In Modern America, Your Poison Picks You—This Week On VICE: Members Only

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What do you say when your close friend of 25 years asks you to do stuff to their butt?

This week, the legendary Chris Nieratko returns to VICE with his fabled SKINEMA column, and the first installment navigates this very question… sort of. At some point in the decade-plus he’s been away, Chris picked up a part-time job as “producer, director, lighting tech, sound engineer, camera operator, screenwriter, PA, and squirt-mopper” for one of his best friends, the porn star and Burning Angel founder Joanna Angel. They’ve both been navigating “brutal divorces,” and so now, on Thursdays, Chris goes over to Joanna’s house and helps her work through the latest hoard of custom requests she has received through OnlyFans, like any good friend would.

Then one day she surprised him by saying, “I want you to fuck my ass, Chris.” She meant her signature butthole Fleshlight, obviously. Obviously! Still, a jarring request after a quarter-century of strictly platonic—despite all the squirt—hanging out. Chris writes:

“We did a podcast together where she was always naked and she never wears any clothes on my Thursday visits. I’ve been inches away from her fuzzy britches and tiny butthole more times than I can count, and yet, not once have I ever viewed her in a sexual light. Granted, there’s no denying her beauty, talent, and business prowess, but when I watch her magically fit multiple massive objects in every orifice of her petite 4’11” frame I get a sense of stoke, much the same way I do when a friend lands a mind-blowing skate trick on a huge handrail.”

Read the full piece below to find out what happens next, regarding the hole on the table:

Reviewing My Best Friend’s Butthole Fleshlight, for Journalism

On the more abject end of the “cheap thrills” spectrum, photographer Vincent Pflieger has been documenting skid rows in the U.S. and Canada as part of his long-term project Up, Side, Down. One thing he noticed through his time embedded in these communities since 2020 is opioid addicts binging on ultra-processed foods like sugary cereal, cheeseburgers, gallons of milk, and frozen slushies. There is a logic at play here: These are all things that boost dopamine, replace electrolytes lost during detox, and often don’t require teeth to eat.

“Opioids hijack the brain’s reward circuitry, nuking its pleasure receptors,” Vincent explains. “Over time, the body stops producing its own natural endorphins, creating a state of anhedonia: the complete inability to take any joy from life. Basic delights like sex and laughter stop registering. But sugar and fat? That still hits.”

His latest photo essay, which appears in the spring 2026 issue of VICE, The Not The Photo Issue, tells a story not just about skid row survivors and their sugary delights, but about addiction and the U.S. healthcare system. Vincent writes:

“Public health keeps talking about recovery plans and naloxone kits. On the street, it’s simpler: sugar’s legal, costs a dollar, and actually shows up […] In that sense, this story isn’t really about food at all. It’s about what the heart reaches for when drugs are gone, control is lost, and nothing feels good anymore. It’s about how addiction fractures memory and identity. It’s about the ways a junk diet becomes both a chemical and emotional patch, and a substitute for what the body no longer knows how to make on its own.”

Read the full piece in The Not The Photo Issue, or at the link below: