiliation and dehumanization of the victims whose deaths are caught on video," she concluded. "And I can't apologize enough to them for contributing to it. My guilt doesn't absolve me of my voyeurism. It only makes me more a part of these victims' abuse and pain."

On Motherboard: A Survey of the Dark Web Knife Trade

Most people who watch these things are less apologetic, however. You can find plenty of themwhere else?on Reddit, more precisely on the r/deepweb subreddit, where users gather to trade gossip about the worst things on the deep web, the collective name for the unindexed (meaning Google-proof), and usually encrypted sites on the web. That's where I heard about "Dafu Love," an alleged snuff film that is one of the most horrible videos ever madeif it's not simply a 21st-century urban legend.

"What is Dafu Love?" a thread started by a redditor named ImAPotatoBoss asked. "I've heard people talk about people who have gone insane watching it," he went on. "But, what is it?"

According to secondhand accounts, the supposed video features a real Australian man living in the Philippines named Peter Scully, who, along with his accomplices, tortures several babies to death. Rumor has it they use a hammer and chisel to break a baby's skull. Rumor has it they disembowel a baby. Rumor has it, they beat two babies together as though they're having a pillow fight, until the impact finally kills them.

If anyone admitted to seeing "Dafu Love," they'd be essentially confessing to a crime.

I've looked for evidence that "Dafu Love" existed, and never found anything concrete. It's hard to substantiate the rumors (one early account of the video was written in Spanish, another comes in the form of a YouTube video), and given its disgusting supposed content, its not surprising that no one is bragging about seeing it.

If anyone admitted to seeing "Dafu Love," they'd be essentially confessing to a crime, according to Frank Kardasz, former commander of the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force. "We have in the past arrested 'researchers' who then unsuccessfully tried to invoke a First Amendment/free speech/publisher protection for their contraband image collection," Kardasz told me. "You don't want to be 'That Guy.'"

Watch: The Man Who Can Conquer Mountains with His Mind

If "Dafu Love" does exist online, it would be on the deep webcomputer security expert Gareth Owen found in a study last year that 80 percent of Deep Web use is connected in some way to pedophilia. That follows a long trend of pedophiles using technology to amass collections of child pornography. In the 70s and 80s, Kardasz said, these materials were mostly distributed by snail mail, and until the mid 90s, "there was no such thing as an investigative unit anywhere whose sole focus was contraband images depicting the sexual exploitation of minors... At that time, such investigations were infrequent enough that they were only subordinate duties for investigators who mostly worked other types of crimes."

Since the advent of the internet, the scale of enforcement has exploded. "Every state in the US now has an ICAC task force," Kardasz said, adding that in addition to those task forces, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have units dedicated to arresting and prosecuting those who commit crimes against children.

Today there are law enforcement teams focused solely on the deep web. "There are more difficult cases where the child abuse material is being hosted on the Deep Web, and much of it is gone very quickly," said Detective Roy Calarese of the Chester County Computer Forensics Lab.

Peter Scully, the man rumored to be behind "Dafu Love," is one of the most loathsome nodes on the network of deep-web pedophiles. The 52-year-old Australian is currently locked away in the Philippines, awaiting trial for rape and human trafficking and under investigation for the kidnapping and murder of children.

According to reports from the Australian media, Scully moved to the Philippines in 2011 after being charged with fraud. While living there, he allegedly began making pornographic films of underage girls for a depraved global market; he was reportedly paid $10,000 (over $7,000 USD) by those who wanted to view his most notorious film, "The Destruction of Daisy," which allegedly features the torture of a baby under the age of two.

The video surfaced in Europe, according to an Australian 60 Minutes reportScully's face was blurred out, but his Australian accent gave investigators enough to find him after a worldwide search.

The only accounts of "Dafu Love" are whispers passed from alleged viewers of the video to those who want to pass the horror on to the rest of the world.

The Australian federal police did not return multiple requests for comment about Scully and "Dafu Love," and it doesn't appear that they've spoken to other media outlets about the video either.

The only accounts of "Dafu Love" are whispers passed from alleged viewers of the video to those who want to pass the horror on to the rest of the world. YouTuber vloggers who have supposedly been given insider knowledge of the video shake their heads, condemn the horrific crimes they're about to describe, and warn their viewers that they're about to hear something horrible. On the internet, a warning like that guarantees a captive audiencea video posted by a user named Takedownman has garnered hundreds of thousands of viewers in three months.

"I have had many fans ask about if it was real and if Scully was involved," Takedownman told me when I asked him what drew him to the topic, adding that Scully was "the scum of the Earth." But he couldn't help me validate the rumors about the video. "'Dafu Love' is something that many people have said is very real on the deep web. However, on the surface web, many have stated it is a fake."

Indeed, others dismiss "Dafu Love" as an urban legendnothing but a sadder version of Slender Man designed to creep the curious out. The earliest account seems to be an undated post on the Wikia community Creepypasta that's old enough to have had comments posted on it in May 2014. Creepypasta is an entertaining repository of spooky shit to read during a sleepover, but not a news source. If that's the origin of "Dafu Love," it would point to "Dafu Love" being total bullshit.

When Peter Scully was interviewed by 60 Minutes, his answers as to why he did what he did were vague and nondescript to the point of being boringit's not that he lacks remorse, it's that he seems completely divorced from the situation. But we can divorce ourselves from his sort of evil, as alien as it is to our lives. The harder question is why so many peoplemost of them presumably without a pedophiliac bone in their bodieswant to talk about "Dafu Love," and why so many others are willing and even eager to watch videos of people being dismembered and killed.

The difference between people who want to close their eyes when confronted with horror and those who peek may never be understood.

Last year, when Islamic State beheadings were big news, an academic paper titled "Captivated and Grossed Out: An Examination of Processing Core and Sociomoral Disgusts in Entertainment Media" was published. I asked one of the authors, Bridget Rubenking, descriptions of "Dafu Love" are so compelling to some people.

Having studied the disgust reactions of 130 test subjects, she's pretty sure it's about avoidance of taboos. Her hypothesis is that our ape brains are programmed to learn from watching the things we don't want to happen to ourselves, and that it's part of "our oral rejection system." Essentially, we instinctively want to follow taboos, but we also want to see them broken. A desire to see violent things happen to other people, she said, "may havemanifested itself over time to tell us what practices and what people to avoid,and we rubberneck because we don't want to do the bad thing."

According to Kardasz, "one of the continuing challenges of crimes against children is the fact that emotionally, logically, and psychologically we so abhor these crimes that we want to do everything to deny their existence," he said.

But as the 239,000 views on Takedownman's video can attest, these crimes fascinate some of us, and not everyone wants to "deny their existence" at all. And the difference between people who want to close their eyes when confronted with horror and those who peek may never be understood.

"There's content for all types because there's all types of people. I don't know some of the underlying issues of why some people are more drawn to this content than not," Rubenking said. "People's moral codes may or may not be involved in the type of content that they can stomach."

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Some of Los Angeles' homeless population on Skid Row. Image via Flickr user IK

City officials in Los Angeles announced Tuesday that they plan to declare a "state of emergency" in regards to the city's homelessness problem, and will put $100 million in taxpayer funds toward combatting the issue, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The proposal, outlined at a press conference attended by members of LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and members of the city council, would commit significant resources to dealing with homelessness in a city where it is estimated that 13,000 people lapse into homelessness every month and nearly 26,000 people are homeless at any given time.

"If we want to be a great city that hosts the Olympics and shows itself off to the world, we shouldn't have 25,000 to 50,000 people sleeping on the streets," City Councilman Gilbert Cedillo told theTimes.

It's not clear where the $100 million will come from. The Associated Press reports that city officials did not seem to have worked that out Tuesday, but said that their budget analysts would find the funds "somehow, someway." According to the AP report, the initial funding will be released on January 1, 2016 and will be used to secure "housing and shelter" for LA's homeless.

But local homelessness advocates said that the $100 million won't be enough to adequately address LA's homeless issue. As Skid Row activist Alice Callaghan pointed out to the AP, the LA funding pales in comparison to New York City's ten-year, $41 billion "Housing New York" project, which calls for the construction of 200,000 affordable housing units, and shifts the city's focus on the homeless from shelters to creating long-term affordable housing options.

"$100 million certainly won't build much housing," Callaghan said, "and what we really have here is a housing crisis."

A recent analysis of homelessness in LA by The Atlantic's CityLab confirms this view, noting that "the majority of the city's homeless are "people who need to be rapidly rehoused after experiencing a crisis like losing their homes after losing a job, missing rent, and then being evicted amid rock-bottom vacancy rates."

Five In-Depth Stories About Homelessness

1. Policing Synthetic Marijuana on LA's Skid Row
2. How Cardboard Signs Changed the Face of Homelessness in America
3. For Homeless Women, Having Your Period Isn't a Hassle, It's a Nightmare
4. Why Are We So Bad at Talking About Homelessness?
5. This LA Graffiti Artist Incorporates Homeless People Into His Pieces

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A lifesaving drug that used to cost $13.50 was going to have its price increased to $750, but the company just changed its mind.

