For many of us, Tinder is just about fucking, but not for everyone. All photos by author

Tinder is the hook-up generation's GPS for banging. It's quick, convenient, and provides access to seeing a new person naked IRL. Is it mainly to get laid? For myself and most people I know, that answer is a loud and inarguable "Obviously."

But browse through Tinder on any given day and you'll find people who disagree. Marked with bios that read "No hook-ups, swipe left bitch!" (real message in the bio of somebody I matched with), there are people on the app who legitimately say they're not on there for a quick orgasm. Some say they want friends, or long-term relationships, while others just want to avoid the emotional turmoil of fuck-and-chuck hook-up culture. Wanting to know a bit more, I asked some women I matched with why they're not down with hookups.

Fatima, 19, Student

VICE: If not hook-ups, what are you looking for on Tinder?
Fatima: To be honest, at first, I was down for whatever, but after a year of going wild, I told myself my second year of college that I just wanted a boyfriend. , but I'd rather have someone long-term than a one-night stand.

Was there anything in particular that turned you off from hook-up culture?
Lack of attractive guys I guess. Every guy I was down for lived too far for me to travel and every close guy was a fuck boy, so even if I wanted to have a friends with benefits with , before I could say anything, he was gone.

Have you had any luck with meaningful dates through here yet?
Well, I was a sheltered child so going off to college and being free—I went wild with hook-ups, even my guy friends would give me props and say I'm their idol. , I thought I had one the other day—I was not at all prepared to do anything but maybe a make-out sesh. I thought it went great and the guy said he had fun too, but then he ignored me and I finally got an answer from him which was, "It's not what I'm in for," which sucked.

Do you get negative responses when dudes find out you're not into just hooking up right away?
Not really. I recently started turning people down, and I've been doing a horrible job, you feel?

I do. At least you're trying! What's your ideal non-hook-up date, if there is one?
Nothing fancy really. I'm not a picky person. Like, as long as I'm with them, we could do anything and it'd be fine. But probably outside of a bedroom would be best.

Tiffanie, 20, Swim Coach

VICE: Your bio says to "swipe left" if someone wants to hook-up. Why?
Tiffanie: Tinder hook-ups are not good in my opinion. That's just my opinion. I think it's selling yourself short.

What do you mean by that?
I don't know. Like, you don't know these people. That alone makes me skeptical of meeting up with somebody. Why would I want to bang them off the bat? It doesn't make sense. It's not safe either.

So, are you against all hook-ups or just quick, fast hook-ups? Like, would you go on a date with somebody and then maybe hook-up afterward?
For sure, but they'd have to introduce it as a date and I'd have to like them. If someone's just in for sex, that's not something I'm comfortable with. They can do that on their own time and I'm OK with it, I just don't really want to in that sort of thing.

What's your experience on Tinder been like?
It's been good—I've met great people on here. I have a few good friends now because we met on Tinder. There was a guy I was seeing for a bit off here, but we're no longer together. We still talk.

Tinder is generally sold as central to the "Netflix and Chill" deal. Would you say it's built mainly for hook-ups and quick sex?
I don't think so, at least, not in my experience. It's a really fast way to meet people, but it's not like, overly-sexualized, y'know? The only and I are officially done.

Why did you choose the no hook-up policy on here?
Well, I don't think hooking up with other guys is the right way to get over someone. It just ends up making me feel disgusted and upset with myself.

Have you used Tinder for hook-ups in the past?
No, I normally used Tinder just to meet new people, but sometimes it leads to hook-ups. Now I just tend to avoid it.

What about hooking up casually makes you feel bad about yourself?
In the past, I would've used hooking up to make me feel complete. I haven't been "alone" in three years, so when I was, hooking up with someone was the way to go—especially with my close guy friends. Eventually people started calling me a whore, and I became something that I didn't want to be anymore. I guess I'm trying to cope with being single by not hooking up with people anymore, trying to find a new distraction in my life.

On the reverse side, has anyone got mad that you didn't want to hook-up?
No, I've never actually had anyone get mad at me, which is kind of surprising since it's Tinder.

Karen, 19, Undeclared

VICE: Alright, if you don't me asking, why don't you have 'No hook-ups' in your bio?
Karen: Well, just because I'm not on Tinder for hook-ups doesn't mean I'm opposed to it. Like, my general motive on Tinder is just to talk to cool people, but if a hook-up becomes a thing then maybe I would.

That makes sense. Do you usually tell people that off the bat or do you wait until they ask you to hook-up?
I pretty much wait until they ask. I find it weird to announce a no hook-up policy. It's like, would I go up to someone I just met in real life and tell them I have a no hook-up rule?

What's the response been when you tell somebody you're not about quick hook-ups?
I usually just ghost those people. Unless I've formed a friendship with them, then I'll tell them. Most people I end up befriending and asking have been super respectful and we just continue being friends. But the few times guys would throw temper tantrums and call me rude things, or they'll keep trying to convince me to .

That's something that seems to be a common sentiment about women I know who use Tinder. How often do you find yourself telling people no?
I actually haven't been on Tinder for a while. I was in a relationship and completely deactivated my account, I just got back on a week ago. So far, none, but I think I got it quite a lot. Like I said, I'd just ghost them.

With all that stress, do you think Tinder's worth its weight for you?
Kind of. I mean, I've honestly met a lot of cool ass people who have, one way or another, really changed my life and helped me grow as a person. I think the shittiness of it is worth it when you find some people you can bond with that you maybe wouldn't have met in real life.

Nikita, 19, Student

VICE: I'll start off by asking the obvious: why choose Tinder for not wanting to hook-up?
Nikita: Mostly because a lot of my friends have formed meaningful relationships with guys off Tinder that didn't necessarily start off with sex.

Do you find yourself getting a lot of people hitting you up just to bang?
Yeah, mostly.

How long does it usually take before they drop the question?
Usually four or five messages, but some will directly message me something sexual as their first message, which I do appreciate more because it's direct and I know what they're all about.

Do people ever get mad at you for saying "No thanks"?
Not really, but I am pretty straightforward about no hook-ups in my bio. I do find that guys have trouble believing I'm not looking for a hook-up though, but no one has really gotten angry about it.

That's interesting that they ignore your bio or think you're lying. Have you went on any successful dates through Tinder yet?
Nope.

Interviews have been edited slightly for clarity.

Follow Jake Kivanç on Twitter.

Lola Frost, probably feeling good. Photo by David Denofreo

This article originally appeared on VICE Canada

All of us have something about our bodies we don't like. Maybe you grew up wearing T-shirts in the swimming pool, or you've only recently started to outgrow all your pants. Point is, body-image issues can strike at any time, and have surprisingly little to do with outward appearances.

As it turns out, even without pounding kale smoothies or working out 16 hours a day, you can still feel empowered without your clothes on. And nobody knows this better than the folks who spend a lot of time being naked themselves.

VICE reached out to a few people who get naked for fun and profit, and got their views on empowerment, flesh-cages, and how to feel comfortable in your own skin—even while showing it to a whole lot of other people.

You wake up in your rundown apartment, hungover and flat broke after your third night out this week. The only thing you have to look forward to this Sunday in the sweaty city is the smell of garbage and the sound of your upstairs neighbours having make-up sex. You realise that the big city life is going to give you an aneurysm before you've reached your 40s, so you promise yourself that one day you'll leave everything behind and move to the countryside – before it's too late.

Rave culture is one of Britain's great cultural exports, but after its first wave in the late 1980s and early 1990s it was forced into the underground by stringent new laws and the rise of licensed super clubs.

Fast forward 25 years into the midst of a nationwide purge on the UK's nightlife, where nearly half of all British clubs have shut down in the last decade, and a new kind of scene has emerged: a 21st century version of rave, where young people break into disused spaces with the help of bolt-cutters and complicated squatting laws, to suck on balloons and go hard into the early morning.

But with the police using increasingly extreme tactics to clamp down on these parties, and more than one fatality causing a nationwide media panic, can the scene survive?

A couple of guys fighting in the street in London (Screen shot via)

Street fighting is one of society's great levellers. No matter who you are, where you're from, how much money you spend on shampoo, which deity you do or don't believe in, picking a fight with a stranger for no real reason always makes you a huge dickhead.

However, that doesn't mean street fights don't happen. They happen a lot, in high streets, parks and nightclubs the world over. Go out in literally any major city on a Friday night and chances are you'll see people scrapping, sometimes in that sloppy drunk way that ends with both parties bleeding a little bit and shouting a lot; sometimes in that genuinely worrying way that sees one person hospitalised and the other in a cell.

Alcohol is undoubtedly the most common reason that humans attack other humans for little to no reason at all. But what else is at play? Why do some people seemingly go out looking for a fight? And how does a particularly vicious attack affect you afterwards? I spoke to a few people about their last street fights to find out.

Billie

VICE: Hi Billie. Talk me through the last time you got in a fight.
Billie: I was 14 or 15, and the hardest girl in town, a 19-year-old mum, started on me for looking at her. Classic Great Yarmouth.

Were you scared?
A bit; she was properly hard and had a rep.

What kind of rep?
For just doing in people randomly and that.

So how did it go down?
I was with my mate, and this girl and a few of her equally scary mates are walking towards us, and I haven't got my glasses on, so I guess I'm squinting a bit. She comes bounding over, shouting at me, "What you looking at? Why the fuck you staring at me?" I try to leave, and she's like, "Nah, you're not leaving," then she swings at me, and I think one of her punches lands. I swing back a couple of times, but I'm this little 14-year-old and she's a big girl, so I doubt it did much damage.

