After weeks of speculation, FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress that the agency is investigating allegations the Russian government interfered with the 2016 election. That investigation is also looking at whether members of Donald Trump's campaign apparatus coordinated with Russian agents.

"That includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts," Comey told the House Intelligence Committee during a hearing Monday. "As with any counter investigation, there will also be an assessment of whether any crimes were committed."

Ordinarily, the FBI doesn't comment on the existence of ongoing investigations, Comey said. But he had received permission to take this "extraordinary step." Comey later added that the investigation into Russian interference originally began in July 2016.

However, during his initial address, Comey declined to give any more information since the investigation is ongoing and concerns classified information. "We need to protect people's privacy, we need to make sure we don't give other people clues as to where we're going, we need to make sure that we don't give information to our foreign adversaries," he said.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a ranking member of the intelligence committee, said that the American people could never know for sure if the Kremlin's interference swung the election in Trump's favor. "What does matter is this: The Russians successfully meddled in our democracy and our intelligence agencies have concluded they will do so again," he said.

Both Schiff and Texas Republican Rep. Mike Conaway grilled Comey on whether the Russians had just wanted to make sure that Hillary Clinton — whom Russian President Valdimir Putin publicly hated — would lose the presidency, or if they specifically wanted Trump to win.

Schiff asked, "They also had a positive preference for Donald Trump. Isn't that correct?"

Comey confirmed that they did. However, both Comey and Rogers declined to answer whether Russians generally preferred Republican presidents over Democratic ones, though Rogers said their agencies had done "some analysis that discusses this."

Comey called the Russians' interference into the U.S. election "unusually loud," while Rogers said that they'd never seen people's information being published on such a scale before.

"It's almost as if they didn't care that we knew," Comey said, adding, "Their number one mission is to undermine the credibility of the entire democracy enterprise. Of this nation. Their loudness in a way would be counting on us to amplify… and freaking people out."

And because Americans are now "freaking" out, Comey testified, the Russians likely believe that their efforts were successful.

"They'll be back," he said. "They'll be back in 2020; they may be back in 2018."

This hearing is only Congress' first look into the allegations of Russian meddling. The Senate Intelligence Committee has scheduled a hearing on the topic for March 30.

The worst man on earth has been identified and—don't jump to conclusions—he does not currently hold public office. This dude is a serial dine-and-dasher, but to make matters worse, he continually leaves his blind dates, who he typically meets on apps such as Bumble, at the table.

Yes, he's alleged to be handsome, and, yes, his online dating profile is evidently compelling enough to land him plenty of dates. And he has highfalutin tastes too, preferring to order steak, shrimp, and a nice glass of pinot. Several women in the LA area tell CBS 2 Los Angeles that he ditched them at the table, claiming that he had to make a call.

This horror of a man goes by the name of Paul or Dave Gonzales.

"He said, 'Are you available at all this weekend for dinner?' I said, 'Yes, how about Sunday?' " explained one woman, who declined to be identified when speaking with CBS Los Angeles.

"A glass of pinot, a Caesar salad with a side of shrimp, a steak and a baked potato," said another unnamed blind date about Gonzales' preferred order. Once he had devoured most of his meal, she said, "He left maybe half a baked potato and then received a phone call and said 'I need to take this call.'"

Image via Flickr Creative Commons

Then, this happened: "The waiter came back and said 'He's not out there. Is this a first date? And I said: 'Yes, this is a first blind date, and he said, 'He's gone.' "

On another date that took place more than a year ago, Gonzales said he was a bodybuilder and ordered two entrees for a total of $100, leaving his date stranded with the bill. "He says, 'I'm going to the bathroom, I'll be right back' and he never did," explained the abandoned date.

According to CBS 2, one of the duped dates was comped Gonzales' meal after he dashed, but she still had to pay for his glass of wine.

LA's District Attorney's Office states that 44-year-old Gonzales happens to currently have two bench warrants out for his arrest after he failed to show up to court for petty theft and driving without a license.