You probably already know about Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager turned pharmaceutical executive who this week usurped the lion-killing dentist as the most hated man in America. Long story short, his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the price of Daraprim, a pill that sick people need to live. The internet responded by calling him all the worst things:

Well, Shkreli caved Tuesday, and just told NBC News that the cost of the drug is going to be relowered over the next few weeks. Shkreli didn't say what the new price will be, but admitted he made the decision in an effort to appease the public, so its safe to assume the drop will be significant.

"I think that it makes sense to lower the price in response to the anger that was felt by people," Shkreli said this afternoon. He stopped short of apologizing, though, saying only that "there were mistakes made with respect to helping people understand why we took this action."

"I think in the society we live in today it's easy to want to villainize people, and obviously we're in an election cycle where this is a very, very tough topic for people and it's very sensitive," he continued. "And I understand the outrage."

The topic had already become an issue in the 2016 presidential election. In a tweet Monday, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton called Turing's price hike "outrageous," and hinted she would propose possible regulations to address the issue.

Clinton tweeted again today:

Angelyne's signature pink Corvette. All photos by Michelle Alexis Newman

If you live in Los Angeles, you've probably run into Angelyne, the perpetually pink "Hollywood Billboard Queen" who in the 1980s became a pioneer in the field of being famous for being famous. A master in the art of self-promotion, she gained national recognition before social media made everyone an promoter of their own personal brand. The Kardashians wouldn't be the Kardashians if not for Angelyne being Angelyne, so thank God for her.

Growing up I was told Barbies couldn't exist in the real worldthat they'd be constantly falling over because of the unrealistic size of their boobs. Angelyne puts that myth to shame, standing upright despite her seemingly impossible boob-to-waist ratio. Her fashion choices leave very little to the imagination, with precisely placed cutouts on her vag-length dresses accentuating the remarkable smoothness of her ass.

Over the weekend, Angelyne had an art show at the MODA Art Gallery in Hollywood and proved she endures as the epitome of Hollywood celebrity. Because in addition to being a self-proclaimed Hollywood icon, Angelyne is also an artist who paints depictions of her favorite subject: herself.

Her signature pink Corvette was parked on Sunset Boulevard, not far from where the billboard that catapulted her to stardom in the 1980s once stood. There was a raffle at the show where 22 winners would be randomly chosen for a ride in the mobile Hollywood landmark.

The museum was packed with fans, reporters, and other characters in their own right, as extravagant and attention-grabbing as the nipples. Angelyne's fame comes from her persona, and it's clear that her be-who-you-want-to-be-to-the-highest-degree-possible attitude had rubbed off on the show's attendees. There were Tim Burton types, punk dudes in fishnets, and LA's most beautifully haired men, all showing Angelyne's influence in their public display of a caricatured, over-the-top version of themselves.

Everyone shuffled around the main room of the gallery, which was plastered in erotic, nip-focused paintings. Metallic, sensually posed mannequins were placed around the room, along with TVs playing slideshows of Angelyne. All of the art was on sale, with small prints going for a couple hundred dollars and the larger originals priced as high as $10,000.

In a smaller room, a bar was selling refreshments and handing out free "Pink Drinks"specifically, pink champagne, Charles Shaw ros, and Shasta Cola's "Fiesta Punch." Across from the bar was Angelyne, obstructed by a white room divider, taking photos and signing autographs at $10 a pop for a rotating posse of fans. Her "people"a group of beautiful blonde men straight out of Saturday Night Feverhovered close by. Anyone who tried to sneak a free photo got a stern talking-to from Angelyne herselfwhat, you thought this was a charity event?

I decided to splurge on a picture, hoping for the opportunity to snag a couple words with the elusive star of the night. Not surprisingly, she was all business, and quickly handed me a pink feather fan"this one is yours"then immediately struck her go-to fan-over-the-face-and-one-knee-up pose.

I asked if I could put my hand on her thigh for the photo, at which point she thrust her leg up into the air and placed her ankle into my hand. I was taken aback by the flying ankle and undeniably intimidated by her superior posing (and balance), but I held it together, happy to be Angelyne's accessory for about five and a half seconds. She then shooed me out of the photo area as her assistant ushered in her next customer.

The author and Angelyne

In between photos, Angelyne spent most of the show darting around the gallery and retrieving merch out of the trunk of her Corvette: autographed photos, T-shirts, and $50 copies of her magazine Hot Pin. She was constantly on the move, sitting still only for a few moments to personally sell someone a shirt or chat with her personal assistant. It was clear she had her hand in practically every component of the event.

Despite being in a gallery filled with giant oil-painted nipples, most of the crowd was drawn to Angelyne herself. She's been at this for years, and she plays the role of self-styled icon well. Her persona draws its power from the mystery that surrounds her: Who is that woman on these billboards? Where did she come from? Why is she dressed like that? Why is she still famous? And what am I doing paying $40 for a T-shit she's selling out of the trunk of her car? But if anyone who thought her art show would be a chance to peek behind the curtain of spandex and secrecy, they were shit out of luck. Regardless of the medium, Angelyne remains Angelyne, mystery included.

When Angelyne came into the main room of the gallery to cut her cake, the place froze. She walked swiftly through the room, her entourage of attractive men in tow, stopping only to give the clerk of her favorite video rental store a smooch on the cheek. Soon, though, she returned to the back. Too much socializing with the rabble kills the mystery. Besidesthere were pictures to pose for.

See more photos from the event below:

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Roquelina Fernandez, who turned her dress into a T-shirt to pass dress code at Rikers. All photos by the author

VICE is exploring America's prison system in the week leading up to our special report with President Obama for HBO. Tune in Sunday, September 27, at 9 PM EST, to see his historic first-ever presidential visit to a federal prison.

You can spot them almost any day of the week, clustered at bus stops around Queens with nearly identical gray sweatsuits and thermals and shower shoes stuffed into black plastic bags. They often have infants on their hips or impatient children in hand, their faces made with care that belies their sneakers and sports bras, and their undone hair.

These are the ladies of Rikers Island. Not the female inmates of the 800-bed Rose M. Singer Center, but the untold thousands whose husbands, brothers, baby-fathers, boyfriends and relatives make up the detention complex's roughly 11,000 other inhabitants, and who fill the Q100 bus most days of the week laden with clothing and other supplies for their imprisoned loved ones.

And there's a reason the women themselves all look so similar.

"I hate that shirt," cried Niesha Smith, 20, bouncing her one-year-old daughter on her lap on the Q100 bus as she described the XXL neon green "cover-up garment" female visitors like her are forced to wear if their outfits fall short of the jail's strict visitor dress code. "I want my daughter's father to see me, to see my body, that's why I came."

When they were first introduced in 2011, the T-shirts were touted by the city's tabloids as "covering up the skanksand keeping out the shanks." In theory, the garment's purpose is to conceal the provocatively clad and draw extra eyes to anyone who might be trying to smuggle in contraband, and on paper it would seem simple enough to avoid the see-through tops, miniskirts, and hot pants that aren't kosher.

But in practice, the rules can be onerousand many say, capriciousfor women, who constitute the bulk of visitors. Even a slight infraction of the written codea blouse that gaps in the back, for example, or a patella peeking out from a skirtcan earn a humiliating sartorial addition from the New York City Department of Corrections.

Alexis Cortez, who says she was turned away for a long skirt with a slit in it and made to wear "the shirt" for a pair of leggings on her last visit to Rikers Island

"This is actually a dressI had to put on pants to make it look like a shirt," 17-year-old Roquelina Fernandez told me of her outfit as she sat outside the main visitor center smoking a cigarette. "It's a dress like this," she said, pointing to mine, "but if it's here"she pointed to just above my knee, where the dress I was wearing had ridden up"and not here"she tapped just below my kneecap"they give you a shirt."

To be clear, did Roquelina honestly think that the same high-necked, long-sleeved black maternity dress I'd worn to my Orthodox synagogue for Rosh Hashanah a few days beforethe one covering seven months of very obvious pregnancywould earn me the shirt?

"Once they see it rises up past your knees, no, you can't wear it," she added.

She and others I spoke to told me the code is so strict it would make a Catholic school teacher blush. The rules effectively translate to no tank tops, no V-necks, no button-up shirts or leggings or dresses. A rule against layers means sweltering through summer and shivering all winter long. Another forbidding uniforms adds an extra layer of hassle for hospital and fast-food workers coming to visit from their jobs.

"It's horrible, because it makes you feel like one of them," 45-year-old Juyana Lewis said of the shirts, which she considered punitive. "That just teaches you a lesson."

Dress codes aren't without some justification: On my last trip here, I overheard a group of visitors talking about an inmate who had been shanked after his mom wore a red top on a visit (red being the traditional color of the Bloods). And although the Department of Correction (DOC) has so far declined to answer questions about the dress code or how it's enforced, the visitors have theories.

"It's different for a man," Lola Arroyo, 29, explained to the younger mom Niesha when she despaired over getting stuck with the shirt for her V-neck top. When they see even a small amount of cleavage, "it creates a big problem."

Kya Morrell, 17, with her daughter Abria, whose father has been incarcerated for 21 months. Morrell doesn't get much hassle for her outfits, but her hair is a different story: The complicated do gets a full search for weapons.