How did it affect you after?
I was a bit shook, but after a day or two it was calm. It was my first fight so felt a bit weird, but it also gassed me up in a weird way. Like, I had a fight with this hard girl, and although I by no means came out on top, I didn't get myself kicked in either, so mixed emotions. I don't enjoy violence or confrontation much, though, so not too gassed.

What do you feel about fighting in general?
I guess sometimes it's necessary.

How?
Like if some creep won't leave you alone and he's getting really touchy, he's not gonna listen to your voice – you're gonna have to push him around. Some people only respond to violence, unfortunately.

Why do you think that girl wanted to fight you?
I think for her it was a status thing. If some girl's looking at her funny and she's known as this hard nut, she can't show herself up. Asserting her dominance, proving herself – almost animalistic.

Pasquale

Hi Pasquale. What happened the last time you got in a fight?
Pasquale: I'm from Archway, that roundabout in north London, and at a bar on this roundabout there was a drum 'n' bass night every Friday. I was there with a load of people, and our mate Shawn had wandered off and come back. Shawn was pure trouble. He once survived a huge shock getting struck by a wire while he was train surfing. As it happens, when he wandered off, he'd wound up a group of very large eastern European men – about eight to ten of them. We didn't know this at the time, so it came as a surprise when they came running across the road and hopped the fence and just started punching us at random.

What then?
Shawn started knocking people out. I saw him get bottled, but I don't even think he noticed. My other friend Will, who was also a bit of a warlord, was on crutches from a recent moped accident and started swinging his crutches. Everyone was swinging fists.

What about you?
I remember a punching a guy and knocking him down, and, before I could even lift my championship belt, getting immediately punched to the floor, and before that guy could kick me when I was down, getting knocked by someone else.

How did you feel being in that mix?
It wasn't fear. Anger and adrenaline, but also weirdly fun.

What was the conclusion?
We fought them out of the roundabout and it became a shouting match across the road. They flung a big Smirnoff bottle and hit my mate Mike in the eye and knocked him out. This restarted everything, but this time it spread all around Archway. Will, on crutches, chased a few of them up Highgate Hill with his brothers. Me and a few others chased some up the parallel Archway road, where police pulled up, jumped out and took my mate and one of them to the floor. Mike came out of his daze concussed, with an eye closed up with glass fragments in it, and very angry. He got arrested while going for this dude. Ended up having to have surgery on his eye and went to jail for ABH.

How did it make you feel after?
I was proud that we held our own in our area, I guess; you've got that stupid local pride as a kid. But ultimately, pretty empty and worried about my mate.

Did it make you more or less inclined to fight in future?
There was definitely a gap in altercations, but there were a couple more, and more custodial sentences before we became adults and slowly separated from dudes like Shawn. I'll always defend myself if there's no other option, but as you grow out of certain scenes and people, these situations don't arise at all.

How would you deal with things these days?
I wonder how I would. No such incident has happened since that era, and London's a different place now mostly. Pride isn't such a thing as you become an adult. If anything, you take pride in walking away.

Jan

Talk me through the last time you had a scrap.
Jan: It was about two years ago. It was in the early hours of the morning, after a Friday or Saturday night out, purely fed by alcohol and the horrendous music of Cafe de Paris. After the club closed, me and about five friends headed out, merry and not looking for trouble. A random person came up and asked my friend if he'd had a good night, to which my friend said, "Yes, mate, thanks." He asked again: "Are you sure?" Then he kind of lightly slapped my friend's face and said, "Good, good – have a good one, bro," and then turned to walk away.

Did it seem like something was about to kick off?
I had a feeling something was gonna happen, yeah. He then turned around and told my friend to go fuck himself and called him a refugee, maybe due to his skin colour being similar to mine – he was English born but Spanish blood. He then went to throw a punch after no provocation, and before I knew it we were two versus about five guys that I didn't even know were there with this guy. We fought in a bit of a scrap for a few seconds until my other mates caught up and it turned into a big brawl.

Where there any police or bouncers about?
The bouncers at the door didn't get involved for a while – I could just vaguely hear them shouting that the police were on the way. I didn't take any severe damage, but one of my friends got kicked in the head while he was on the floor. Then the bouncers got involved relatively calmly, and just held us until the police arrived. My mate called the police racist cunts and ended up in Charing Cross police station while we all went home.

How has it affected you since?
I think I'm more scared of street fights now, to be honest. I've been involved in similar situations where someone seems to be looking for a fight, but I try to walk away and have managed to just apologise, even if I don't think I'm wrong.

Do you think people fight because they don't have a proper release for their negative energy?
Potentially, but I think some people gain a lot of courage when they're drunk and maybe want to show off to friends or girls. In this case, I don't know, because none of us said anything to provoke the fight – but maybe he had a point to prove. Maybe he'd had a bad day, or maybe alcohol does that to him every time he goes out.

Do you think the UK has a problem with fighting in general?
One hundred percent. I'm abroad at the moment and some of the behaviour is shocking – drunken English people causing trouble. But that also goes for the Aussies and Kiwis. The locals drink too, but seem to have a lot more fun at the end of the night and go home merry. I feel like, in our culture, if the night doesn't end with taking a girl home or finding drugs, fights seem to be the last resort for some people.

Thanks, Jan.

Becky

What happened in your last street fight?
Becky: I was about 17, I think – the first year of college. It was summer, so a group of us were in the park, drinking and getting stoned. There was another group, from a different local college, so it was instant bad vibes.

How did it all go down?
There was this one chick being bare loud and drunk and rowdy – I think we were slyly creasing at her from where we were sitting. Fast forward a few hours and the two groups start to mingle, so it's almost like one big circle, but this girl is in the middle, wasted and attention-seeking. She starts to try it with a few of us, then she starts swiping at the boys. I think I said something like, "Fucking sort yourself out," and she just shot up, ran over to me, spat in my face and pushed me. So I shoved her back, then she punched me in the mouth – my lip split open and was bleeding like crazy.

What did you do?
I guess I saw red, because I don't really remember what happened from then until my friend Jack was pulling me off her. I vaguely recall punching her, but no real details. I think I broke her nose, because I remember they called the ambulance and we had to leave. Everyone seemed impressed, like, "Wahey, go Becky, you broke some chick's nose!" But I was just embarrassed.

Did you ever see her again?
I think I only saw her once, which was lucky, seeing as we went to that same park every day after college. I was really scared to see her, though.

Why?
She wasn't scary, but maybe I felt like her mates were scary, or she had some scary crew. Girls are terrifying sometimes.

Tell me about it. Did you change in any way afterwards?
Emotionally, I was pretty shaken up immediately after. The fact this weird thing had got hold of me and made me fuck up some girl's face, and I didn't really remember it happening, was kind of internally terrifying. Plus I fancied one of the guys in my group, so it was super humiliating to have done that in front of him. I was scary enough to boys at the time as it was.

What about long-term?
I think, when I was younger, I used to get a kick out of being around fights, getting a bit rowdy and trying to prove myself. But after that, I knew I could maybe hold my own, but I didn't want to go mental again and lose my head.

Do you think girls and guys get in fights for different reasons, or is it all the same?
I think a lot of men have experienced a lot more fighting growing up, either intentionally or not. The ability to hold their own and defend themselves is maybe more entwined with their identity as masculine men, whereas I felt completely unfeminine and embarrassed about getting into a fight. I'm not a girly girl, and definitely can be mouthy, but it did feel at odds with the sexual female thing I was trying to give off in front of the guy I liked.

Did you end up getting with the guy?
No.

Sorry to hear that. Thanks, Becky.

Rupert

Tell me about the last fight you had.
Rupert: I was in Aldeburgh, in Suffolk. My friend got in a little altercation with quite a small guy and I stepped in and asked the guy to leave it out. He hit me, so I retaliated. Little did I know, he had six friends waiting around the corner. They circled me and started kicking me in the face and ribs. One was in Timberlands and caught me square in mouth, knocking a tooth clean out, root and all.

Ouch.
Not ideal, is it?

Did the police get involved?
The police were called, and they knew of the gang that did it. They often used this small guy, Mikey, to start fights, and they'd hide and come in and beat the shit out of whoever they chose. They were local. The police couldn't press charges as he said I hit him first. I got no compensation and ended up with a removable tooth.

How much did the new tooth cost?
My denture was £800 .

How did you feel during the fight?
I remember he nutted me first and I sort of leapt at that opportunity to retaliate. I was winning at first, so it was great, I guess. But I vividly remember being really scared when all his friends were around me kicking me, and when the tooth came out it was quite traumatic. It's really bad when you lose something you know you can never get back.

Did it dent your confidence at all?
I wouldn't say so, but it definitely changed my outlook on fighting. I am now of the view that there is always a way of talking yourself out of a situation, even if that's just by saying sorry, even if it's not your fault, or just walking away. Obviously situations happen that you can't control – friends get into fights and you have to get involved. But in that situation I just try to defuse it, like try talking sense to my friend so the fight doesn't kick off.

If you had any advice for yourself back then, what would it be?
This situation really upset my mum and dad, so it would be to think about how your actions can affect the people you love and who love you.

Cheers, Rupert.

@williamwasteman

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Every Sunday, the Game of Thrones fervor sets the internet ablaze with chatter about Westeros. There's a lot to talk about: the relentless violence, the nudity, the fact that we finally figured out why Hodor could only say "Hodor." But besides all of the plot twists this season, I've begun to really appreciate the detailed costuming, including the men (and one lady) who regularly wear suits of armor. It seemed incredible that people could get on with their daily lives wearing all that metal.

My initial curiosity spiraled into a full-on inquisition (or, really, reading all the Wikipedia articles I could about armor). My cursory research revealed that, rather than turning the wearer into an unoiled Tin Man, armor was the pinnacle of technology of its era—like a NASA space suit crossed with a Ferrari. Sure, it was a little clunky, but certainly more comfortable than a sword through your heart. Top-shelf armor provided its wearer a full range of motion as well as protection against all manner of weapons, including arrows and bullets.

