I say "rude gestures," but when you hear that, you're going to think of the MTV music videos from the 1990s (er, depending on your age) and how, when Cypress Hill flipped off the camera, they blurred it and put "[rude gestures]" in the closed caption. We're all aware of the finger, the middle one, of course. A classic for letting people know you are disappointed in their driving skills. However, there are far more than just your lonely middle finger, even if raised in anger and accompanied by profanities in abundance.

Many cultures have their own gestural slights. We are going to explore them...

I enjoyed video games as a child, just as I do as an adult. I remember my brother and I taking paper bags full of Nintendo 64 game cartridges to Blockbuster or Game Crazy, and turning them in for a whopping 13 dollars. I swear, the price of the games went up and down just based on the store clerk's inability to actually find the obscure games we would sometimes have on hand, so they would just come up with a number between 1 and 3 dollars.

Yes, obscure games were something we always had on hand, because our family was not rich. I'm sure the game systems we would purchase every year were what caused so many leftover spaghetti family nights at home. So that meant there was absolutely no budget for an actual game. We might as well have bought a TV with no electricity and just stared at the screen. But the way back time machine in my head remembers the days that Game Crazy, or wherever else sold games, would have these, like…bins of game cartridges or boxes (if it was the PS2 era), most of which had no box around them, and if it did have a box, it was one that only had the name of the game. Maybe a poorly printed picture of the game cover would be on it, but that was extremely rare...

This issue will come out in November, so who knows whether or not this magazine will still exist, and whether or not I'll be thrown in a thought-control prison for daring to like a J.D. Vance couchfucker meme.

If you are reading this, I’ll assume everything is okayish for now, but we both know that the peace is tenuous at best. Is the ICE facility on Macadam still open? Is Kristi Noem still there on the roof taking fucking selfies for some reason? Are National Guard troops picking up trash in Tom McCall Park? Is there a curfew? Are they going door to door, checking your phone to see if you have any anti-Trump memes on your camera roll?

Who fucking knows. Deadlines for these pieces are pretty early in the previous month, so God knows what the next three weeks will hold. I’m writing this at a time when a federal judge blocked the failed reality star's attempt to deploy federal troops. Our Governor has also directed the 200 members of the National Guard to demobilize....

After over 21 years working with Exotic and rising to lead photographer (and even sole photographer for a few years), Doug (HYPNOX to many), will be retiring and moving out of state by year's end to start a new chapter in his life.

Doug has given his heart and soul to both this magazine and the industry as a whole. He’s an absolute workhorse, with immense artistic creativity and one of the most experienced and masterful eyes we’ve ever had behind the lens. He quite literally shaped the creative direction of this magazine over the past two decades, making Exotic something special to pick up and peruse...