Still, the written code isn't the only thing limiting what female visitors can wear. Arroyo and others spoke of their wireless Rikers Island bras.

"I still wear an underwire bra but you have to sign a paper area. It's disgusting."

Underwires aren't the only item likely to trigger a so-called "consecutive search"the wrong hairstyle can do it, too.

"They put their fingers in your hair to make sure you ain't got no weapons," said Kya Morrell, 17, who'd brought her one-year-old daughter Abria two hours from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn to see Abria's father, who has been on Rikers for 21 months.

Despite hours of travel each way and hours more enduring sometimes invasive searches, a fashion violation can mean no visit at all.

"They pick and choose," Cortez explained, saying she'd been sent home for a long skirt with a slit, but allowed to visit wearing a cover-up on a day she wore leggings.

Fernandez agreed.

"There's so much stupid rules, some of them don't even make sense," she said.

"You can't wear a ponytail or a bun. If you have a headband, you gotta take it off," Fernandez added. "If you have on a one-piece jumper, you have to wear the green shirt for that too. You gotta come here bumming."

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The body scanners commonly used now by the TSA produce a cartoon-like avatar of passengers. In this 2011 image the pink and blue buttons for "male" and "female" are visible. Image via Wikipedia.

Shadi Petosky flies often and without incident. So when the writer and producer snaked through the security line at the Orlando airport yesterday, the only thoughts in her head were about the birthday she'd just celebrated with her mom at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. But after a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent pulled her aside due to an "anomaly" the 41-year-old's vacation turned into a denigrating nightmare.

According to an account Petosky posted to Twitter, the anomaly in question was her penis. After a 40-minute ordeal that included being held in a room, being asked to declare her sex, and being given two full pat-downs, she missed her flight.

"I fly all the time and this has never happened," Petosky tweeted. "I really thought the TSA was good about trans issues. I am so dumb."

This isn't the first time the TSA has been accused of mistreating trans passengers. In fact, Petosky says it's happened to most if not all of her friends. On Twitter, she started to hashtag #FlyingWhileTrans, which elicited responses from people who reported similar treatment. According to a 2011 survey (pdf) from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality, 21 percent of trans people reported being discriminated against while flying.

@TSA I was flagged for a "groin anomaly" at MHT. Agents had no idea what to do. One called me a "trailblazer." Training...? #FlyingWhileTrans
Annika Backstrom (@abackstrom) September 22, 2015

#flyingwhiletrans is the fucking worst. I once had a security officer look at my passport, look at me, and laugh. He straight up laughed.
naomi gordon-loebl (@naomigloebl) September 22, 2015

According to Petosky, when a passenger enters a full-body scanner, a TSA agent is supposed to push either a pink or blue button depending on what gender the passenger presents as. When the Petosky's genitals did not match with her gender presentation, it created a problem. An agent supposedly told her to "get back in the machine as a man, or there was going to be a problem," Petosky tweeted.

The TSA did not respond to VICE's request for comment, but the agency told the New York Times that "after examining closed-circuit TV video and other available information, TSA has determined that the evidence shows our officers followed TSA's strict guidelines."

Watch our documentary on gay conversion therapy:

Airport body scanners have been part of a legal battle that's been going on since 2007, sparked by civil rights groups that allege the system is an invasion of privacy. In 2011, a court ruled that the TSA needed to develop formal rules for the scanners, but that never happened. In July, three groups, including the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), filed a petition saying the agency needed to speed things up. The government filed a response just this week, saying they need more time, according to court records.

"This incident provides yet another disturbing illustration that something is wrong with airport security," NCTE Director of Policy Harper Jean Tobin said in a statement to VICE. "For years TSA relied on body scanners and prison-style pat-downs as its primary tools despite mounting evidence that they don't work. It's a waste of billions and unfair to all travelers, but anyone who looks different or whose body is different is harmed the most."

While the NCTE might be using Petosky as an example to prove their point, she claims that she didn't want to be the subject of a media firestorm when she started talking about her experience on social media. The tweets were merely a way of publicly documenting her mistreatment, she says.

"I'm not going to lie," Petosky tweeted after her account went viral. "I zero percent want to be googled as the transsexual who's junk got flagged in Orlando."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Roger H. Goun

Read: Photos of the People in the Path of the Keystone XL Pipeline

Last week, Secretary of State-cum-presidential candidate-cum-Gmail enthusiast Hillary Clinton announced that she would weigh in "soon" on the issue of the Keystone XL pipeline, and whether or not the Obama Administration should move to block it.

On Tuesday, Clinton made good on that, coming definitively against the controversial Keystone XL pipeline pipeline during an Iowa campaign event, after an audience member questioned the Democratic presidential candidate about her stance.

"I think it is imperative that we look at the Keystone XL pipeline as what I believe it isa distraction from the important work we have to do to combat climate change, and, unfortunately from my perspective, one that interferes with our ability to move forward and deal with other issues," Clinton said, according to NBC News. "I oppose it."

Until now Clinton had been conspicuously silent about the transnational oil pipeline, which would transport crude oil from the Canadian tar sands through the US to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The pipeline has become a touchstone issue for environmentalists, who argue that it could have disastrous effects on the environment and global climate change.The Obama administration has long delayed making a decision about whether to approve the project.

Pipeline supporterslike Jeb Bush, who was quick to throw shade on Clinton's announcementclaim the project will boost the US economy and spur job creation.

A slide in America flaunts its curves. Photo via bcrumpler.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

A man from Coventry, England, has been banned from any places that may have a slide in themplaygrounds, soft-surface jungle gyms, those grim fairgrounds brought to your town each year by ratty men in bodywarmers, sucking the scum of cowboy roll-ups into their thin, boneless bodiesbecause the police found him having sex with a slide once.

On NOISEY: Drake and Future's New Mixtape is the High Watermark of 'Soundbite Rap'

I mean! Can a man not have sex with a slide, once! Can a manChristopher Johnson, the man, 46, from Coventrycan a man not simulate sex with a slide without being arrested for indecent acts in a park at night by the police! Can a man not also have a previous conviction for a similar offense dating back to July last year, when he undressed and "performed a sex act" on top of another, separate, but equally sexy slide? Well: No, he cannot. Being sexy in playgrounds is generally frowned upon and seen as bad.

But we live in a country now where the Prime Ministermaybe, possibly, allegedlyput his flaccid undergraduate penis in the mouth of a dead pig. So why can't a man from Coventry fuck a slide?

We live in a world where a woman ended her 20-year relationship with the Berlin Wall to marry the Eiffel Tower, and we view her as a sort of novelty fetishist, a sort of harmless iron frotter. And yet a man from Coventry may not become aroused by a slide! Is it because we are so enamored with the idea of romantic love that marrying a 1,063-foot lattice tower is seen as OK, but having a seedy little one-night stand on top of a slide is not? Would it be OK if Christopher Johnson had proposed to the slide first, and simulated sex atop it gently in a honeymoon suite in a four-star Barbadian hotel? Are we slut-shaming the world's slide fuckers?

On VICE Sports: Emmanuel Adebayor, Football's Unloved Maverick

Again: no. Just to clarify: no, don't fuck slides. It's a literal sex offense. Johnson was handed a Criminal Behavior Order yesterday banning him from playgrounds, swimming baths, recreation grounds, and leisure centers for the next three years, as well as a 55 costs and charges, as well as having to undergo an 18-month sex offender treatment program. So, to recap: don't fuck slides. But still: It's one rule for a braying future prime minister allegedly putting his dick in a pig, or a former Olympian in love with a 128-year-old Parisian tourist attraction, quite another for a simple Coventry man fucking a slide.

Class war now.

Follow Joel on Twitter.

Image via Flickr Commons

Erotic asphyxiation, or EA, is a sexual act that involves suffocation. You probably know that already. How to get to that point is up to the individual. Rope, hands, bags, cling-film, waterthe method can be chosen to suit the desired effect. For some, this is just the thrill of being dominated with a hand on the throat, for others the sensation of oxygen being cut off from the brain heightens the intensity of an orgasm. For others, the aim is to pass out completely. The negative side effects can range from cardiac arrest to permanent brain damage. The likelihood of this happening increases when EA is done alone"autoerotic asphyxiation."

While the above will be known to anyone who's been through more than a handful of one-night stands or porn clips, as a society we don't know how many fatalities are caused by EA and AEA. No one seems to want to talk about finding their loved ones next to open laptops in dark rooms. The police can't always tell us about it either, because often the ropes and plastic bags are swept under the carpet before they arrive by embarrassed family members. Coroner's reports are frequently inconclusive, barring us from understanding sexual suffocation as the modern-day social phenomena we suspect it is.

But while talking about EA might be difficult, and potentially dangerous if framed in the wrong way, it is also necessary. A considered, informed, and public discussion needs to happen about EA because, in the words of Dominic Davies, founder of an independent body for diverse sexualities named Pink Therapy, "scaremongering or silence doesn't help anyone."

The psychology of erotic asphyxiation is incredibly interesting and diffuse. As I talked to Jess, a businesswoman, about how she incorporates chokeholds into sex with her partner, it surfaced that the most significant sensation for her was the power dynamic it created. Jess told me that her partner's ability to read her body in the most minute sense when she is in the spasming throes of his hold has brought them closer on an emotional level: "For me it's about feeling safe with someone, I want to be with someone who can read me and what my body is doing, and who can understand that when I'm screaming, he has to stopthat I might not be able to say the safe word. It's about trust that we have."

But stories of EA also take on a much darker hue. Talking to three men who've been restricting their own oxygen supply during masturbation from as early as ten years old, they weren't aware that what they were doing could be defined as autoerotic asphyxiation, or that anyone else in the world was even doing it. A 44-year-old-man called John told me his story:

"At an early age, the idea of being strangled was exciting to me. My first experience was when I was six or seven, playing with a neighbor's son and a skipping rope. I don't really remember who instigated what next but I remember being in the garage, stood on a box and he was tying the rope around my neck tight and then on to a hook. Luckily someone came in and interrupted us or who knows how that would have ended. Being interrupted taught me to be ashamed of what we did. I guess that's the same for most people and is why it's still kept behind closed doors."

It was at that point that John realized the danger involved and tried to stop. "That didn't work out," he continues. "It was always thereseeing a strangling scene on TV or a film, seeing two lads in the playground play fighting, even putting on my tie in the morning and sliding the knot up would give me an erection. From school to my early twenties I would practice AEA alone, isolated, and thinking I was the only person alive that did this to themselves."

Just like John, a large number of teenage boys seem to discover EA for themselves, and rather than being able to involve it in their relationships in a positive way, it becomes a repressed part of their sexualities. DanielGuy, an erotic writer, told me that he came to discover EA as a coping mechanism for his fear of the dark: "I used it to try and survive. I think I must have eroticized that fear and turned it into a wish. So at night time, instead of becoming frightened of these monsters, I started to invite them in. And then, the fantasy continued evolving. At some point, I thought of a plastic bag, and the minute I did, it became crack cocaine."

In these discussions, the phrase "madman" came up a lot. In one particularly upsetting conversation, a guy called Craig told me that it was a curse he couldn't shake. He opened up our phone call by saying, "I absolutely hate myself for it. I would class it as a curse sometimes, and I often feel wracked with guilt about it." He never delved deeper into the psychological reasons as to why he was attracted to watching "peril clips" of women drowning, but it did turn out that someone in his immediate family drowned when he was young. Craig was middle-aged, and he had never spoken out loud about it to anyone before me.

It is this kind of shame, fueled by secrecy, which seems to be the most dangerous thing about EA because it forces people to practice alone and not seek out proper education. DanielGuy told me that, with hindsight, he could see that he was on a scary path as a young man. "I was doing things so dangerously that it was only a matter of time before I would be discovered dead." Craig too, without any idea of the dangers of autoerotic asphyxiation, sought out increasingly dangerous situations, telling me that as a young man, he used to "ride out to a secluded spot, put a plastic bag on bike helmet on top for a bit." He pauses. "One time I couldn't loosen the strap on my bike helmet, so I was suffocating. I felt like I was just going to die, but eventually got it loose."

So why didn't they seek out a community to help educate and support them in their experiences? Unfortunately, the relationship between EA and the BDSM community, despite their common reliance on the psychological interplay between dominance and submission, remains pretty murky and unclear.

When talking to authorities in the BDSM and sexual health communities, some, such as Pink Therapy, claimed that the BDSM banner does cover EA, and other kinds of "RACK" or high-risk edge play such as chemsex. An online BDSM guru called Ambrosio told me that while "EA is part and parcel of BDSM, and it isn't discriminated against in the very inclusive BDSM community, it isn't practiced at open BDSM parties because not everyone is comfortable with actively condoning others practicing it in their presence."

Others, such as Susan Wright from the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, vehemently told me that EA "is not BDSMthat's an act that people do that people in the BDSM community are really aware of the dangers of."

This lack of clarity between the two camps is still a big problem: "It's a shame about solo EAers," said Ambrosio, as he rung off to head back to his office, "people doing it alone aren't even part of the community." He continues: "They could find friends to do it with, and also simultaneously minimizebut not eliminatethe risks involved."

Even if someone is lucky enough to reach out and find a friend or partner there to spot for themas in, check they're OKthe story can still often end in tragedy. These situations are made scarier by the fact that, after an EA death, there is usually no way to prove that the other person involved wasn't perpetrating the violence, and that they are not, therefore, a murderer. Shouldn't the possibility that a "spotter" might end up with serious criminal charges (aiding and abetting lethal behavior, manslaughter, or even murder) if something goes wrong be enough to put someone off?

Apparently not. The crux of this very technical, and often very heated, debate among the BDSM online community, is that however dangerous EA and AEA may be, people will always continue to do it. For some, part of EA's allure stems from its potential for fatality. Jess said that "before and after, I am very, very aware of the fact that he could kill me, but in a way, that risk is what makes it enjoyablebecause you're pushing the boundaries of what you think your body can do."

Related: Watch VICE's film, 'The Enduring and Erotic Power of Quicksand on Screen'

The people I spoke to told me that, with experience and research, they felt completely in control of their actions. Jess said that she puts her hand on her partner's knee to tell him to stop, and DanielGuy says he can just rip the plastic bag he puts around his head before he passes out. Yet Jay Wiseman, a prominent BDSM spokesperson in America, resolutely says of EA that "you cannot reduce your odds to zero." He raises a salient point in that no one really knows they are going to pass out until they do... until they forget to put their hand on their knee or rip the plastic bag.

So, should it be banned? "We can't legislate against risk," DanielGuy told me. "I put EA in the same category as skydiving or cliff-jumpingpeople will die from it, but I wouldn't ban it. It is just important for people to know what the risks are before they do it." Maybe part of the reason people feel the need to condemn EA is because there is always a moral subjectivity involved in commentary on sexual "perversions"it is unfortunately never just a purely physiological discussion, especially in the mainstream media. DanielGuy said he was once offered psychotherapy by his doctor to stop him from feeling attracted to suffocation.

Overall, the sticking point for everyone I talked to about EA seemed to be the rapid pace with which the internet is depicting the practice. With extreme porn so readily available to young people, it is obvious that legislation can't keep up with what people are finding out for themselves. Jess said, "Making a subject taboo actually makes it more interesting, especially for hormonal teenagers who are going to get it wrong. The chances are that half of these teenagers have already watched it on porn anyway. People should be educated, because if you stumble upon it, without the education, you're more likely to get it wrong." DanielGuy stated firmly that "without proper debate, young kids are going to explore this, and are explore it in their own way, privately, and we don't know anything about it."

It's hard to curb the number of people participating in EA, as long as people have bodies and dark rooms in which to play around with them. The only responsibility we have is to try to stop people dying. The best thing to do is to try to match the prevalence of porn with reliable, honest, and nonpartisan information. Even Jay Wiseman believes that more, not less, information about EA is a good thing, saying, "I have noticed that, when people are educated regarding the severity and unpredictability of the risks, fewer and fewer choose to play in this area, and those who do continue tend to play less often."

What an ethical form of EA education would look like is unclear. It's hard to imagine it being taught in schools. The only clear fact about EA is that it is officially out of the box, and you can't, and shouldn't, try to force it back in.

The artist Hardeep Pandhal. All photos Joel Chester Fildes

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

There is very little recognition of contemporary British Asian artists working in the mainstream UK art scene today. Sound like a bold statement? Let's take a look: there's Anish Kapoor, whose huge biomorphic sculptures first came to prominence back in the 1980s. Kapoor went on to great success, winning the Turner Prize and exhibiting everywhere from the 2012 Olympics, the Rockefeller Center, to inside the Tate Modern and outside the Millennium Dome. His work has also netted him a CBE. So yeah, Sir Anish Kapoor is doing OK for himself.

So Kapoor's the big household name, but what about other British Asian artists? There's photographer and filmmaker Zarina Bhimji (shortlisted for the 2007 Turner Prize), multimedia artist Shezad Dawood (who has exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery and whose Future Light is currently showing at the Vienna Biennial), audio sculptor Haroon Mirza (winner of the Silver Lion for Most Promising Artist at the Venice Bienalle, 2011), and multimedia artist Chila Kumari Burman (exhibited at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the V&A).

These are all artists who have achieved varying degrees of success, but if you're not a dedicated follower, practitioner, or scholar of British contemporary art, you'd be forgiven for never having heard of them before. And if you do recognize the names, then would you associate them as synonymous with British contemporary art in the same way as you would, say, the likes of Damien Hirst and his formaldehyde tiger shark? Or Tracey Emin's messy bed? Or Grayson Perry's tapestries?

The YBAs still form a strong influential framework for British contemporary art, as does the Turner Prize, but if you look at these environments where modern British art routinely flourishes, it's hard to ignore the fact that the artists spawned from these creative wombs are predominantly white. The Turner Prize hasn't seen a non-Caucasian winner since Steve McQueen in 1999, and nearly all the YBA alumni are white (Hirst and Emin aside, there's Marc Quinn, Sarah Lucas, Gary Hume, Gavin Turk, and The Chapman Brothersthe notable exception here being Chris Ofili).

According to the 2011 UK Census, British Asians make up roughly seven percent of the UK population ("all white ethnic groups" make up 86 percent, Black British just over three percent). When you look at the ostensibly progressive cultural sphere of the contemporary art scene, this lack of representation for "minority ethnic artists" seems pretty surprising.