So if knights of yore were easily able to mount horses and run across battlefields in the gear, just how difficult or easy would it be for me to do some of the common, everyday things of 2016 while in a full suit of armor?

I put the question to Chris Gilman, who owns Global Effects Inc., a costume and prop shop in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley, just north of Hollywood. Gilman doesn't just design armor for film and television; he also participates in full-contact medieval fighting in his free time—which is to say, he knows a lot about wearing the stuff.

Gilman told me there was "a lot of bullshit" in the on-screen representations of armor. "Game of Thrones has armor that really isn't really armor," Gilman said. "They do sword fighting that seems soap opera. It's like doing a movie about Muhammad Ali where all the boxing scenes use John Wayne–style fighting, all haymakers and uppercuts you see coming from a mile away."

A real suit of armor, he said, is like a bespoke suit, meticulously crafted for a sole individual. But as I didn't have $30,000 available to commission one tailor-made to my frame, Gilman let me borrow his. It was slightly oversized—Gilman is 6'2" of metal weighing me down.

GRADE: C

DRIVING

I felt pretty optimistic about driving when the gauntlets allowed me to use my fob and open the door as usual. Unfortunately, there was no contorting myself into the driver's seat of my Honda. I couldn't even get into the car, let alone behind the wheel.

It was probably for the best, though. Instead, Gilman loaded me into the back seat of a panel van for the trip to my final trial.

GRADE: F

I blurred this lady's face out, by the way. She didn't just look like that.

Arriving at Starbucks in a full suit of armor would be a spectacle anywhere but Los Angeles, where the jaded motherfuckers barely even noticed me as I approached the cashier to order.

I pulled my debit card from my period man-purse (or really, just "purse," as women weren't allowed to handle money back then) and was able to order from the barista like normal. She seemed amused, but not entirely shocked.

Order up, I plunged the straw into my iced coffee and headed back to Gilman's shop.

GRADE: C (Mostly because I'm an asshole for showing up at Starbucks in a suit of armor).

Overall, I was pretty surprised by what I was able to accomplish in my armor. Sure, the suit left me drenched in sweat and the helm kept matting my hair to my eyes, but the weight of the metal was tolerable and the Birkenstocky-y mandals I wore under my sabatons provided solid traction for getting around.

"People in the Middle Ages were far more sophisticated than people today give them credit for," Gilman said. "We think we're so clever, but a lot of the technology we enjoy today is the direct result of methods and crafts they perfected then."

Maybe some day, if I'm fabulously wealthy, I'll spring for a truly bespoke, murdered-out suit of armor and join Gilman and his crew on the field of battle. But for now, clanking around in a secondhand suit for the afternoon was definitely good enough.

Follow Justin Caffier on Twitter.

Illustration by Dan Evans.

Have you ever come home from a day in the countryside and felt... better? Mood altered, anxiety soothed, mind hushed? It seems obvious that getting out of the clanging grind of the city every once in a while might be good for your mental health, but recently, scientists have been working out whether flowers, grass, trees and wild animals could be used to treat depression or anxiety.

The field of ecotherapy – the idea of connecting to nature to aid your wellbeing – isn't new. In his 1984 book Biophilia, Edward O. Wilson put forward a theory that the affiliation we have with nature is rooted in our biology and genetics. Around the same time Wilson was writing, Japanese doctors began to prescribe forest bathing for optimum health. In Norway, 19th century poet Henrick Ibsen coined the word "friluftsliv" – meaning "open-air living", which soon turned into a Scandinavian cultural phenomenon. But until recently, strong scientific evidence to back up anecdotal evidence that nature is good for your mental health was scant. That's changing, however.

In April, Peter James and a team at Harvard University published a study into the relationship between exposure to green spaces and mortality rates. They studied 100,000 female nurses living across the US over an eight-year period and found that those living in the greenest areas had a 12 percent lower mortality rate compared with those living in the most built-up areas. To find out what factors might explain this, they collected information on doctor-diagnosed depression and antidepressant medication. Improved mental health, measured through lower levels of depression, was estimated to explain nearly 30 percent of the benefit from living around green spaces.

"We weren't expecting the magnitude ," says Peter. Their results show that Wilson's theory of "biophilia" is true: "That there's a direct cognitive benefit and restorative quality of being in nature, that we've evolved in nature to enjoy being in nature."

Peter is quick to point out this isn't just about moving to the countryside. With 84 percent of people in the United States living in urban areas, the study suggests that small things like more trees in the street and more parks in urban areas can have a significant benefit for health.

I'm a nature junkie and that's definitely something I can relate to. I'm obsessed with a pear tree that's framed by my bedroom window, where I often work. At the moment, in spring, it's foaming with cream flowers and bright Kermit-green leaves. Last year, my neighbour put scaffolding up that blocked my view of it. I was surprised – and a bit weirded out – by how much it not being there every day affected my mood.

But research shows that something as small as seeing that pear tree every day could have a real impact on my mental health. A recent report from Natural England shows that taking part in nature-based activities helps people who are suffering from mental health problems and can contribute reducing levels of anxiety, stress, and depression.

MindFood is an allotment site in west London, which runs courses in how to manage mental wellbeing. The sessions allow people with common mental health problems to work together, improve the garden, learn new skills and benefit from some gentle exercise.

Lucy Clarke is one of the MindFood's clients. She came to the project after a depressive episode and wanted to find something local to do before returning to work. Some of the benefits of the course were practical: "Having a regular visit to the allotment gives me a bit of structure. It gives you a sense of purpose when you really need it," she says.

There's also something powerful about growing food in a natural setting. "You lose yourself in the moment, you forget everything around you when you care for something that's bigger than yourself, and when you look more closely at nature, it's a perpetual source of wonder."

Working outside brings you out of your head and back into the world.

"Simply speaking, working outside brings you out of your head and back into the world," says one of the project's employees, Ed Harkness. Most of the participants in the project, says Ed, get referred to their services via their GPs, the NHS's Improving Access to Psychological Therapies initiative, and other health practitioners. "The culture is changing and we are not alone in realising the significance of preventative care," says Ed. "Whatever the weather, however small or urban the garden, the gardener is made mindful of the here and now. Having your hands in the dirt and repeating tasks such as weeding or planting focuses your energy and allows you the freedom to escape the normal background noise of thoughts and feelings."

These eco-therapy projects sound great, but come at a time when our green spaces are increasingly under threat from residential development, building and the government's decision to frack in national parks. "Open spaces are protected for leisure and ecological reasons but the connection for how valuable it is for our well being isn't protected by law," says Joanna Ecclestone, who runs a project in London called Potted History, which offers horticultural therapy to bereaved, isolated or depressed older people. Organisations like the Wildlife Trust are trying to redress this – urging the government to consider a Nature & Wellbeing Act, which would enshrine in law the need for green spaces to improve our mental wellbeing.

Elsewhere, ecotherapy and "biophilic" thinking continues to be on the rise. There are three therapeutic "healing forests" in South Korea (with 34 more planned by 2017) and, in Sweden, virtual nature spaces are prescribed for stressed-out workers. In Britain, don't be surprised if you see 'Vitamin G' (green) or 'Vitamin W' (wilderness) on prescription from your GP someday soon.

@lucyjones

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Photo via Wikimedia Commons user Zxc

The benefits of buying cocaine are obvious: It makes you feel interesting and tingly for a few minutes, plus people will be nice to you if you give them some. The drawbacks are a bitter taste on the back of your tongue, the possibility of an overdose, or debilitating addiction, and prison if you're unlucky or careless.

Oh, and there's also the vague feeling that somebody, somewhere, got beheaded or tortured so you could feel interesting and tingly for a few minutes.

That vague feeling has been around for a while. In 1982, Harper's published an opinion piece by David Owen called "Boycott Cocaine," designed to guilt trip the Reagan-era literati about its collective cocaine habit. "Murder is as much a part of cocaine culture as tiny silver spoons and rolled-up hundred-dollar bills," Owen wrote. He cited dozens of murders in Miami in 1981, and noted that "in the first four months of 1979, 240 people died in drug feuding in the Colombian resort town of Santa Maria."

If any readers were won over by Owen's boycott idea based on a three-digit death toll, they would only be more apt to shun cocaine based on more recent reported body counts. According to a PBS report last year based on numbers released by the Mexican government, between the years 2007 and 2014, 164,000 people were murdered in the country—27,000 in 2011 alone. PBS noted that one report linked 55 percent of Mexico's murders to the cartels, but those estimates were criticized elsewhere, so it remains unclear how many deaths were tied to cocaine.

Other relevant numbers are useful in linking that violence to cocaine in particular. In 2011, the peak year for murder in Mexico, an estimated 546 metric tons of cocaine were smuggled into the US—mostly through Mexico—according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. In its most recent Drug Threat Assessment report, the US Justice Department noted that "current cocaine users outnumbered heroin users by approximately 5 times in 2013," the most recent year with such data.

And cartels do more than just increase murder rates. Shockwaves from drug-related crimes reverberate throughout an entire affected country, such as the terrifying mass kidnapping of 43 Mexican college students in 2014. The slow response to that crime, which appears to have been masterminded by the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, sparked a period of civil unrest that lasted for months. Mexican citizens have so little faith in local law enforcement, a recent government survey suggests that only 10 percent of violent crime in Mexico is ever even reported.

"As a consumer, you're part of the chain," Professor David Schwartz, Randolph College ethicist, and author of the book Consuming Choices: Ethics in a Global Consumer Age, told VICE. Along with the manufacturers and distributors of a product, Schwartz explained, "consumers share in the moral culpability for such unethical practices, because in the end, they receive a tangible benefit from these practices—they receive the consumer product itself, whether that be clothing or cocaine."

According to a Los Angeles cocaine dealer in his 20s who calls himself "Ra," distributors of cocaine are only vaguely aware of the troubling fallout from the drug trade. "Random people being offed, and stuff like that? I don't know anything about that," he told VICE. He did say he knew dealers who had relatives in Mexico who had been in danger, but he'd certainly never heard of a cocaine buyer expressing any concerns. "On the consumer side right now, nobody gives a shit. They can be vegan and still blow lines. Human bloodshed is fine for you, but animal bloodshed, no. It's kinda ugly in that sense for sure."

While reports of drug-related violence more often come from Mexico these days, cocaine has had an enduring impact on the 1980s cocaine stronghold of Colombia, as well as its neighbors Peru and Bolivia, where almost all coca plants—from which cocaine is derived—are grown. Paradoxically, according to Sanho Tree, director of the drug-policy project at the Institute for Policy Studies, the farmers themselves long for the seemingly endless cycle to finally break. "It's not just a livelihood for . It's one that many of them no longer want, because there's just too much blood and violence associated with it," Tree, who observes Colombian coca farming and cocaine production firsthand, told VICE.

But the Colombian and US governments have already tried to raise consumer awareness about the ecological impact of nose candy for years. Former Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos Calderón launched an environmentalist campaign in the UK in 2008 and in the US in 2009, attempting to spread the word about "shared responsibility," and guilt trip middle- and upper-class cocaine users to give up their precious yeyo. But given the US and Colombian culpability in the enormously destructive spraying of herbicide in the Amazon rainforest in order to choke cocaine farms to death, such past campaigns reek of Roundup and hypocrisy. "It's disingenuous to say the least," Tree said.

Related: Check out our report on Greece's problem with the drug sisa

But Schwartz remains optimistic about a cocaine boycott's chances of improving the drug's ecological and humanitarian footprint. "I think sometimes consumers sell themselves short as to what effects they might have," he offered. As an example, he pointed to the way in which outrage about the torturous deaths of the cows that became McDonald's hamburgers gave way to extensive reforms in slaughterhouses. "Obviously, nobody can change a system as one person," he said, but he added that with social media, "it's a hell of a lot easier to get something on people's radar."

But short of a laughable scenario in which some of the world's deadliest gangs adopt nonviolence and sustainable agriculture, it's tough to imagine what positive change in the cocaine world would look like. But even Ra the coke dealer would love to see improvements. He suggested that narcos could arrange with farmers to have a "grow-op that's humane." Either that, he said, or "somebody has to start doing it in America, but it's crazy. Where the fuck would you do that?"

Tree said the climate looks right in Florida, and noted that, "Hawaii had plantations back in the day," but he pointed out that those are small islands, and therefore easier to police than relatively lawless equatorial Latin America. Unlike weed, which you can grow in a small space like a closet and get a nice side business going, cocaine doesn't work that way. You need "an acre minimum" if you want to see a usable amount of white stuff according to Tree, so "the economies of scale just aren't there."

In short, don't expect to see labels on your cocaine advertising that it's made in America, or that it's "cruelty free" anytime soon (or if you see them, don't believe them).

But if you must insist on putting powder in your nose, according to Schwartz, you can do what people with guilty consciences about their carbon footprints do to sleep better at night: offset your economic sins with charitable donations. "With something like cocaine, one way to lessen one's culpability for buying a product intimately tied to such troubling practices is to financially support social welfare organizations or other groups seeking to help those who may have been harmed," he said.

For Ra, a crusade for change sounds great, but "that's not for now," he said. Ra's main worry in the meantime: "not getting my ass kicked."

If you really do want to give to an organization that helps out in Latin America—whether or not its because you feel guilty about buying cocaine—you could check out the work done in that region by ACCION International, OXFAM or Save the Children.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

The game's protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, looks out over a Velen landscape

This article complements VICE's Open Worlds video series, and is made possible by NVIDIA. Watch the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt episode, with record-breaking explorer and wilderness expert Alex Hibbert, here.

CD Projekt RED's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt rightly made off with a great many of 2015's gaming awards, not least of all the honour of overall Game of the Year at December's mega-profile Game Awards in Los Angeles, ahead of Fallout 4 and Metal Gear Solid V. The Polish studio spent a lot of time researching real-world European locations to inspire their game's incredible vistas, from the snow-capped peaks of the Skellige Islands and treacherous swamps of Velen to the stinking gutters of Novigrad and ruined splendour of Kaer Morhen.

Ahead of the forthcoming game expansion Blood and Wine, one of the dev team, environment artist Kacper Niepokólczycki, spoke to us about how CDPR brought this most alluring, yet incredibly dangerous, of video gaming open worlds into existence.

The hangman tree, or the hanged man tree, screenshot by Andy Kelly

VICE: When making the world for The Witcher 3, what parts of the real world were you looking at for inspiration, and how close to the various parts of what we see in the game correlate with those places? I know you went to Scotland, and I can see that – but there's also plenty of other "wilderness" in there. Where did that come from?
Kacper Niepokólczycki: I mostly worked on (the swampy and rural) Velen, and the main theme there was desperation, hunger and hopelessness. It was a land devastated by a long war – people were desperate to find anything to eat and to sustain themselves. Many were struggling after losing their loved ones. When the player enters that hub, we wanted to evoke these kind of emotions, so the first thing you see there is the hangman tree, which, I think, sells the idea pretty well.

As far as referencing real world parts, Velen is heavily based on Polish villages and the surrounding countryside. Woods, swamps, castles – we have it all. It would be super hard for me to give you exact locations we used for references, though, because we used a lot.

We never tried to copy any real place 1:1 in our game, as that wouldn't feel right, I think – Wild Hunt is a fantasy game, after all. References are there to give us ideas and inspirations, but the actual locations in the game are creations by our great artists. What was paramount to creating any location was gameplay, flow and level design – real-life locations are not supposed to "support gameplay", if you know what I mean, so you can't transfer them to the game verbatim.

We also used the look and feel of previous games in The Witcher series. For example, (the Witcher's castle of) Kaer Morhen – many gamers were super excited to go back there after the original The Witcher of 2007, which gave us very strong base to build a new and improved fortress, and the whole hub itself.

The hunting, the foraging, the searching for supplies in the game is aided by the hero Geralt's Witcher senses – items glow, yellow or red. Can you imagine the game without this system? If you didn't have the items glowing, how else might Geralt have found what he's looking for?
I'm not the kind of guy who enjoys using helpers while playing games, so when there is a possibility to turn those off, I do it right away. Here, in Wild Hunt, while role-playing as Geralt I really enjoy it. I understand that he is an augmented mutant with his superhuman senses. Thanks to that, we developed a system that helps the player to find their goals faster.

Please keep in mind that this is an open-world game, of course; the quest areas are often very obvious, but still, it would be super frustrating for the player to be walking and checking every tombstone on the cemetery for instance, or walking around Novigrad looking for correct doors. First of all, the game has to be fun. Witcher senses help the game to be fun. The fact that those senses fit right into this fantasy world also helps. Plus, in my opinion, quest designers are using Witcher senses very wisely. Quest variety with this feature is an advantage, very often with a twist, rather than just simple show what to do and where to go.

Article continues after the video below

Watch episode two of Open Worlds, made possible by NVIDIA, looking at the world of 'The Witcher 3' with polar traveller and wilderness expert Alex Hibbert.

When it came to placing supplies around the game, was there a system in place for where certain plants might grow in relation to the quest that needed them, or where animals or monsters would spawn? How much is going on behind the scenes of the game to keep its world populated by everything but people?
Populating the open world of the game is a very complex process. Take herbs, for example – many of them were planted to match their natural environmental needs. For example, some plants are growing near a body of water, or even underwater, while others might be found on top of mountains, or in the middle of a meadow. This system works great, and when players realise that there's a pattern to it, they might try to predict what kind of herbs can be found where. What's more, monsters are spawned in a similar fashion. Drowners are always near water, in swampy areas, while Nekkers spawn in forests, and Griffins nest in high mountains.

Geralt doesn't actually eat to survive in the game, just to restore HP lost in combat. Is that something you could add in – or maybe it already exists in a mod? Or would that be maddening for players, to stop a quest to search for nuts and berries every few hours, to stave off hunger?
I have no knowledge of a mod doing that, but there might be one. Doing things as they are was a conscious design decision, as the game is not a survival simulator – it's a storytelling experience set within an open world. Continuously performing repetitive tasks like eating would, in my opinion, hamper that experience.

Related, on Motherboard: War Is Hell, and 'The Witcher 3' Gets It

The sprawling city of Novigrad, the largest settlement in 'The Witcher 3'

The game is full of amazing sights, incredible vistas – the ship on the mountain in "The Last Wish" mission is just breath taking. What's your favourite "view" in the game, or maybe you have a few?
As you mentioned, Wild Hunt has huge variety of landscapes. Every hub was created with general theme to it, but also was planned to be unique and easily recognizable by the player. There are also the books, by Andrzej Sapkowski, which gave us solid base for our work. Still, it was a huge challenge to make this super dense and believable world.

Since I worked mostly on Velen, also known as No Man's Land, I'm really proud of how it looks like. However, Skellige was my love at first sight – every inch is just so beautiful. Just go to Kaer Trolde and check out the view there! The ship you've mentioned, in "The Last Wish", is also in Skellige of course. There's a great feeling of space and distance, sometimes it's even overwhelming. Also, I really love Kaer Morhen. My favourite view here is to look at the fortress from one of the mountains. When it's a little bit darker and the rain starts to drop, it's epic. And then there's the hangman tree in Velen, which is a very creepy sight.