Will LA's restaurants and blind daters ever be free of their mysterious dine-and-dasher? Only time will tell. But once the truth gets out, it will probably be a lot harder for him to land a Bumble date.

This statue joined the list of famous fuckups like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the monkey Jesus when photos of its completely disproportionate body and twisted face spread online. Unlike other famous fuckups, the statue didn't survive long enough to become a tourist attraction, the military tore it down out of embarrassment.

Now the hunt is on for similarly bad tiger statues. Colonel Desi Ariyanto, the Siliwangi military spokesperson, said every command center has to reappraise the quality of their tiger mascots.

"Because the previous statue went viral, now we know what a tiger should look like. Every office has its own commander who is responsible for their jurisdiction," said Desi.

Captain Eko, a retired serviceman, was the the sculptor of the original viral tiger. It went up seven years ago, but the statue was torn down last weekend and 'preserved' after it became the butt of jokes online. All statues that have received attention online are to be re-evaluated, they haven't announced which statues are considered sub-par. 

This policy will affect a large number of military offices. In West Java and Banten alone, there are about 400 command centers. It seems like many tiger statues won't make the cut and will have to be replaced.

When asked what they consider a proper statue, Desi pointed to the tiger at Cisewu's command post. The base was given a new 300 kilogram, four meter statue by the district head of Purwakarta, Dedi Mulyadi.

"It's my way of showing solidarity with the military, it's only right I help," said Dedi after traveling 125 kilometers to Garut to symbolically hand over the statue. 

A 'proper' tiger statue. Photo by @kodam3siliwangi.

Desi said tigers are a source of pride for the soldiers. Tigers are chosen as mascots in Siliwangi because of a popular folk tale in West Java. It was said that Prabu Siliwangi, an ancient king, had a tiger as a sidekick. "Because of that, tigers have been projected as a symbol for wisdom, courage, and prowess in Siliwangi," he said.

Most of the statues were done independently by active soldiers or those who have retired, the amateur look of many of the statues comes from the genuine amateurs who made them. 

Desi thinks it's a matter of restoring the honor of tigers. "We appreciate people caring about the National Military, but it would be wrong to let our symbol become the butt of jokes."

We can all agree that the phrase "no man is an island" is a blatant lie – we're essentially alone in this world and all the more miserable for it. The only exception to this rule are identical twins, who often share every step of at least the first few decades of their existence with each other. Experiencing the same things, while looking exactly alike.

Given that I've always had a few burning questions about what that's like, I decided to interview 27-year-old Marco and Giulio – monozygotic twins who I myself, after years of being friends with them, still struggle to tell apart. I sat down with them to finally and officially ask them the questions that I, in all those years, had never bothered to ask.

VICE: So what is it like to constantly be around another human being who's just like you?
Giulio: Of course there are positive and negative sides to it, but in general I'd say that the positives far outweigh the negatives. You always have company, you never feel alone. You never get bored and you always have an accomplice, a sidekick.
Marco: Yes, we can always count on each other being there. And we more or less lived the same experiences, so our parents always felt quite confident in letting us do certain stuff by ourselves – like travelling abroad, for example. Because there were always two of us and we would have each other's backs. But our younger brother, for example, couldn't do the same things by himself.

Do you also have the same tastes?
Giulio: I don't know if it has much to do with the fact that we're twins, but we have the same likes and dislikes when it comes to food. But we're very different when it comes to anything else.

Twins often dress similarly too – why is that? Wouldn't it be easier to have a different haircut and clothing style and set yourself apart?
Marco: Well, when you're a kid you don't make your own decisions. Our parents basically bought the same things for us but in different colours – red for me, blue for him. And then we grew up in the same circles, had the lifestyle that went with that. We never forced ourselves to look different – we go to the same hairdresser and we often have a similar haircut. Maybe with time, when our lives progress in different ways, that might influence the kinds of clothes we wear. I don't know.