Hyperbolic Publicity

Hardeep Pandhal is a Birmingham-born artist living in Glasgow. He's gradually starting to become well-regarded in the art world (he's a recipient of the Drawing Room's Bursary Award; a 2013 Bloomberg New Contemporary and has been reviewed in Frieze, amongst other things) for his work, which incorporates an eclectic mix of video art (home movies and pseudo-documentaries), collages, drawings and paintings, sculpture, and even his mom's own knitwear (jumpers with knitted portraits of everyone from 2Pac to Bruce Parry to Sikh religious martyr Baba Deep Singh). Hardeep also happens to be a second generation British Sikh and, whether he likes it or not, he's likely to always be categorized as a "British Asian artist." I spoke to him about his experiences in the art industry and how his work (influenced by everything from satire to Sikh mythology, from rappers to racism) both embraces and rejects notions of cultural identity.

VICE: OK, first off: to quote you from one of your films (JojoBoys): "This whole thing about being British-Asian is kind of a bit weird ... Because it's the truth, but, you know, it doesn't need to be the truth." What do you mean by this?
Hardeep Pandhal: for the sake of cultural progressthe arts need to be diverse. You need to have it, to make the world more equal, but it only does it by using these terms that are problematic. It's just a mental situation.

Hardeep Pandhal is currently exhibiting a solo show, 'Plebeian Archive,' at The David Dale Gallery in Glasgow, which runs until October 24, and has another forthcoming exhibition at the Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, which opens November 13.

VICE is exploring America's prison system in the week leading up to our special report with President Obama for HBO. Tune in Sunday, September 27, at 9 PM EST, to see his historic first-ever presidential visit to a federal prison.

I sat on a curb beside a steel gate inside of the United States Penitentiary in Atwater, California on the morning of August 13, 2012. It was my 9,135th day of incarceration, and it was going to be my last. DEA agents had arrested me for leading a scheme to distribute cocaine more than 25 years earlier, on August 11, 1987.

But I wasn't yet free. I'd have to serve my final year inside of a skid row halfway house on the corner of Taylor and Turk in San Francisco's Tenderloin District. My case manager had told me to report to the rear gate by 7:30. The guard didn't show up until 8:30.

"Are you Santos?"

"I am."

"Let him pass." he said into his walkie-talkie before the gate opened. "Let's go."

That was it. Thirty minutes later, the guard finished his administrative paperwork and processed me out. I walkedwithout chains!through long corridors in which I could smell the institutional-strength cleaning solvents from freshly polished floors that I'd never crossed before. We passed steel bars that opened electronically. Finally, I reached the last steel door, heard an electronic buzz, and the door cracked open. I pushed my way through into the lobby, closer to freedom than I could remember being before.

Even the air felt different.

As I stepped toward the penitentiary's lobby, I saw Carole. She married me inside of a different prison's visiting room on June 24, 2003. Other than those hours we were allowed to sit beside each other, with bright fluorescent lights shining aboveand obtrusive guards eyeballing uswe'd never been together before. As I saw her, lyrics from an old song by Tony Orlando played in my head: "Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree, if you still love me..." She wore a dress, with a yellow belt cinched around her waist. For the first time, I could kiss my wife without worrying about a guard reprimanding me.

"Let's get out of here," she said.

Carole had been visiting me in prisons for more than a decade and couldn't wait to leave them behind. We didn't have much time together. Guards only authorized three hours for her to drive me to the halfway house in San Francisco.

"This is yours," she said, handing me an iPhone as I strapped my seatbelt on in her SUV.

I'd never held a modern cell phone, never used the internet, never sent an email. That type of technology didn't exist when I'd been locked away.

"It's really small," I said. I'd seen pictures of an iPhone in magazines, but this one looked tiny and felt light. When I pressed the phone to my ear, I thought it didn't work because there wasn't a dial tone.

Carole giggled as she showed me how to make calls and use the various apps. While she drove, I talked to family members and friends, admiring the scenery of liberty.

Check out the moment President Obama meets with federal prison inmates as part of our upcoming HBO special on the criminal justice system.

"I'm Michael Santos."

The guard on the other side of the glass cage told me to speak louder. "I just got released from the prison in Atwater. I was supposed to be here an hour ago but traffic was bad."

I held Carole and kissed her goodbye when the guard buzzed me inside. Rules permitted me to carry the iPhone and a care package Carole prepared into the new institution. The halfway house was supposed to be my residence for the next year.

The guard who processed me inside told me his name was Fidelis. By his accent, I could tell he was from Nigeria (several of my fellow inmates in Fort Dix, New Jersey, had come from there). He seemed cool. When I answered his question about how long I'd been locked up, he seemed to give me a pass and spare me the bureaucratic interferences that I'd been anticipating.

"Welcome home," Fidelis said, giving me a key and telling me that I'd been assigned to room 217.

Decades had passed since the last time I'd held a key.

Armed robbers served time alongside pregnant women who were in for forging checks.

The halfway house was a whole new world. For one thing, it was co-ed. Hundreds of people loitered in the lobby, men and women. Instead of uniforms, they wore their own clothing. They were eating food from restaurants. I'd served my final decade inside of various minimum-security prisons; higher-security prisons confined me during my first 15 years of incarceration. Each prison had its own vibe because the prisoners shared the same custody and security classification. The halfway house, on the other hand, confined people from every security level. Armed robbers served time alongside pregnant women who were in for forging checks. I wondered how long it would take before rules would allow me to buy food from the community.

After introducing myself to Tom, my new roommate, I learned a lot more.

"This place sucks," he said.

Tom told me about his experiences. From his perspective, the case manager didn't appreciate the challenges convicted felons faced in the job market. For example, after Tom persuaded a mechanic to hire him as a janitor, he hoped for a pass that would allow him to spend weekends at home. Rather than encouraging Tom by issuing the pass, the case manager refused. He cited policies that prohibited home passes until he completed classes that the halfway house offered during his work hours. Attending the classes would authorize Tom for the home pass, but time away from work would threaten his job. Those types of obstructions, to Tom, felt worse than the interference he received while in prison.

If I didn't have a job, Tom told me that I wouldn't be able to get much time outside of the halfway house. Once I found a job, he said, I'd be able to get home passes on weekends. To qualify for the passes, however, he said that I'd need to complete ten classes. My case manager would explain everything the next day.

Frank Sinatra sang about making it in New Yorkif you could make it there, you could make it anywhere. I made it through over 25 years of prison, and didn't have any doubt that I could make it through a year in a halfway houseregardless of what complications the case manager presented. Without a doubt, I thought, succeeding through a quarter-century in prison prepared me for any and all halfway house challenges.

The following day, I sat across the table from Charles, my case manager. His cologne overpowered the room. With pomade slicking down his hair, Charles bore a striking resemblance to the actor Billy Dee Williams. He looked at me with amazement when I told him that I had secured a job before being released from prison. "I'm ready to go to work as soon as you allow," I said.

"How were you able to persuade an employer to hire you while you were still locked up?"

"I began preparing for my release the day I got convicted," I replied. "It made all the difference. Despite interference from the system, I educated myself, published books, and built a support network."

"In order to work," he said, "you'll need to pay subsistence. That's 25 percent of your gross earnings."

"Not a problem. I've got sufficient savings to cover my expenses for more than a year right now. I'll pay whatever is required if you let me work."

Charles looked at me curiously, as if I were an ape who had learned how to talk. Since I could present myself from a position of strength, my relationship with the case manager began differently than Tom's. Instead of requiring that I attend the classes, Charles said I could simply write an essay. He gave me a pass to walk out into the city so that I could purchase clothing for work. The next day, I was off, ready to begin building my life. With a job waiting, I was authorized to leave the halfway house at six each morning, six days a week. I didn't have to return until nine in the evening. Basically, I just slept there. Soon after arriving, I received weekend passes to stay at home with Carole.

Preparations inside made for an easy adjustment through the San Francisco Halfway House. Not every prisoner has it so easy.

Follow Michael Santos on Twitter and check out his website here.

Photos by Raf Katigbak

Wil McLean is gleefully watching me browse a duffle bag filled with beige rubbery phalluses. "Are all the dicks in there? There's more substantial dicks: there's one the size of a coke can... I have one over there that's four and a half pounds of penis." These attachmentsthat range from slender, modestly dimpled mushrooms, to giant, fleshy grenadesare normally fitted atop a Sybian, a machine that McLean rents out through his website Sybiantoronto.com.

For those of you who haven't "accidentally" searched for one on porn tube sites or seen the thing in action on Howard Stern, the Sybian is a monolithic black saddle sex machine with a support for vibrating and rotating attachmentsone of them is a prosthetic finger. There's also a three-foot cable attached to a remote control with heavy-duty switches and dials, a weighty kind of thing that looks like it should actually be used to control a grain elevator. In short: the thing is absolutely terrifying.

But if you absolutely have to fuck a machine, at least this one's well built. According to the website, the housing is a composite material that can withstand over 1,000 lbs of pressure. Under the hood is an industrial 1/29 horsepower Bodine Electric Company motor that vibrates the saddle, and another that gyrates the attachment. It's the sort of sleek, no frills, purpose-built design that means business. And that business is giving women really intense orgasms.

Over the years, if he had to guess, McLean's brought "a couple thousand" women to climax working the machine at regular sex club nights in Toronto. It's a stat that he needs to calculate on the fly, not the sort of brag he has on hand to drop like some douchey PUA guy peacocking at a nightclub. In fact, he's a pretty affable guy. Jokey, easygoing, engaged, but relaxed, the kind of guy you'd invite to a family barbecue within five minutes of meeting hima demeanour that comes in handy when you're showing up to strangers apartments with a 22-pound naugahyde fuck machine that can vibrate at 6,400 RPM.

Usually McLean has a fleet of seven machines and does between 15 and 20 rentals a month (not including machines on long-term loan). Latelyspecifically because of TIFF, he sayshe's been doing a lot of deliveries, and he's had no shortage of people willing to shell out 150 bucks a night (or $250 for two nights) to have their wicked way with his machine.

VICE caught up with McLean at his other venturebuilding Canada's largest indoor obstacle course and training centreto discuss his long history with sex toys, his role as a sex educator and instructor, the science behind the orgasm, and some wisdom for couples culled from three years of professionally getting people off. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Canada's orgasm whisperer.

VICE: When people ask you what you do, what do you tell them?
Wil McLean: I say, "professional orgasm facilitator." Really, I fall into the category of sexual education. I facilitate an environment that people can participate in.

How does one become an orgasm facilitator?
I worked at the Condom Shack and I got into adult toys and productsthat was the nature of the store. I started speaking to suppliers and when I left, they continued to contact me to ask for feedback on things. They would send me products and I would review and talk to them about it, tell them what their selling point and their angles were, and give them constructive criticism. Then I started working with an escort industry at one point, as a driver, so I was driving girls to and from clients and customers, and that really gave me an inside look at the provision of services. I saw very much first hand where the lack of safety was, but also the lack of provision for women and couples. It's such an often misogynist, often male ego driven space; you know: it's about sending girls out to a guy who wants sex on demand from women. Very rarely is it the opposite of that.

There's not a lot of sexual services for women and couples that don't feel seedy or sketchy. Do you rent a gigolo for you and your wife? ... He comes over with the torn jean shorts and the cowboy hat, and you've gotta check his bags on the way out the door... like, he's taken all the batteries from your remotes, that sort of thing. It can be a really sketchy. I wanted to find something that works, but I had to wait until the environment in the city was right for it. Had I launched this as a service eight years ago, it would have flopped tremendously because the level of awareness in the city has really grown in leaps and bounds in the past five years.

So how does your service work?
This is a service based and designed mainly for couples. I'm usually contacted by the male of the two, it's rare that I get enlisted by a womannormally it's a boyfriend or a husband or a partner bringing it to his partner as a gift or as a surprise.

Why do you think it's more of a male initiating the contact?
If you look at the user demographic of a lot of pornography, you find that it's very heteronormative and male-centric. A lot of the time you get these boyfriends who've heard about it on Howard Stern and then they went online and got on Youporn or whatever and they watch a bunch of adult stars using it, and then they're like, "Whoa I bet my girlfriend would be into that. I would really love to see her lose her mind that way," and then they kind of pitch it to the girlfriend. Then the girlfriend is like "OK" or "uh fine."

When I actually show up for the delivery I do everything I can to impress on the male that this is about her and making her comfortable and focusing on her needs, and really using that as an opportunity to teach couples about non-verbal communication. He has the opportunity with this experience to really focus on his partner in the way that he's not physically distracted himself. I find it usually tends to not only relieve her anxiety but afterwards it's a bit of a profound experience for a lot of guys because they really get to see an honest display of sexuality from their partner without being distracted. Usually, it doesn't matter how great a time she's having, if you're having a good time you're only seeing half of it. The Sybian can really be a good experience for couples; it sets them into a new learning curve.

Let's talk about the machine itself. For the uninitiated, like myself, this thing's fucking frightening.
Yeah, It's this whole 20-pound thing, like this monolith of vibration that sits in the middle of your living room, and you sort of stare at it waiting for it to do something. It could really be intimidating and some people are very hesitant, there's a lot of trepidation when people approach it unless it's something that they've had peer reviewed and they've watched first hand other people experience it.

How much of your job is keeping people from being scared of this thing?
For anyone that this is their first experience with vibration play or something non-normative, it becomes my job to sort of ease them into it, lower their anxiety level, and get them to a place where it's like, "Hey this might not be for you, that's totally cool too, let's just enjoy the experience as it happens as a process, but don't worry about if you don't have an orgasm, it's not mandatory, you didn't fail, we're not letting anyone down." There's generally a huge weight on women sexually to perform because male ego is so precariously fragile. If a guy doesn't have an orgasm during sex it's as if there's something very wrong with him. He feels down about himself, she feels it's her fault. But for women there's this idea that if she doesn't have an orgasm during sex, there's a failing on his part but also on her part even though it's often the norm. And so that's been internalized over and over to the point where things like toys become very intimidating to a lot of couples.

Have you always wanted to do this?
I've always been a very sexual person and sexually aware person. And I've always been a very sexually curious person. From an academic standpoint, while I never went and enrolled in any formal courses for it, I've read veraciously on the subject, and it wasn't just watching tons of porn, but actually engaging. I worked with a student nurse in school and any time there was an opportunity to work with any sort of sexual advocacy group I was front and centre on it. So from an education standpoint, or an anthropological standpoint, it's so interesting because it really is the unspoken keystone of most cultures, and Canada is unique in its own culture sexually as well. It kind of has its own sexual flavour.

What's Canada's sexual flavour?
We're very experimentally polite. It's so very much Canadian, but we're wonderfully polite and encouraging andI can only really speak for Toronto because that's been most of my involvementbut we're specifically a very sex-positive city. We have a lot of sex positive spaces, we have a lot of community clubs and community membership, we have tons of advocacy groups. We, more than anywhere except for maybe BC, have a lot of access to sexual services. Toronto is becoming a place where people can kind of venture to and go to sex clubs or be part of a thing like the Para PanAm orgy. We're great with that, yet at the same time, we're so polite about it. And we're able to have polite conversation because it's informed conversation.

Is this a recent thing?
I think it's been this convergence of technology and the "social justice warrior" and advocate idealismthe feminist idealism that's taking back spaces that traditionally weren't feminine spaces. Especially for Facebook where you can preach to your choir and build up an army of people that agree with you before you venture out in the world to be challengednow you can kind of say, "Yes, I want someone to come over and give me an orgasm and leave." And that's ok and that's fine and you're not a slut and you're not desperate or "thirsty for it," that just what you wanted that day and it's Tuesday and you're going to go out later and it's fine. And this generation is informing the generation before it in a way that they are now starting to feel ok. So it's really interesting when I get clients that are olderI get a lot of empty nesters who have heard about the Sybian through social media through younger people.People whose kids have moved out, they're in their late 50s and have a weekend free now. They order it up, he takes a Viagra, they open a bottle of Merlot and they just go to town on each other.

How do they find you?
What Google metrics is telling me is that most people are searching for "Sybian in Toronto" and I'm the first one that comes up: SibianToronto.com. The Sybian itself is unique and it's pretty expensive, it's the Cadillac of sex toys. Just getting one into Canada with all the attachments and what not, with the value of the dollar right now you're actually looking at $2,500, which is out of most people's reach. A lot of people shopping for one realize that they can try before they buy. Some clients eventually buy one outright, or they'll just rent it on occasion when they can get the kids out of the house and have a night to themselves. And that makes it something that they can actually justify. It's the same price as going out for dinnerjust buy a ten-dollar bottle of ros and have at it in the livingroom.

But a lot of people in our sex positive communities have been my biggest ambassadors. Maybe the more sexually adventurous one in the group might have gone to a sex club and used it and then told their girlfriends about it, and then you get the quiet girlfriend who didn't say anything, who then goes home immediately and emails me. Sex clubs have been a big part of the exposure for it.

I'm from Montreal which is traditionally thought of as a very sex oriented city, what's the story with Toronto?
It's not that similar from Montreal; Montreal is very hetero-centric. But very kink-focused; there's a lot of leather, a lot of PVC workshop groups out there. The community out there is wonderful in terms of celebrating the showmanship of it. Toronto's sex scene is very relationship-dynamic-focused, a lot of swingers, a lot of open relationships. Polyamoury's been the word of the day for the past four years for a lot of the Toronto sex scene. We have places like Oasis Aqualounge, which is an on-site sex club. So there you can go, become a member for a fee, and you can have sex on premises. And then there's places like The Ozone which is a non premises club so you can go and meet and you know, participate in certain things but you can't have sex on site.

There are a lot of sex parties and orgies that happen in the city, so I get a fair number of invites to bring them the machine. Let's just say that you show up to a sex party with a Sybian and you're kind of like the guy who showed up to the potluck with the chocolate fondue machine.

You're basically a hero.
Yeah it's a bit of a showstopper and it ends up being quite the icebreaker, all the guests will gather round to watch that show and then they'll put a turn in.