Blood and Wine, the second and final story expansion for The Witcher 3, is released on May the 31st.

@MikeDiver

More from VICE Gaming:

Rocksteady's Visions of Gotham City Remain Gaming's Greatest Playgrounds

In Conversation with Nolan North and Troy Baker, the De Niro and Pacino of Video Games

Writing Sex Scenes for 'The Witcher 3' Was More About Characters Than Carnal Kicks

Photo via Flickr user Patrick Nygren

Read: Here's Every Type of Annoying Person You're Friends with on Facebook

Selfies have fully dominated our modern world. They are with us on Friday nights at the bar, and while we're traveling the world, and during life's most precious moments, and sometimes used in lieu of a job interview. But all this selfie-shotting has fundamentally changed the way people see you and how we see ourselves, according to new research.

A study from the University of Toronto says that taking selfies can make you appear more narcissistic to those around you and give you a self-inflated view of yourself. Sure, that seems kind of self-evident, but now we've got the science to back it up.

For the study, researchers got 198 participates—100 of whom considered themselves "regular selfie-takers"—to take a selfie as well as just a regular old-fashioned portrait and rate how attractive and likable they thought their friends would think each was, if uploaded to social media. Then researchers had people from the public check out the participants' photos and rate them as to how attractive, likable, and narcissistic they thought each subject appeared.

Not only did most participants think they looked much better in their photos than the public did—ouch—the independent raters generally liked the portraits better than the selfies, and thought the selfie enthusiasts came across significantly more narcissistic in their selfies than everyone else.

The study suggests that taking selfies is basically just a way of showing people what you want them to see, but not necessarily what the rest of the world sees, which can come off as narcissistic and eventually make you think you're hotter than you think you are. But hey, what's wrong with a little self-love? This is Masturbation Month, after all.

Photo by Fred Clifton

Not having babies costs money. But until a few months ago, I'd never considered asking my boyfriend to go halves on contraception. Then I decided to shell out a bit more for a new pill because my old friend Levlen, while amazingly cheap, was wreaking havoc on my skin.

I was relieved when he offered to split the cost because the new pill was pricey. Yet I felt torn: Should my boyfriend really have to pay just because I was sick of having the types of breakouts that are usually reserved for teenagers?

I decided to ask around, to get answers from a bunch of girls and guys on this seemingly simple question: Who should pay for the pill?

Chloe, 19

Sadly, no one has ever offered to pay for the pill, nor do I know of any close friend whose partner splits it with them. Generally girls are expected to pay the entire fee for their chosen contraception (Implanon, IUD, the pill), while boys are expected to pay for condoms.

But splitting contraception is often more complex than simply splitting a bill.
When I started dating my current partner of two years, I was already on the pill, so we never had a conversation about who would pay because it was a decision I made for reasons other than just safe sex.

But I decided to go off the pill about four months ago, and since then, we've taken it in turns to buy condoms.

Adam, 27

I have offered, and my partner initially refused, but when she was going to a more expensive pharmacist, she accepted, and now we share the cost. I think I owe an extra round or two, though.

Since the woman typically has to shoulder most of the admin, mental load, and stress of a potential pregnancy or termination, it seems fair that the man should cop at least half of the financial burden.

Having said that, if I thought my partner was making a poor decision about the method or brand of contraception, I probably wouldn't feel comfortable paying for it.

Zoe, 24

Yes, a partner should definitely pay half of our contraception, whether that's literally half or even covering something else in lieu. When you share so many expenses in a relationship, the pill may seem affordable for women, but it potentially dissolves the responsibility of the man. I feel this should be an issue shared by both partners.

However, when I was taking the pill, I generally paid just for the convenience—my partner would contribute occasionally, but because guys aren't the ones booking the doctors appointments and picking up the prescriptions, it's a case of out of sight, out of mind.

Phil, 26

Why doesn't everyone just use the cheaper option like the IUD or the Implanon? That way it's a one-off payment and see you later. I've never been asked, and I've never thought to offer. My last girlfriend was in Germany, and everything is free there. Back at home in England, it's only a few quid every three months.

I don't know if guys should have to pay for a girls who are using a really expensive pill for reasons other than contraception. I mean, if I had some bowel condition, would they be paying for my treatment? And when do you start paying? The third date? There are a lot of questions.

Tom, 29

I think splitting is definitely optional. I mean, contraception is as arbitrary an area as any to mandate equal spending. That said, I've definitely offered to pay before. The response has usually been a mixture of pleasantries that I've interpreted to mean, "How nice of you to think of the cost of contraception, but I don't think that you paying is going to happen." If I had substantially more money than my partner, or just any money, I'd probably feel more responsible.

Rachel, 28

In theory, I like the idea, but I've never asked a boyfriend to pay for contraception. I think contraception is almost always up to the woman, so often they get shouldered with it. I've got the Implanon at the moment, and I'm not about to ask my boyfriend to give me €22 for it. Unless it's a really expensive pill, it's an awkward conversation to have for only a small amount of money.

Xabe, 29

My partner's never offered, but then again, I've never been on the pill or anything similar since we've been together. We did share the cost of condoms when we used those. I actually just asked him, and he said he'd never even think of offering in the first place. I think it's very much a mysterious woman thing in a lot of guys' eyes.

I'd definitely want my partner to pay half my contraception if I was using any—it's something we both benefit from, so it's probably something we should both pay for. Maybe if I was using something that benefited my health in a lot of different ways separately to being a contraceptive, I might feel uncomfortable letting him pay for a large fraction of it. But otherwise, sex is an equally shared part of your relationship and the costs associated with it should be too.

Robert*, 27

I would definitely be happy to pay half the cost of a girlfriend's contraception. I'd also pay a premium for one that didn't affect her moods (either directly due to hormone imbalances, or indirectly by way of the side effects, skin, weight gain, etc). If there was an income disparity, I'd be happy to pay more than half; it all comes out in the wash, and a baby is far more expensive anyway. I did offer to help pay for the pill for my ex-girlfriend a few times, but she refused. I'm not sure why.

Most photographers are not invited to take out their cameras at strip clubs, or to document casual hangs with the Bloods. But Ivar Wigan—perhaps due to his soft-spoken, Scottish charm—always seems to be invited to the party.

Wigan's photography series, The Gods, is a celebration of the culture and community around hip-hop in the American South. Shooting primarily in Atlanta, New Orleans, and Miami, Wigan's images are provocative and cinematic, showcasing street culture from a perspective that's intimate and admiring.

All photos by Ivar Wigan

Wigan was born in Scotland and raised in London. His voracious approach to documentation reminds me of a famous quote by Susan Sontag, from her book On Photography: "The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque.'"

The Gods shares common themes with Wigan's previous work, which includes explorations of tribal Africa, the Jamaican dancehall scene, and images from his extensive travels around the American South. Wigan's series is exhibiting at Little Big Man Gallery in Downtown Los Angeles through June 19.

VICE: Why is so much of The Gods shot inside strip clubs?
Ivan Wigan: The subjects of the series all pivot around the world of gangster rap, and strip clubs are the main meeting place within that culture—they're like the church, basically. A lot of the action unfolds in strip clubs. That's where everyone goes to hang out, where the rappers play their new records, where all the hottest DJs in hip-hop have residencies. And for some of the women in those communities, their greatest aspiration is to be able to dance in one of those clubs. For example, in Atlanta, if you're a Magic City dancer, people look up to you, they show you respect, because those girls are making more money than everyone else in their environment. They're often only twenty-one or twenty-two, but some are making $5,000 a night easily. They have flash cars, all that. So a lot of the young girls are literally waiting to hit nineteen, so they can get a dancer's license. And the guys want to date the star dancers, and to be seen with them.

That's refreshing to hear, given that even within the most sex-positive communities in cities like New York, there's still a lingering stigma about women taking their clothes off to make money—even if the women say that they enjoy their work.
Yeah, being a dancer is not regarded as even remotely negative in Atlanta, which of course is a very different attitude to other places in the world. I grew up in England, where a strip club is considered a really dirty place—somewhere old men go alone to get some kind of sterilized erotic experience. But in Atlanta, it's not remotely like this: Everyone goes to strip clubs—couples go, I met a pastor in there, you see groups of girls, people go to watch basketball or football games, they go for dinner—all the clubs serve food. But by the end of the night, it's heated and everyone starts dancing, and it turns into a bit of a club. So it's not just a place where men sit around a stage in a long coat looking sinister. It's really an upbeat, mixed environment where people go to interact. The dancers are beautiful young women who have positive aspirations. It's something that's quite unique to the South. Atlanta is at the center of it, but you have clubs like that in New Orleans, Jacksonville, Memphis, and a bit of it in Miami. There's more than sixty-five strip clubs in the metropolitan area of Atlanta.

The subjects of your work are represented as heroic—almost divine. Is this intentional?
That's very much the case. I'm trying to raise street-corner characters to iconographic status. Another person could shoot all this same subject matter very differently—in negative or condescending light, or in a way that was highly politicized. But I'm trying to lift people up. My purpose is to make beautiful pictures that the subjects of the photos love.

Is this where the name The Gods comes from?
Actually, "Gods" is a slang term for veterans of the street—guys who have survived the prison system, veteran hustlers. So the younger boys will often call the older guys the Gods.

What drew you to this particular American community, rather than, say, shooting communities in your native Scotland?
I think a lot of artists place themselves into lifestyles or situations that are unconventional or exotic to them, in order to clean away the conventions they are born into, and to see the world or their subject in a fresh light.

It's not often that people are allowed to take out their cameras inside strip clubs, or while shadowing gangs. How did you get such intimate access?
I had to live in Atlanta for a long time. When I arrived, I didn't know anybody. I went there because I knew about the club scene, and when I landed, I just said to my cab driver, "Take me to a cheapest motel," and from then on, I learned the city, made friends, and embedded myself. I was there for more than a year, but I didn't take any photos for the first nine weeks—I didn't even take my camera out of the bag, I was just driving through the city and trying to understand it physically, the communities and the neighborhoods, and getting out and talking to people.

When I eventually found the clubs that I wanted to work in, I would go there every single night until I knew all the dancers and the security and the management. It's all about relationships. So I was part of the scene at the time. I'd always have my iPad and would show them my photos—the work breaks down the barrier, and they can see what I'm about.

For more on the culture of strip clubs in Atlanta, check out our video: 'Atlanta: Strip City':

Would you say your work is portraiture? Documentary? Both?
You know, I never really thought of it in those terms. There's definitely some portraiture in there. But then, when I met the Bloods... well, it's not like you get many chances to hang out with the Bloods, so you can't try to control that situation—you just shoot what you can. So from that point of view, it's a documentary project. But I'm not trying to document everything, warts and all. It's more like, "Here's my view of this world. Here's a slice of life that I've chosen to represent."

I was very much looking for moments of light in the storm. Because it's a dramatic world. Really, it's more akin to wedding photography—I'm trying to enter this world and be very much part of the party, to live within it, get to know everyone there, and to give back something that the subjects love and want to keep. I give the people I shoot prints whenever I can. There's a couple of shots in the series—the bigger group shots—where I didn't get to give a photo to every single person, but for the most part, everyone loved and was given their photographs.

Do you feel like white audiences are more receptive to a white photographer representing black culture?
I would say no. In Britain, we don't categorize artists by their ethnicity, so I find this question a bit odd as it's intrinsically divisive. The subject of race is a tricky one for me because Britain is very different in this regard, and much more integrated. There's been many events and parties where I've shot side-by-side with NYC-based photographer Wayne Lawrence, who was born in the Caribbean. We are friends and frequently share feedback on each other's work. He is probably the highest-profile photographer of African descent working in America. Wayne is a far more successful photographer with countless accolades and awards, so I'm very much still in the shadow of many artists who have come before me. On his Instagram, he just describes himself as "a human." That's how I see myself, too. I don't think the question of the reception of our pictures by the public is in any way related to our complexion.

What does it mean to be a white person creating imagery of a group of people who don't usually get control of the way they are represented?
With social media playing an increasing role, I think everyone has a stronger degree of control over their images.

How do you navigate the lines between admiration and fetishization? Documentation and exploitation? How much of a concern is this for you and your work?
Fetishization implies some sort of erotic content that I don't really see in this series at all. I don't feel photography to be an exploitative process if the intention is to produce a positive result of lasting beauty. What better gift can you give a person than to portray and display their image, caught looking their finest, in the prime of life?

People often compare your work to Nan Goldin, although her work feels much darker than yours.
I like Nan's work very much. I met her in Paris the year I started doing this, and I bought a print from her at the time, which I live with, above my bed. She's always been an inspiration to me, but she shoots from a very dark place—she has concentrated on a lot of very dark and turbulent subject matter, and while my pictures might have an edge, I don't see darkness in them. I see them as positive, more of a celebration. So that's really the difference. For example, one of Nan's most famous images is of the hand of a final-stages AIDS victim, holding the hand of his boyfriend. It's a very powerful image, and I respect it very much, but I would never take that photo, because that's just not my purpose as an artist. My purpose is to find things to celebrate.

Follow Karley Sciortino on Twitter.

Ivar Wigan's The Gods is showing through June 19 at Little Big Man Gallery in Los Angeles. Check out more photos below.

Haidar has been waiting for six months in a 270 square foot . They're all living at Tempelhof in Berlin. The former airport was originally built in 1927 and dramatically expanded by the Nazis in the 1930s. It's infamous for its iconic architectural design, enormous size, and its role as a lifeline for the people of West Berlin during the Berlin Airlift. Today it houses 1300 refugees waiting for more permanent housing and integration into society. The people living here are theoretically only meant to stay for six weeks, but due to a lack of available accommodation, many people I spoke to when I visited had been there for over six months.

Inside, the air is thick and warm, and there are security guards at every exit. They're watching me closely as I shuffle through the corridors of cabins – past cleaners collecting laundry and children playing. The refugees here have a roof over their head, three meals a day and reasonably adequate facilities, but uncertainty about the future and a lack of personal space are a constant source of insecurity and discomfort among the people living there. I wanted to offer a look into the living quarters of refugees at Tempelhof, so I documented their rooms – or "boxes" as they're bleakly referred to – and talked to the residents about their living situation.

Issa, 25 from Baghdad, Iraq

I've been at Tempelhof since November 2015. I live here with two of my friends from Baghdad. We're really lucky because we're only three people living here – other rooms have more people. So I can't really complain, although I still call it a box. The main difference between living here and back home is that in Baghdad I felt safe and comfortable at home, but I didn't feel safe as soon as stepped out of my house. Here it's exactly the opposite: When I'm in my living space I don't feel comfortable, but when I go outside I feel more secure.

Sayed, 37 from Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan

I've been here for just over four months. I have no idea what will happen next, or how long I'll be living here. Living here isn't good – especially for my mental state. This morning we had a big problem with some of the security guys. We're having issues with integrating too – there has been no news about an integration course we were supposed to have. I'm living with two other families in my cubicle, 12 people in total. I have to like them, I have no choice.

Hamza, 28 and Akram, 16 from Qunaitra, Syria

We've been living in Tempelhof for six and a half months, but this doesn't feel like living. Our brothers are fighting in Syria and we are fighting here. The hardest thing is the living space and how we're treated socially. We're treated as refugees, not as human beings. The good thing is that we are now immune to shitty living. All eight of us in our room met on the way to Germany. We can't bring our own food or milk into the building. We thought that a country like Germany would provide us with better spaces for living, which is why we took the risk in coming here.

Abdulrahman, 19 from Damascus, Syria

I've been in Tempelhof for five and a half months. I live with my sister and my uncle, and there is also another guy from Damascus living with us. I think the living conditions here are bad – it's not healthy to be living in such confined spaces with so many people. But we have a good group of friends here – mostly people from Syria and Palestine – and we also have some friends that live outside of the camp, so sometimes we hang out at their places. The difference between the houses my friends live in and here is huge. Their places are cleaner, they have their own electricity, they have a fridge to store food and drinks, they have gas to cook. I think it's quite unfair how it's decided who's moving into a house and who has to wait – there have been people who moved here after us and they've left before us. They say families should leave first, but I think we are also a family: I'm with my sister and my uncle. My soul is not happy, but I try to keep smiling.

Ahmed, 31 from Al-Hasakah, Syria

I've been here for about six months with my 12-year-old cousin. I did a Masters in Agricultural Economics in Syria when I left. We lived in a land of militias, where there was no state whatsoever. My cousin has been exposed to a lot of violence and we were worried about how traumatised he would get. As a child, it's easier for him to cope with the limited living space, but he misses his parents and the emotional link to the place where he lives a lot. I didn't know the people that I'm currently living with before, even though we come from the same town. I will start my course at the Technological University in Berlin soon, and I'm worried about where I should study when it starts. I'm going to need my space and privacy. I'm not sure know how I will cope.

Nadia, 37 from Logar Province, Afghanistan

I've been living here for four months now with my husband and four children. It's very hard to be here – the hardest thing about it is probably the constant noise. My daughter has a mental illness, and when there is a lot of noise she gets worse. My children aren't able to study here when they get out of school, but they are learning German and I'm really happy for them. My son never wants to go out and play, I have to force him. He finds it hard to engage with the other children and make friends here. My dream is for my children to study here and achieve their goals.

Omar, 20 from Damascus, Syria

I've been here at Tempelhof since October 2015. I live with seven other people I met here, and we get along really well. I'm a single man, so it's okay, I can live here. But if I were married or had a family, I would tell them not to come here because the living situation isn't good. We are just men in our box, and it's a bit like military service. The food is pretty bad, but most of us were in the army, so we're used to this – although the toilets were cleaner in the army. At 06:00 they turn the lights on and at 22:00 the lights go off again. And If you're late for a meal, you don't get to eat.

Mohamad, 18 from Mayadin, Syria, Khaled, 19 from Mosul, Iraq and Sherko, 25 from Kirkuk, Iraq

We met each other at Tempelhof – it's six of us living together in this room. We all get along very well, but there's not much privacy. It does feel like one big family though, which is nice. We are trying hard to integrate with guys and girls outside of the camp and we're very thankful for their hospitality. We do sometimes feel a sense of reluctance towards us, which I think mostly comes from fear. Around Christmas we'd visit Alexanderplatz quite often, and one time a friend and I were talking in loud voices and two girls in front of us at some point turned around, looked at us, hid their bags away and walked off at a faster pace.

Haidar, 24 from Kirkuk, Iraq

I've been in Tempelhof for six months now, and I'm living with three other people. I come from an upper middle class family in Iraq, and when I heard about opportunities in Germany, this is not what I expected. The living situation here is nothing compared to the way I was living in Iraq. I would like to go back home, but every day the problems in Iraq are getting worse. For now, I have to just bear this situation. I think in two years I might still be living here at Tempelhof. It's hard to find a place for a German to live in Berlin, let alone for us.

Michaela, 19 and Kutzung, 19 from Eritrea

We're friends from Eritrea who travelled here together and we've been here for six months now. We are Christians but there are mostly Muslims in this camp. We haven't had any problems on that front, though. We just hope to find some work here in Germany soon – we would be happy doing anything.

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Hana El Zanen, 27, is the mother of one-year-old Hassan, who was born using IVF. Her husband, Tamer, 29, was jailed for six life sentences. He was arrested in this very room. Gaza, Palestine.

This article appeared in the May issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.

There are between 6,000 and 7,000 Palestinians—classified as "security prisoners"—serving time in Israeli prisons. Israel detains them if their alleged or convicted offenses are deemed threats, or potential threats, to national security. Denied conjugal visits, these Palestinian prisoners see their immediate family for just 45 minutes every two weeks, if at all. While kept physically separated from visiting spouses and adults, inmates can play with their children for ten minutes at the end of each session. During these short visitations, some of the men have smuggled sperm to their wives in order to conceive children through in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Until April 2013, religious authorities in Palestine had not clarified their position on IVF. Over time, however, things changed, and the procedure is now accepted in specific circumstances. Issuing a religious edict in April 2013, the Palestinian Supreme Fatwa Council detailed the restrictions, limiting the process to those men with a long sentence, a marriage consummated before imprisonment, and no other way for pregnancy. The husband and wife also need to fill out paperwork, and families are expected to provide multiple witnesses confirming that the sample belongs to the man. As a result, a greater degree of openness now exists for those who have had children in this manner.

Now, fertility clinics in the occupied territories increasingly offer IVF treatment to prisoners' wives free of charge. The Razan fertility clinic in Nablus and the al Basma fertility clinic in Gaza have frozen numerous sperm samples recently smuggled from behind bars. In the past four years, an estimated 40 babies have been born through IVF to the wives of Palestinian inmates.

Lydia Rimawi told me that she and other women in the program believe that one day the prisoners will be released, and when they do return home, they should have a family waiting for them. Combined with what she described as a cultural belief that wives are not able to cope with everyday life alone, this notion encourages them to take such measures to become pregnant. She felt that becoming pregnant while her husband was imprisoned would help continue the Palestinian resistance.

VICE's Open Worlds series is made possible by NVIDIA.

For episode two of Open Worlds, host Ellie Gibson is joined by record-breaking polar traveller and wilderness expert Alex Hibbert, to explore the many and varied locations found in CD Projekt RED's multi-award-winning role-playing game of 2015, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Portsmouth-born Hibbert is one of the world's most respected expedition leaders. In 2008 he broke the world record for the longest unsupported polar journey, alongside teammate George Bullard. Aged just 21, he led the 1,374 statute mile, 113 day Tiso Trans-Greenland Expedition. This is a man who knows all about extreme conditions, incredibly harsh environments, and how to tame them.

In The Witcher 3, monster-slaying protagonist Geralt can freeze to death in certain situations, be set upon by all manner of beasts, and must forage from the land in order to concoct his various oils and potions. Together, Hibbert and Gibson stride across the snow-capped peaks of Skellige and ride the war-torn terrain of Velen. There might just be time for a little sword fighting, too.

Watch the previous episode of Open Worlds, on the virtual playground of Rocksteady's Gotham City, here. Find out more about NVIDIA, and NVIDIA SHIELD, here.

Everyone deserves to get kinky in a dorm at least once in their lives. All photos by author

For most people who had to jump through the mental gymnastics clusterfuck of sneaking people into their parent's house during their teenage years, dorm sex can seem like a big step up. Gone are the days of trying to finesse a hookup across town—now you can simply take an elevator to a different floor or walk down the hall and start getting down with your crush.

But it's not all fun and games—fucking while living in a building full of hundreds of horny students can be tough. Thin walls, rumors, shitty roommates, and the ability of a nasty STI to wipe out an entire floor all make quick dorm hookups a bit of a minefield. Now that the college school year is officially over, we asked some students across Canada about the best and worst of their sex life from inside school residences this past year.

Recent photo of me (Photo by UCFFool, via)

If, like me, you're a man who has an inordinate amount of sex, to the point where it becomes a mechanical endeavour, the climax serving only as a momentary distraction from the robotic horror of coitus, then you're in luck. Us heavy-intercourse men are getting bigger dicks, and it's all got something to do with beetles.

In a study published by journal Evolution and conducted by scientists at the University of Exeter, it was found that the male burying beetle will lengthen the size of its penis through above-average mating over the course of a few generations. The female burying beetle, on the other hand, grows claws in its reproductive organs.

Predictably, the female beetles come off worse out of this whole thing: it only requires a couple of sessions to fertilise all their eggs. The males, however, can fuck any and all beetles they want, and their dicks subsequently get bigger. All the ladies get is too many kids and a load of pincers in their vaginas. Typical. Looks like the patriarchy is alive and well in the beetle world.

The rate of evolution in these beetle dicks is quite remarkable, though. As Dr Paul Hopwood from the University of Exeter pointed out: "It's fascinating how genital evolution can happen so fast – in ten generations – showing how rapidly evolutionary changes can occur."

Nobody's suggested the same thing could happen to humans – YET. But hey, if it works for beetles, why shouldn't it work for us?

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The Biological Origins of Arms Races

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Hitler in Nuremberg in 1935. Photo (cropped) from the Charles Russell Collection, NARA, via)

This article originally appeared on VICE Germany

Adolf Hitler has been dead for 71 years, but history's biggest villain still manages to capture the almost uninterrupted attention of German people. For news magazines, putting Hitler on the cover is still the easiest way to sell copies whenever they're out of ideas for a cover story – which is why German periodicals like Der Spiegel are notorious for doing exactly that basically every four weeks. Every year, countless new biographies, history books and documentaries dedicated to this worst person ever see the light of day. Only the better ones manage to reveal some new aspects of Hitler's life and his tragic role in history. But – until recently – they all had one thing in common: All these books and films at some point had the dates wrong.

Harald Sandner got so annoyed by seeing the wrong dates being thrown around in historic works that he decided to take on the task of reconstructing each day of Hitler's life. Sandner, who makes his living being a salesman and IT expert in a logistics company, spent 25 years collecting pictures, documents and archival materials and traveling across Europe on his own expense.

The result of all this is Das Itinerar (The Itinerary) – a 2400-page book that doesn't only list where the Führer spent each day of his life, it also documents the means of transportation he used to get there and what he did in each place – down to the number of audience members at speeches and events.

I called Harald Sandner to find out how someone ends up documenting each day in the life of Adolf Hitler.

VICE: How long did you work on this book?
Harald Sandner: Well, I've worked on it on and off for 20 or 25 years. It wasn't the only thing I was doing during that time, of course. I've also published four other books on different subjects in the last 15 years. In the meantime, I worked on Das Itinerar – and now I've finally finished it. When I start something, I finish it – but I'm happy that at the outset, I had no idea how much work would be involved with this particular project.

Where did you get the idea from?
I've always been interested in history. At some point, I started to notice how many discrepancies there were in terms of dates in Hitler's life. And the more I researched, the more mistakes and inconsistencies I found. So I thought: there should be a complete log out there somewhere. But there wasn't.

So then I started gathering dates myself. I did it for 1933 to 1945 first. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, I gained access to more archives in the former East Germany and in the Eastern Bloc. So I reworked everything I'd done up to then.

Excerpt from 'Das Itinerar' via Berlin Story Verlag

How did you go about it exactly?
Basically I started by creating a matrix of data comprised of everything I could get my hands on. For example, it's widely known that Hitler was in Berlin on September 1st, 1939 and gave a speech in front of the Reichstag. So then I tried to fill in the gaps. I wrote to archives and looked for certain places.

You're not a historian by profession. So why did you do it?
I do data processing for my real job – making sure that data is correct is a vital part of it. So the more mistakes I discovered, the more I felt the need to clear things up once and for all. I'm happy that my work exists so that historians now have a reference to avoid making mistakes.

Is it really so important to get Hitler's timeline right?
Let's take Hamburg, for example. For decades after the war, rumours circulated that Hitler hadn't liked Hamburg, that it was too cold and Hanseatic for him. But then Werner Johe wrote the book Hitler in Hamburg, which turned everything around. Johe was saying that after Berlin, Munich and Nuremberg, Hitler didn't visit any city in the Reich as often as he visited Hamburg. But of course, that's also not true. Obviously Hitler visited other cities more frequently – Bayreuth and Weimar to mention a few. But he didn't avoid Hamburg.

Excerpt from 'Das Itinerar' via Berlin Story Verlag

Do you think you've gotten to know Hitler better after completing this work?
You get a feeling about how he liked to move around, of course. Hannah Arendt once said that the definitive characteristic of totalitarian dictatorship is the ambiguity of the centre of power – and Hitler personified that centre. He didn't have a private life. He travelled around and ruled from wherever he was at the time. You can't attach his decisions to one place.

What else did you find out about Hitler?
It was interesting to see how slowly it all developed. He gave a speech in front of 50 people in 1920, then it was 100, then 300, then 500 and so on. The whole drama unfolded really slowly – and nobody realized where this trip was going to take them. You can really see this now in my book.

You often hear that Hitler was pretty fickle when it came to his work. Sometimes he would work all night but then he could step back and not do anything for weeks but go on walks. Is that true?
In principle, yes. He wouldn't do anything for weeks at a time. He was the kind of guy that put off making decisions for a long time – but once he'd made them, they were set in stone. That's what was so fatal.

Would you say that you have a fascination with Hitler?
My fascination is correct data. For me it was all about facts because I'm sick of hearing things that aren't true. My hometown Coburg, for example. Around the year 2000, it was said that Hitler had only been in the city twice. But in reality, Coburg was the first German city to make Hitler an honorary citizen. Coburg was the first Nazi city, with the first Nazi mayor and the first Nazi newspaper. Until very recently, they tried to sweep that under the carpet, and they've only recently appointed a board of historians in the city. If I put the truth on the table, then nobody can try and dispute it. I just want to dispel myths.