Marco and Giulio. Or Giulio and Marco – who knows? All photos courtesy of Marco and Giulio.

Do you regularly take advantage of the fact that you can easily pass for each other?
Giulio: It happened a lot in school. We went to boarding school and if one of us was ill and the other went to class, but hadn't done any homework and there was a surprise test, the ill one would get screwed with a bad mark. Generally, nobody figured it out in school – one year Marco actually had better final marks than I had, while he'd gotten worse marks throughout the year. Usually our school reports were pretty identical too. The teachers had no idea who they were talking about exactly, so they'd just give us the same marks.

Is it true that you always know what the other is thinking?
Giulio: We always get that question, and I think the answer's kind of obvious. Even if you don't have a twin but someone is always around, your thinking kind of levels. You go through the same experiences at similar moments in life, so it's normal that you often think in the same way or to know how the other will react to something.

How do you behave when a girl shows some interest in one of you, given that you're almost interchangeable looks-wise? Have you ever gotten into trouble?
Giulio: Let's just say that often, we have a strategy. If I know he wants to try it on with someone, I'll usually back off. But it's happened for example that I went out with a girl and it didn't go well, and after a while she got together with Marco.
Marco: Another time there was kind of an awkward situation. I had been seeing a girl from my uni for a while, and it just so happened that one evening Giulio – who didn't know her and didn't know we'd been seeing each other – was in the same bar as her. She sat next to him, so that he would notice her, and he could have easily gotten it on with her if he'd known that she was seeing me. But she noticed something was up because he didn't respond to her – because he didn't actually know who she was.
Giulio: If I had known that she was up for it, I would have definitely tried it. I was wasted that night.

Read: 10 Questions You Always Wanted to Ask a Gynaecologist

Have you ever slept with the same girl?
Marco: Yes, when we were younger there was a girl who had dated both of us at different times, and then at some point she started seeing Giulio quite regularly. So she often ended up staying over at ours. At the time we shared a bedroom, so we would draw the beds close together and all sleep together, just that. But as these things go, I remember one evening she just took her clothes off. Basically sometimes girls are turned on by the fact that we're twins.

How does your relationship – which I imagine is very exclusive – influence your outside relationships?
Giulio: If one of us has a girlfriend, for example, our relationship as twins kind of dictates some situations — we're often together and we move around together, so we always keep each other informed of what we're up to. I think that's is perfectly understandable, and we've never had any major issues.
Marco: Given that we've always shared our friends, we often tend to be considered as a unit within our group of friends. But that changed when we decided to go to different universities.

What was the most embarrassing situation you ever found yourself in because of the fact that you're twins?
Marco: It got very awkward when we went to China together. People would stop us on the street to take pictures of us holding their babies. They touched us for good luck. I remember that proper queues would form with people waiting to take their picture with us.

Do you ever think about how life would be if the other wasn't there, or if you'd grow apart at some point?
Giulio: No, I don't see us ever having a detached relationship. What is his I've always seen as mine, and vice versa.
Marco: I totally agree.

The group organizing the event, Kolektif Betina, along with others were verbally attacked by Islamic fundamentalists—shouts of "unclean!", "damaged women!" and "repent!" were hurled during the confrontation according to a post by the group. The police later admitted that they were assisted by two local Islamic militant groups during the raid, the Islamic People Forum (FUI) and the Islamic Jihad Front (FJI).

"The police asked us about a zine that we put out with a LGBT logo on it," said Andina Septa, a member of the Kolektif Betina. "When police and members of the Islamic group swarmed the house [next to where the event was being held held], they started going through the personal belongings and trash of the people who lived there. A female friend asked them to stop because they were scaring the children. Members of the group then said 'You want to argue? You are a woman, I can easily hit you!' as he put his fist in front of her face."

Sri Taarna, part of Kolektif Betina, touched on the cozy relationship between Islamists and police. "It's alarming that violent conservative religious organizations are not only intimidating but often working closely with police as a secondary, 'moralist' unit. Because of this relationship with law enforcement and local officials, these groups often have carte blanche with things that they feel are incompatible with their form of Islam."

Groups like Kolektif Betina have helped drive a trend toward local, community-based feminism throughout Indonesia. "Feminism has become more widespread since the late 90's and early 00's. Women's issues are increasingly at the forefront of political conversations," Hera Mary, part of Kolektif Betina, said.

Kolektif Betina hold a 'Girlfriends Day' to help combat the culture of competitiveness among women. Photo by Kolektif Betina.

DIY feminist groups have sprung up around the country. Jakarta-based Mari Jeung Rebut Kembali (Let's Take It Back), and Metamorphoo, a collective of friends from Palembang, South Sumatra, are pushing for equality throughout the archipelago.

Metamorphoo recently organized Alterasi Rasa (Altered Tastes), an art exhibition featuring local women artists and activists. "We wanted to create a space where women can come together to get away from patriarchal environments that we are often subjected to," said Laura Boru Bufoni of Metamorphoo . "We believe that taking an active role and participating in a collective such as ours is one of the many solutions towards tackling the many injustices we as Indonesian women face."

The Jakarta collective Mari Jeung Rebut Kembali has put women's rights in the national spotlight by regularly appearing on television to speak about women's issues. The recently co-produced a video with fellow women's right's group Bersama Project that features 34 women talking about body image and topics like slut-shaming and body positivity.

"The intersection of religion and feminism plays a large role here."

Film has been a popular medium for feminist ideals. Hera Mary recently released her debut documentary, "Ini Scene Kami Juga" ("This Is Our Scene, Too"), about the struggles faced by female musicians face in subcultures dominated by men. Sexual harassment and assault is still rife in these environments, and continue to pose a problem.

Critics often deride the movement by comparing the Indonesian feminist movement to their western counterparts. However, the fight for equality has been going on since the founding of the nation according to Dr. Gadis Arivia, a women's studies professor at The University of Indonesia."In 1928, our mothers held Women Congress, saying that women must be independent and that polygamy must be rejected," she said.

Indonesia's form of feminism is unique because of it's long history and medley of different cultures, Andina Septa said. "While many of the dangers women face are the same across the world, the specific struggles and priorities of women here are different. The intersection of religion and feminism plays a larger role here than in the west. Western feminism can tend to feel alienating for feminists who are also religious. It's important for women who are feminist and religious to feel that one doesn't isn't exclusive of the other."

It's the 9th of September, 2001. Major Charles Ingram—soon to be known forever, eternally, as the Coughing Major—is sitting on the edge of a stainless steel high-chair. He is in the middle of filming an episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He is also in the middle of committing one of the clumsiest, most ineffectual, but brilliant crimes of the 21st century.

Question by question, guided along by an oblivious Chris Tarrant and a duo of shadowy accomplices hidden in the surrounding audience, the Coughing Major is stealing a million pounds.

The story of the Coughing Major is a tale as timeless in morality as it is peculiarly rooted to the moment in space and time within which it occurred. The army-man's attempt to steal a million pounds on television, with little more for help than sheer dumb luck and a terrible fake cough, is a fascinating incident even today. Grotesque in its stupidity, tragic in its context, hilarious in its execution.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, which first aired in 1998, was a phenomenon when it hit British screens. At its peak in 1999, one edition of the show was watched by 19 million viewers, one third of the British population. A combination of the then-futurist set, the affable Tarrant and the astronomical promise of a million pounds – a prize never before imagined on a television show – made it the perfect premise for the precipice of the millennium. It was a show that promised big thrills and even bigger rewards. Perhaps it was always going to attract some dubious attention at some stage.

Major Charles Ingram's appearance on the show was in 2001, but his wife Diana had also been on earlier that year and won £32,000. Not only that, but her brother Adrian Pollock had also appeared on the show in December of 2000. It was alleged after the scandal that the Ingrams were in excess of £50,000 worth of debt. Despite the blustery veneer, the clipped accent and the military facade, the Major was masking a thinly-veiled desperation.