Walk me through an average rental process.
When I drop it off, I usually give the renters a bunch of pro tips, there's no mystery, it works on very fundamental science principles. The machine works on the basis of vibration, and resonance. What most people identify as the clitoris is actually called the clitoris gland and that's literally the tip of the iceberg as far sensation goes. There are four different branches of the clitoris that reach back into the pelvis itself and all of those link to the pudendal nerve system, which is at the base of your spine.

Assuming you've had heteronormative sex, if you're having sex with your partner towards the end you can get sort of harder and harder in thrusting, and that will send vibrations deeper into the pelvisif you started off with that, she'd back you way off. Like, 'what are you doing?' But once you're warmed up you can increase in intensity and when you're really pounding it, that vibration is driving back and what normally would be painful is actually now lighting up nerve endings deeper in the pelvis.

The Sybian is extending waves of vibration back at a frequency that the body understands and it wakes up nerve endings and because it's so steady and such a deep low vibration, it penetrates through the body deeper. It's vibrating areas that surface wise, more often than not, a penis won't ever come in contact with.

Our body has a natural frequency bias, and each person has a biasif you looked at all your favourite songs and lined them all up, I would almost guarantee you that most of your favourite songs are in the same key.

Dude, you're blowing my mind.
I'm dropping science on you. Now all your songs might be in a specific key, but your friends' favourite songs might be in a totally different key and that's because their body is also tuned to a very specific bias for frequency. The Sybian, because of the size of the motor, is able to send bass vibrations through the body, as opposed to smaller toys with a smaller form factor which can't help but work at a higher frequency. The Sybian works at a much lower resonance that kind of hums its way through the body, which is something that the body can handle more easily. As you increase the intensity of it you're kind of turning up the volume but you're not turning up the frequency.

The amplitude of it can become overpowering and overwhelming on the nerves but it never gets to a point where it's super painful. You just sort of work your way up gradually and your ability to sustain rises.

Is the key to mastering the Sybian to find that frequency?
It's like anything with a partnerit's like dancing, you can't just go on a solo choreography and just let it run, you have to check in constantly and adapt with your partner. You're listening and watching, I often won't even look at the person that is on the Sybian. What I'll do is I'll put my leg against their leg so I can feel the vibration and then I'll listen to their breathing. One of the cool things is that you get to give somebody so much pleasure, but you aren't distracted by your own physical pleasure. You can kind of really get a good sense for what's happening. I'll watch and listen and see, I'll look for the toes moving, or I'll check in with her breathing. What the skin looks like, is she getting flushed across her chest? Is she sweating? Is she holding on to me tighter? Is she leaning back? Is she searching for a more comfortable spot by moving around? If she started rocking her hips in a very specific rhythm I'll start pulsing the machine at the same rhythm to mirror that. Really it's very much about matching what your partner is subconsciously doing.

Would you say it's kind of a science but it's kind of an art at the same time?
You're the orgasm whisperer, you get on this thing and some partners are harder to read than others, some people are stone still and quiet and they give you nothing, nothing at all. And then they're like, "OK, I'm done." And that's it, that's the ride. They blink and they orgasm. And some are more vocal and really visceral. I had a woman bite the top of my head once. Some people, you have to hold them on so they don't fall off.

What are some of the craziest experiences you've had as an orgasm whisperer?
I don't want to give people's experiences away too much because they are personal but there is a thing with Sybian that once you've ridden it a couple times you really, really learn to let go because it's all about you. It's one of the few sexual experiences that's entirely about the riders. Once you accept that, you just don't give a fuck anymore. Noises come out of you that you didn't know you I had a rider who rode fairly regularly with me, and she would become completely unintelligible. There's a point at which it's such an intense experience that you lose the ability to verbalize without any sort of real cognizance. Often I'll council people riding the machine to just tap when they need to tap out because they can't verbalize what they want anymore.

That sounds almost like a psychedelic experience.
It's fantastic when someone has an enormous experience away from what they're usual experience is, for some people it's really profound. I've had people cry while they're on it, but like joyfully crying, or people who have cried after because before they had the inability to release at that level. I've had people that will have a G-spot orgasm for the first time, or they'll squirt for the first time because they haven't been able to access that before.

What do you think this sort of tells you or has taught you about sexuality in general, have you learned a lot just from when you started using this thing to where you're at now?
Any time you spend any amount of time with people on a level that exceeds small talk, you really start to see the nuance of human nature in a new way. You appreciate what you have, but also it's completely broadened my scope as to what sexually people are available to and into. Stereotypes are out the door.

I don't ever look at someone now and think they wouldn't be into that, because there's a chance I delivered a Sybian to their door. You might look at someone and think they're the most conservative person in the world but I've watched them hang from chains and beat the shit out of each other at a sex club. Some 70-year-old dude with a Colonel Sanders moustache and a Smart car is one of my key renters and his wifethe tiniest quietest macram crocheting grannyloves this shit. She's got outfits for it. So it's kind of impossible to gauge. You just don't know what your neighbours are like, if you think they're sanding floors at midnight, it's probably this thing.

Any final sex advice?
If you've had an experience that wasn't great, examine what the experience was and why you didn't enjoy it. More often than not it's the person you had the experience with which was the issue, or the emotional context in which it was placed. A lot of people forgo a lot of potential joy in their life by hemming themselves in and saying, 'I couldn't do that or I would never do that.' If you tried and tested the avenue and found out it's not for you, that's fine. I'm not saying go suck all the dicks until you find the one dickif you don't like dick then you don't like dick. But if you had one interaction with something it's usually not enough to gauge whether or not it was right for you. You gotta try things more than onceand try everything again with someone you feel comfortable with. That makes a big difference.

Follow Raf Katigbak on Twitter.

Oktoberfest. Photo by Dominik Schnleben

This article originally appeared on VICE Germany.

Munich's yearly Oktoberfest is a cornerstone of German culture. At its simplest, it's a 16-day-long reason to wear traditional leather breeches and get obscenely plastered in the middle of the day. Which is obviously great but for the past few weeks, the question on every Munich resident's tongue has been: What the hell is going to happen when thousands of drunken Oktoberfest revelers descend on a city already trying to accommodate the arrival of thousands of Syrian refugees? Was there a plan in place to deal with this massive influx of people?

Well, it seems as if there was. As soon as the the party kicked off, there was barely a trace of the refugee crisis to be found. The city's main train stationwhich for weeks had been a hub for the refugeesnow appeared to be a homogeneous sea of beer bellies, lederhosen, and pretzels.

Just before the annual boozefest, the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior formed an action group to deal with this very situation. "Asylum/Oktoberfest," as it was cleverly named, was developed to make sure that the refugee's travels circumvented the city while the festival was in full swing. Instead of converging in Munich like they had before, the refugees were sent to a Bavarian border town. It seemed as if the government was going for the "out of sight, out of mind" approach. We wanted to know what Oktoberfest fans thought about this, so we headed down to the festival to ask.

Verena (26) and Moritz (25)

VICE: Did you run into any refugees on your way here?
Verena: No, not that I know of.

What would you say if we told you that Munich "fixed" it so that the refugees were out of the city in time for Oktoberfest?
Verena: That's a moral question. I don't want to pass judgement on that right now because I have no idea what sort of issues are involved, but it definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

How does it feel to party here after hearing that?
Moritz: I know things are tough for the refugees, but I don't see why we shouldn't party because of it.

Scott (32) and Liam (30)

VICE: Did you run into any refugees on your way here?
Scott: Yeah. When we were on our way here, police stormed onto our train and removed about 50 refugees. Even the ones who had valid tickets. No idea what that was about. But they were definitely on the way to Munich Central Station.

What do you think about that?
Scott: I love you, mom. for a shoebox apartment. How are our kids supposed to finance that? They can't. So that's why I'm scared.

Hmmm.
Well I do feel sorry for them, I do. And the fact that they want to get out of those countries, I get that. I would probably want the same, but we can't help all of them. We just can't.

Sarkvat (27)

VICE: What do you think about the current situation?
Sarkvat: Obviously the situation in Syria and Iraq, where I'm from, is catastrophic. It's not like it used to be. Of course Germany is helping but hopefully they can do a bit more. All the refugees want to live in Germany, which is understandable. Germany is beautiful, more beautiful than any other country.

How do you think Germany should deal with the refugees arriving?
Germany has to decide that but it would be nice if they took a lot in. I can understand these people. I would also like it if my entire family was here.

How do you feel about partying here while others are fleeing?
It's depressing, obviously.

Look at Stephen Maurice Graham's website, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram.

Photo by Flickr user Philippa Willitts

I recently went to see The Diary of a Teenage Girl. It was greatthe feminist overtones, the agency of the protagonist, the flaresyet I still left disappointed. Disappointed that the film had failed to show any vaginas.

Frequency of vulvas is not the way I personally measure a film's quality (I didn't storm out of Inside Out, for instance, thinking, Where are all the vaginas?), but Diary of a Teenage Girl centered around female sexuality, and the absence of any full nudity felt dishonest. If the film was comfortable enough depicting a 15-year-old (portrayed by a 23-year-old) having sex and dabbling with heroin, it might consider depicting a naked, real, vulva-carrying body to go along with the sex stuff.