Do you think that this work is gaining importance today?
Klaus von Dohnanyi once said that we have to finally realise that Goethe is our Goethe, Bach is our Bach and Hitler is our Hitler. Once we get that, we'll have the chance to move past it. And a lot of heads are still infected. Take the NSU , for example. One of their key figures, Tino Brandt, worked around the corner from me for years. It's not abstract, it's right outside your front door.

What will you do next?
With Das Itinerar I've written about ten books – eleven kilos of books if you take them all together. I think I'm going to relax for a bit now.

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Some Austrian Restaurants Are Serving Hitler's Favourite Dish on his Birthday

According to a depressing new study out of McMaster University in Canada, being poor or unlucky in love may be tied to whether or not you were a premature baby.

In addition to reporting more chronic health and mental health problems, the former premature babies involved in the study—born between 1977 and 1982—were found to have higher rates of unemployment than their counterparts, lower incomes, and a greater tendency to be single well into their thirties. It's "essential that these individuals receive necessary support and continued monitoring," according to the authors led by pediatric researcher Dr. Saroj Saigal.

The report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics looked at people with extremely low birth weights, meaning no more than 1,000 grams, or 2.2 pounds. The average newborn would have to be approximately two months premature to come out that small. Their "normal birth weight" (NBW) counterparts were born at no earlier than the 37 week mark, and weighed at least 2,700 grams, or about six pounds.

In terms of employment, former premature babies were 0.37 times as likely as NBWs to have jobs, and were 4.16 times as likely to be on welfare (all subjects were Canadian). On average, the premature group was pulling in $20,000 a year less than the NBWs.

When it came to romance, premature babies were 1.95 times as likely to be unmarried, and 11.3 times as likely to be virgins. They were also 0.52 times as likely to have kids (although other studies have shown that having kids is not a very good yardstick for measuring wellbeing).

Premature subjects also reported 8.4 times as much low self-esteem.

It should be noted that there's an established connection between premature babies and cerebral palsy, along with other developmental delays. The study makes note of this, and says that when "neurosensory impairments" are factored out, premature subjects fared significantly better. Among other things, the odds of being employed, on welfare, married or having kids ceased being significantly different.

But even when the impaired subjects were factored out, the premature group still had lower incomes, and statistically significant rates of low self-esteem, were more often virgins at the time of the study.

Still, premature birth by no means damns people to horrible lives. "Overall, the majority of extremely premature adults are living independently and contributing well to society," the paper says.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Priests hold up their smart phones at a Pentecost mass in the Vatican. Photo by Giuseppe Ciccia/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In the wake of scandals in the Catholic Church and a growing rejection of traditional values, a record-low number of young people consider themselves religious. Millennials are less likely than any previous generation to pray, attend services, or consider religion an important part of their lives, according to the Pew Research Center. And attempts to connect with young people—like "rock churches," or the priest who started accepting confessions via Snapchat—haven't exactly sparked new interest in religion.

And yet, at the same time, there's been a resurgence of millennials becoming priests. Since 2000, the number of 25- to 29-year-olds studying in seminary schools in the United States has increased by 36 percent, according to research from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Now, more than 75 percent of priests are 34 or younger.

VICE interviewed several of these millennial priests to understand how they approach religion in 2016. These interviews have been edited for clarity and length.

Photo courtesy of Parker Sandoval

Father Parker Sandoval, 34
Resurrection Church, Los Angeles

VICE: Do you see a generational gap within the priesthood?
Father Parker Sandoval: I'm thirty-four, and the other two priests in the house are seventy-four. It's like working with your favorite grandfather. I see some great blessings in that, because they come with so much experience and wisdom from many years of priesthood. At the same time, I'll make some suggestions, and they're open to it.

They can look back at fifty years and say, "Oh my gosh, what a mess. I remember when twenty years ago masses were full, thirty years ago couples were still marrying in the church" and so on. I'm entering into this situation and I say, "Wow, what opportunities. The old system is broken. Can we try something new?"

"If the people are out there in cyberspace, then the gospel should be there, too." — Father Conor Sullivan

Catholicism seems alienating to a lot of young people. How do you get around that?
sense of alienation from the church, especially among our young people. If you look where we invest much of our resources, our space, our time, it's to adults. We spend our time answering questions that nobody's asking, especially for young people. Their questions are a lot more difficult, and a lot more fundamental. And I don't think we, the church, are really in tune to all of their questions.

Do you see the perception of the church or the priesthood changing?
I think Pope Francis has projected a refreshed image of what it means to be in the church, in a language that people can understand. He speaks by gesture. He speaks with images. I think he's rebranded the image of the church—not its content, but our image. But ultimately, I'm convinced the future of the church—including its perception—is largely in the hands of the laity. I hope my generation can continue to infuse in the life of the church.

Photo courtesy of Conor Sullivan

Father Conor Sullivan, 27
St. Francis of Assisi, St. Louis, Missouri

VICE: I've heard you read your homilies off an iPad—is that true?
Conor Sullivan: I'm a product of my generation. I use all of this technology because I know what I'm up against. I come from a generation that has grown up with nearly constant stimulation. We live in a very noisy, nonstop culture, so every occasion to speak publicly is actually a competition for people's attention. While I don't use technology during mass—even I have my limits—I typically spend a lot of time trying to write homilies that will capture people's attention, engage them, and communicate the gospel effectively. Outside of mass, I use whatever means I can in order to get that message across. Social media is definitely on that list. I have my own personal accounts that help me evangelize. If the people are out there in cyberspace, then the gospel should be there, too.

What do you think young priests bring to the church?
You might expect me to say, like: "Young priests bring a lot of energy to the church." Sure, true enough. But on the other hand, if you ask a young priest why he became a priest in the first place, you might find that there is more depth than that. Entering the seminary right out of high school these days is difficult. We have to swim pretty hard against the current of the culture, and a lot of people discourage us along the way. Our generation doesn't like commitment. I think we grew up seeing a lot of people fail in their commitments, and we ask ourselves: What's the point? I think a young priest is a contradiction to that mentality.

Do you think your generation of priests approach the church differently than older generations?
If there is a difference, it probably stems from the different atmospheres we were in when we entered seminary. These days, younger guys are typically more traditional. You'll see young priests in their cassocks , and you'll find that a great many of them like Latin in the liturgy and beautiful old art and architecture. Some critics of this new crop of seminarians and young priests have objected to me, "You young guys just want to take the church back in time, back before Vatican II." I typically respond, "I'm not interested in going backward or forward. Just upwards, toward heaven."

Photo courtesy of Brad Doyle

Father Brad Doyle, 28
St. George Catholic Church, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

VICE: What do you see young priests bringing to the church?
Brad Doyle: I think I see young priests bringing an energy, definitely. That's one of the reasons I entered seminary and thought about the priesthood. Any kind of person who's new in a profession tends to be a little more relatable to the youth and maybe just, you know, fresh. My goal is to stay fresh, to stay relevant, to stay on fire.

Do you see a generational gap in the church?
I think there's a generation gap understand a different language. It's the language of digital, the social media, very quick soundbites. I think the style has to be different. It's got to change, because people change. We see that with Pope Francis—and that's interesting because he's not of my generation—he's on Instagram, on Twitter. He realizes people want to hear directly from him. I think that style has to manifest in the priests.

Watch: The Priest for Gangbangers

What is something you've learned from an older priest and something you've learned from one your age?
One of the older priests told me, "No one will remember by the time the week's over." A great homily someone might remember for like, a month, but you go visit people in the hospital, and they'll remember it for their entire life. It's the importance of being present to people in moments and not just speaking to them. I've taken that to heart.

What I've gathered from the experience of younger priests is that people desire truth. They desire to hear what the church teaches, and not your own interpretation of it. A lot of the younger guys are realizing that the young church and young people in general, they're sick of being told what they want to hear.

Photo courtesy of Bryan Kerns

Brother Bryan Kerns, 27
The University of Chicago Divinity School

VICE: Do you think people coming into religious orders and the priesthood are different than their older counterparts?
Brother Bryan Kerns: I think that there are two main differences: The first is that the younger cohort was largely not formed in the kind of wars in the church after the Second Vatican Council, and elsewhere in the culture. We don't have that history. We're just living in the church of 2016.

The second main difference is that the older priests and brothers that I know were formed entirely in a world where the church was everything—the church was school, it was social life. It was an enclosed system, for lack of a better term. People of my generation are much more comfortable in a world that has a lot more pluralism religiously, culturally, ethnically, socially, politically. I mean, in the 50s and 60s, Archbishop Fulton Sheen had one of the highest-rated television shows, every week—that would never happen today. People don't even watch TV. Maybe if he were on Game of Thrones, but that's about it.

Many young people today have opinions contradictory to what the church teaches. How do you handle that?
Those are important topics to be discussed and debated, but that's not everything that the church teaches. There's this idea of three transcendental notions: the true, the beautiful, and the good. Bishop Bob Barron wrote an article once, and he said something like, "You can't start with the true, with propositional truths. You have to start with something else." He proposed to start with the beautiful. You bring people into churches, you bring them beautiful liturgies, and then you bring them to the good—to community, to conversation, and only then can you start talking about truth. And I think that provides a good enter into how to engage with young people.

I was at a parish recently that would be considered pretty traditional liturgically, and the place was packed with mostly young people, which was fascinating to me. I wasn't expecting that. There's a spiritual yearning in our generation that needs to be addressed, and I think the church can address it—it just has to figure out how. And I think we're still trying to sort all that out.

Follow Alyssa Girdwain on Twitter.