Charles Ingram's appearance on the show started pretty badly. By the time he had stumbled his way to the £4,000 mark he'd already used up two of his lifelines, and was struggling to land on the name of Audrey's daughter in Coronation Street. By the time he finally sputtered "Gail" it was time for the recording to end for that day, meaning Charles' run would continue onto the next episode. The production team at the time all doubted that he'd make it any further.

Then a miraculous thing happened. During the next day's filming, wearing the same strangely childlike patchwork polo-shirt, Major Charles Ingram stomped his way ungracefully to a million.

We now know what had really happened: a plan had been devised to get him there. Diana Ingram had found a plant: Tecwen Whittock, a college lecturer from Cardiff who Diana knew from the gameshow circuit. They colluded as a three, creating a system to carry Charles to the higher reaches of the game. The Major would read the four possible answers, and Whittock would cough after the correct one. On hearing the cough, the Major would know he had said the right one and proceed to offer this answer.

In some respects, it's not a totally terrible plan, but what's amazing watching it back is just how terribly they pulled it off. Take, for example, the Major's process when answering the question, "Who had a hit UK album with Born To Do It, released in 2000?" Ingram, for some unknown, baffling reason, decided to say, "I've never heard of Craig David," before he'd given Whittock or his wife a chance to cough. More than that, the Major even states he "thinks it's A1". When, finally, he gets the message that the correct answer is Craig David, he is forced to pull a completely unnatural u-turn. Despite having previously given A1 as his final answer, he suddenly says, "No, I'm going to go Craig David." When Tarrant asks him about his sudden turnaround, he says he's changed his mind because "most of my guesses are wrong".

This pattern continues. The Major admits to not knowing any answers, making the process even harder for himself. Bafflingly he continues to say, "I don't know what that is," "I'm sure it's not that," or "I've never heard of that" about answers that he is eventually forced to settle on. As he climbs higher and higher up the board, his behaviour becomes more and more erratic. By the time he reaches the million pound question, he is clearly not feeling anywhere near the sort of pressure he should be. He flips between final answers, taking the money, A, B, C and D, as though he can't decide what he wants for his tea. You can't help but feel that had anyone else been sitting in the hot seat – anyone but the Major – they'd have gotten away with it.

Source: ITV

In a documentary made about the incident—A Major Fraud—it's revealed that after winning the million, the Ingrams were heard to have a screaming argument. Speculation is that the Major was supposed to stop earlier. He wasn't supposed to go all the way to a million. Had he stopped at £64,000, and many have observed this about the case, he would have cleared the Ingram family debt and most likely have gotten away with it all. So why didn't he?

It's impossible to say for sure, but it's as if a switch flipped inside of him. He got so far and thought, 'Fuck it – let's push this further.' There's a mania that develops in his eyes, gradually, question by question. It's as though this hapless, mild-mannered man, who had spent his life pushed to and fro by his domineering military friends, had had enough of constantly being at the beck and call of others. He finally cracked, taking the descent into madness into his own hands.

Eventually, it comes down to the million pound question and one final answer. Five words win him the million: "I'm going to play Googol." When you look at the footage now, you see a man coming to terms with what he's just pulled off. He knew he had the right answer, but he also knew he'd just cheated his way there in front of an arsenal of television cameras, and an audience of millions. He was in the throes of ecstasy and terror all at once. He wanted to be sick all over Chris Tarrant – cover his polyester suit in sticky vomit, let the acidic stench of the vomit heat and rise under the studio lights. The Major was ready to cry, laugh and punch a wall. No lifelines now, just him – and he'd never felt more alive.

Without Major Charles Ingram, the scandal would likely have been forgotten by now. It's his character that makes the story eternally fascinating. Look at his face throughout the entire episode. It's impossible to call what he is smothered by more: panic or excitement. He seems to be a man enraptured by just how out of his depth he is getting. The further he goes, the more out of hand the con gets; the more he weirdly loves it. Towards the end it's hard to tell what's powering him more – getting away with it or getting caught.