Films are terrified of depicting vulvas. Breasts are finegreat, in fact. As long as they're quite sexy and not, you know, sustaining a human life through breastfeeding or doing anything other than being alluring, we like them. Breasts will sneak into the occasional PG film (Kubrick's Barry Lyndon) and sit comfortably in a PG-13 (The Fifth Element).

A shot, however, exposing even a hint of a vulva is almost guaranteed to earn your film a UK 18 rating . The revulsion some people articulated was hypocritical in many casesthe same people saying, 'Urgh! A vagina!' were probably only two mouse-clicks away from accessing porn and saying, 'Ooh! A vagina!' Some people get very anxious when the vagina is not being represented for their pleasure; they feel excluded by its power and autonomy."

READ ON BROADLY: What Actually Happens When Your Vagina Falls Out

Having already spent far too long thinking about vaginas, the reason for the eternal absence of the vagina seemed twofold. One reason is that the vulva, unlike breasts, is harder to angle as solely for the male gaze, and therefore becomes a threatening marker of female autonomy. It is too often being used for something elsefemale pleasure, masturbating, giving birthfor it to be simply an orifice for a guy to imagine his dick going into. If films are, more often than not, made by men and for the male gaze, then the inclusion of the vulvaeven if attempting to be sexysits uneasily if the depiction can be too easily detached from "object literally only useful for male pleasure." As soon as it strays away from that definition, the vagina becomes problematic. Passive cis women's bodies are useful for men to project their sexual fantasies upon; active cis women's bodies that are using their vaginas for a purpose that in no way gives a man an erection is gross/wrong/explicit.

The second is that female sexuality is perpetually mythologized. Simone de Beauvoir once wrote that "women are the other and their cunts are mysteries to us all." I've paraphrased that a bit; what she actually said was women are othered as a result of the "mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity." For hundreds of years, women have been considered mysterious and alluring exactly because of that mystery. Historically, then, the hidden vaginathat coveted sexual goal that offers infinite pleasure to a manis what's considered conventionally sexy, and exposing it in a film undermines that. If a vagina is only sexy when hidden, then a vagina can't be considered sexy in a film, so doesn't need to be included.

Related: Watch 'Alexyss Tylor's Vagina Power' on VICE

There are exceptions to this, but films not scared to show us a vulva here and there are often considered extreme and graphic because of their use of cis female genitalia. Blue Is the Warmest Color is an example of a film with complete female nudity, and many of Lars Von Trier's films (Antichrist, Nymphomaniac parts I and II) contain vulvas.

Neither of these, however, quite manages to render just the mundane reality of a vagina. Blue Is the Warmest Color reeks of male gaze and Antichristwell, it's probably an 18 for more than just a shot of Charlotte Gainsbourg wanking in a forest. Gasper Noe's new film Love is sure to include uninhibited depictions of cis women's bodies, but it will most likely be capitalizing on that "shock value" of the vagina, perpetuating the idea that its inclusion in a film is somehow radical.

Demythologizing the vagina is essential so that women's sexuality, bodily functionsexistence, for Christ's sakeis normalized. It can be a difficult line to walk between sexual honesty and misogyny when it comes to nudity, but vaginas don't always need to be this terrifying or graphic emblem of sexuality. Sometimes, they're just plain old vaginas.

Follow Ruby Lott-Lavigna on Twitter.

Amelia Bonow (right) and Lindy West. Photo courtesy of Bonow

Pablo Escobar was the mastermind of drug trafficking and narco terrorism in Colombia during the 1980s. He transformed the city of Medellin into the cocaine capital of the world, and pioneered a model that almost every major criminal organization would later adopt.

Countries around the globe are still grappling with the aftermath of Escobar's reign 30 years after his death, from the hired killers he trained as his army of underage hitmen to the remote cocaine labs and clandestine air strips in the jungles of Peru helping feed the world's hunger for coke.

In our upcoming, three-part VICE special, we take an exclusive look at the new cartel wars and the legacy left behind by Escobar. Part one premieres Monday, September 28.

Sam, showing off his stab wounds

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

SamDuberry has been shot twice andstabbed seven times but he's lived to tell the tale: "Many of my friends haveonly been shot once and they diedin a two year period I lost 30 of them," hesays. "I'm still hereI always believed that I had a purpose in life. And inmany ways, my past life was preparation for what I'm doing now."

What he's doing now is working forthe St. Giles Trust SOSa charity project to engage young gangmembers. Turf wars among 250street crews and criminal gangs known to London's Met Police currently account forhalf of all shootings and a fifth of all stabbings in the capital. Figures formurders of teenage gang members this year so far total seven, in comparison apeak of 29 homicides in 2008. However gang projects are still getting reportsdaily of violent and traumatic incidences: Stories of orders for payment andthreats to rape the girlfriends of gang members who wish to exit are notuncommon.

In an attempt to stemthis, the Met Police sends young people thought to be involved in gangs toprojects like St. Giles Trust. Both staff and clients have some misgivings about working with thefeds and it often causes conflict. The police even force people onto theproject. Officers made three home visits to 23-year-old Mustapha* to tell himto engage with the SOS project or get nicked.

Understandably, he found this off-putting: "Initially I didn't like to the idea of the project because theirletter had a police logo on it. I would have liked it more if it only had the SOSlogo on it."

In contrast, project worker Sam reckons that his clients engagewell with himin partbecause of his life experiences: "Literally, you canstill smell prison on me. I am the system. My clients relate to that withinme." Sam previously had a nine-yearstint in prison for conspiracy to supply class A drugs, possession of firearms, and ammunition.

Thetracksuit wearing clients nod enthusiastically as he says this. They are seatedaround a table at a gang strategy meeting at the project's West London office,a bland building tucked underneath the A40 flyover.

Localyouth workers, a community pastor from a nearby church and former gang membersmeet with caseworkers and current clients to discuss what's happening in theircommunity, gang-wise, and to debate potential solutions.

Mustaphathinks that a peer mentoring scheme is needed to reach out to children as youngas nine that are at risk of falling into gangs. "Prevention is better thancure," he says. "Yesterday a 12-year-old told me that it was cool to go toprison so I told him it's not."

Suggestionsare made for more family based support work and for gang mediation to intervenein trivial disputes that could potentially escalate.

For more on criminal reform initiatives, watch our doc 'Young Reoffenders':

Oneof the clients, Jerome*, isn't sure whether gang mediation works. WhilstSam was on leave, a rival stabbed Jerome and so he didn't feel ready to chat tomembers from other gangs. "They'vegone too far," he says pensively.

Anothercaseworker advises him to think about making a concerted effort to avoid hisenemies and hopefully any further confrontations. Jerome doesn't appear to findthis advice too helpful. He listens politely but looks stressed and is not inthe mood to discuss this issue any further.

Samis highly animated and at this point in the meetinghe moves onto hisfavorite topicmobile phones in prison and how they're concealed. Malerape in prison is commonand apparently a lot of guys store these coveteditems in their body parts. Accordingto Sam this makes it easier access if another inmate wants to target them for asexual assault: "I warn myclients about this, I tell them to stop putting their mobile phones up theirbums. Sometimes they get angry when I talk about it."

In the afternoon another client arrivesfor a key work session. *Nathan discloses that previously his earnings fromselling class B drugs would average out to 700 per week. He's now workingpart-time in a shop: "I only sold drugs because I didn't have a job at the timeand I needed some money in my pocket. I've now quit because I've got this job. It's easier because I don't have toworry about the police anymore. I'm just concerned about looking for morework."

Last year, the SOS team helped 212young people in the capital to safely exit gangs. The work revolves aroundcasework sessions with a gang workerwhich can involve parental mediation,relocation options if a client needs to move house to avoid conflict, or supportto access employment and training.

"Sometimes the mums have kicked theirboys out of homeI try to find out if we can resolve the situation. If theparent is willingI'll visit them to work out ground rules to keep the peacebetween mother and son," explains Sam. "But if we can't work it outI'll takethe client to the local homeless persons unit to make an application for accommodation."

After his desk bound lunchthe staffwork flat outSam makes an unsuccessful attempt to chase a client that hasn'tbeen turning up for appointments: "He's just come out of prison. I want to makea last ditch attempt to work with him because he's almost 25and once he hashis birthdayhe won't be eligible anymore."

Sam leaves his phone on after work hoursjust incase his clients need him.

More stab wounds

He tells me that recently he had alate night phone call from one of his clients who'd been processing histhoughts after they'd had a heart-to-heart moment: "He'd decided that he wasn'tgoing to shoot one of his enemies after our conversation earlier that day. I'dtold him that there's no going back after that one because the other guy couldbe dead and you could be doing a life sentence."

Does Sam think it's a job welldone? "Yes, definitely," he says grinning as he lifts up his top to show usnumerous bullet and knife scars. "Within this role, I get to be a friend, abrother, and a father all in one."

*Names have been changed.

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Harry Leslie Smith is a 92-year-old British-Canadian voting and anti-austerity activist, currently on a cross-country tour trying to get "young people to get off their asses and vote" because the world is returning to the depression-era conditions he knew growing up (his words). Justin Ling visits Smith at his home in Belleville, Ontario, to talk about his cross-country tour and the upcoming election.