Of course, he did get caught. The £1,000,000 payout was suspended, and following a four-week trial Diana Ingram, Tecwen Whittock and Major Charles Ingram were convicted of procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception, given prison sentences suspended by two years (the Ingrams were sentenced to 18 months and Whittock was sentenced to 12 months, also suspended) and fined £115,000 (including legal fees). Following this, the Major was stripped of his title by the Army Board, after 17 years of service.

To this day, the Ingrams maintain their innocence. Two journalists interested in miscarriages of justices, James Plaskett and Bob Woffinden, have since published a book protesting their innocence based on newly unearthed evidence, and writers such as Jon Ronson have also questioned the evidence in the case – but it all seems too little too late. Even if he was proved innocent now, he will forever be the Coughing Major in the hearts and minds of the public.

The years following Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? saw life for the Ingrams continue on its bizarre trajectory. Their appearance on shows like Wife Swap and Hell's Kitchen (Gordon Ramsey served them a cough sweet) suggest the Ingrams' taste for celebrity was only fuelled by their infamy. For a particularly surreal watch, you can even see Charles' appearance on This Morning in 2003, during which he undergoes past life regression therapy – a process that reveals Ingram's belief that, in a past life, he was called David Huggott, an officer instrumental in Britain's victory during WWI.

Real life, however, was less fantastical. Ingram has been on record many times describing his life since as a "living hell".

The Coughing Major happened in the moment that reality television was about to enter its zenith. The world was increasingly being told that anyone could get on television if they were prepared to push themselves hard enough. Equally, the gargantuan scale of prizes that the likes of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? had begun to inspire were similarly sending the message that anyone was entitled to riches – if they were prepared to play the game. The Major was the most maniacal spawn of this culture. An aristocrat, an upstanding military man, debased to cheating on a chintzy gameshow by the weight of the world. A man who looked into the eyes of Chris Tarrant and saw his own soul staring back.

Move over, Aphex Twin. In fact, fuck it. Move over , everyone. Little is known about the wedding DJ from Azerbaijan who was caught mashing up an MPC like he was Araabmuzik on speedballs, but what we do know is that he absolutely mindfucked everyone else in that room into some astral plane that we can't even begin to explain and may have revolutionized dance music in the process.

As our man speeds through what sounds like drum and bass, breakcore, thrash, and 185bpm house (often all in the same beat), we can only assume that what is behind the camera is the most turnt-up iron curtain clusterfuck of a wedding dancefloor you've ever seen.

The guitar player and keyboardist look bemused to shit, the former doesn't even touch his instrument and just looks on in disgust. The keyboardist tries to play along and follows our DJ's manic instructions, but the music changes rhythm with such a reckless abandon that he's often left wide-eyed and confused.

Here's what we do know: Them man's name is Cavad Recebov. The video is shot by Yusif Limanli. They have quite the presence on YouTube, but none of it bags the same futuro-EDM swag that this video does. After watching this, can you even go back to the deep house of old?

Jemayel Khawaja says: "If you haven't sniffed out the satire, you are banned from Reddit for a week." - @JemayelK

In the fifth installment of his My Struggle series, Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard writes about the first time he masturbated. He was in a bathroom, face-to-face with a photo of a buxom, scantily clad woman on the beach. "I wrapped my fingers around my dick and jerked it up and down," the passage begins, ending with Knausgaard's triumphant conclusion that the process was "incredibly easy."

On one level, the fact that a guy who became a worldwide literary sensation through unflinchingly documenting his life in meticulous, sometimes excruciating detail waited until nearly the end of a six-book series to write about cranking his meat hog is flabbergasting—as is the fact that the tale was excerpted in the first nudity-free issue of Playboy. It makes perfect sense too, though, since there's an intense stigma associated with talking about hand-to-gland combat.

Though organizations from Reddit to the University of Indiana have tried to pin down what qualifies as a "normal" amount of masturbation, "it's hard to find good numbers on this sort of stuff," says Professor Thomas Laqueur of UC Berkeley. "A while ago, someone conducted a survey, and the things they had the most difficulty getting answers about were masturbation and responders' income."

Although I have met many people in my life that I'd label "masturbation experts," Laqueur is a true authority on the subject: In 2003, he wrote Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation. When we speak on the phone, he's just gotten home from walking his dog and had gotten a late start because he went to the opera the night before.

"Doing things by yourself is thought to be weird," he tells me. "Often people masturbate not because they can't find someone to have sex with, but out of abjection—they can't write, they can't sleep, or something else is off." He went on to note that "masturbating before you write is a constant trope in literature."

I ask Laqueur where the line is drawn when it comes to yanking it too often. "That's a really hard question," he admits. "It speaks to the roots of desire and the difference between humans and animals."

According to Laqueur, the concept of "too much masturbation" is relatively novel, since in ancient times the great thinkers were unconcerned with the subject. "It's not like Plato wasn't thinking about sex," he specifies. "He just wasn't thinking about that particular form of sex." And so the timeless art of self-pleasure cruised under the radar until the Enlightenment era.

This sea change in the discourse of diddling has roots in a 1712 tract written by an anonymous physician, who decried the practice of masturbation as a disease he termed "Onanism." This comes from the the biblical story of Onan, who, rather than marrying his dead brother's wife and raising his children as his own, chose to "spill his seed on the ground." (This was the Old Testament, so God ended up smiting him as punishment.)

Until then, people interpreted the story as a parable about why you shouldn't shirk your responsibilities. However, the anonymous physician interpreted the text as evidence that if you jacked off, God would punish you. "It was totally cynical," Laqueur tells me. "This guy said, 'How can I make some money? I can say masturbation causes illness!'"

A French advertisement for anti-masturbation devices for men and women. Image via Wellcome Library

By mid-century, masturbation had become verboten throughout Europe. "Philosophers felt it was the rot of civilization, that it was a morally horrible, pathological, and dangerous thing," Laqueur claims. Immanuel Kant was a particularly harsh critic of the self-administered meat massage, framing the act as comparative to suicide. Laqueur says that, to Kant, "The whole point was that you couldn't use someone as an object. If you killed yourself, you were treating yourself as an object too, but you were slightly justified because you were despairing. Masturbators were just wantonly making up the conditions for treating themselves as objects, which made it worse."

Curiously, the rabid campaign to curb masturbation wasn't necessarily tied to sexuality. "In 18th-century Europe, there was more sex per capita than ever before," he says. The hand-wringing over rubbing one out was tied to "the moral outrage over someone checking out from the world," similar to the impulse that causes adults to fret over their kids playing video games or staring at their phones. "People thought that it produced the sort of person society ought not to produce."

As time wore on, society's attitudes toward masturbation remained unchanged. During the Civil War, "there were records of soldiers being institutionalized for what people called 'masturbatory madness,'" Laqueur explains. "It was the dark underside of the socially virtuous idea that you needed to develop your imagination and sense of self."

These days, we view choking the chicken with a much more liberal eye. This has a lot to do with the groundbreaking sex research of sexologist Alfred Kinsey, who conducted exhaustive studies of human sexuality at the University of Indiana. "The power of Kinsey's findings was the acknowledgement that masturbation was prevalent, and certainly not associated with any kind of disorders," says Dr. Eli Coleman, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota. Coleman once organized an academic conference on masturbation, and is an advocate for using it as a tool to help people come to terms with their own bodies and sexuality: "It's a healthy form of sexual expression."

Still, there are limits when it comes to pounding off, and those limits tend to involve blood. As the clinical director for the Center for Healthy Sex in Los Angeles, Alexandra Katehakis has heard her fair share of horror stories involving men with bloody and blistered penises, as well as women using their vibrators to the point where it burns their skin. According to her, if someone's at the point of self-sex self-harm, "it's not even about achieving orgasm—it's about a repetitive compulsive behavior." And such behaviors are potential red flags for issues like obsessive compulsive disorder, or childhood sexual abuse.

Katehakis also warns that, for men, excessively wanking it to porn can lead to an inability to get it up when it comes time for real-life sex. "We come across that pretty often," she says. "If young men in their twenties and thirties are struggling with erectile dysfunction, the first thing they should ask is, 'How much porn am I looking at?'"

And mind you, Katehakis isn't a vigilant anti-masturbation crusader—she's a licensed sex therapist. "Porn and masturbation should be a pleasurable part of a person's healthy sexuality," she declares, specifying that she just wants people of all genders to be safe when they jank it. That means making sure your masturbatory habits aren't interfering with your daily life, handling your equipment gently, and using lubrication.

One of the reasons people might not know safe masturbation techniques is that we're never encouraged to learn about them. "Adults are shamed about masturbation since day one," said Elise Franklin, an LA-based therapist who promotes pro-sex attitudes through her practice. "When you're two years old and your parents catch you touching yourself, they tell you, 'Don't do that!' When you're in school and take sex education, the topic is greeted with discomfort and giggles."

Regardless of the patina of indignity surrounding the subject, there is truly no such thing as too much masturbation. As Franklin puts it, the act of rubbing one out is not dissimilar to snowflake formation: "There's a thousand different styles and frequencies for masturbation, and none of them are wrong."

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Turns out, we happen to be living in a world in which one can actually be arrested for baking brownies. And yes, there is such a thing as a brownie that is simultaneously void of THC but is still illegal.

Earlier this week, Venezuelan authorities arrested four bakers for making brownies and other baked goods containing flour milled from wheat, a resource that is deeply scarce as a result of Venezuela's ongoing economic crisis. The arrests were made as inspectors and soldiers were sent to more than 700 bakeries throughout Caracas to enforce a rule stating that 90 percent of the nation's wheat stocks must be used for loaves of bread, not more expensive baked goods like cakes or pastries.

The inspections and resulting arrests came amid threats by President Nicolás Maduro's government to take control of bakeries throughout Caracas as part of the country's ongoing "bread war."

Karlin Granadillo, Venezuela's Superintendent for Fair Costs and Prices, released a statement to media outlets yesterday explaining that two of the bakers arrested were discovered to be using too much wheat in baked goods such as sweet bread and cachitos, a ham-filled croissant wildly popular throughout Venezuela. Granadillo stated that the other two bakers arrested during the citywide inspection had made brownies with out-of-date wheat.

As a result of the arrests, at least one bakery has been temporarily taken over by authorities for a 90-day period. That followed a warning by Vice President Tareck El Aissami last Sunday that uncooperative bakeries would be occupied by the government.

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which Maduro represents, has blamed pro-opposition businesses for sabotaging the nation's economy and artificially inflating prices and demand through the hoarding of basic goods. Meanwhile, critics of Maduro are blaming the mass shortages and price hikes on the president's failed economic policies.

READ MORE: This Is How Bad Venezuela's Food Shortage Has Become

Reuters reports that the country's breadmakers have accused the government of creating the nationwide shortage of wheat, stating that 80 percent of bakeries have absolutely no wheat left in stock. Fevipan, Venezuela's bakers' federation, has stated that government imports of wheat this year are not enough to guarantee a steady supply of flour. The group is asking to meet with President Maduro in the hopes of explaining to him that they are unable to make ends meet without being able to sell higher-priced baked goods.

An employee at one Caracas bakery told Agence France Press, "When there's flour, we sell bread, but they only send it every 15 or 20 days," and that when they are sent flour "we are given 20 sacks and normally we'd need eight a day."

Maduro is unlikely to be sympathetic to the bakers' pleas. Earlier this week, he said, "Those behind the 'bread war' are going to pay, and don't let them say later it is political persecution."

The bread war has truly taken an ugly turn, especially for lovers of sweets.