The Gory Details (Gross)

Gory Details #14: "Torture; Fun with Pain"

I learned about torture the same place most people did; my own living room. You know how it goes;

"The baby is getting older." Your wife says.

You nod.

"So we're going to watch some kids T.V." She says.

Again you nod. You've have seen Oscar or Mr. Green Jeans in years. "This will be fun." you think.

But it's not Sesame Street and you learn that Mr. Rogers is dead. This is some evil thing. A dinosaur (dinosaur means terrible lizard) is dancing around singing insipid children's songs. It makes your head ring. You ask to have the channel changed.

The next channel is worse, it's these weird, round kids, one of whom has this phallus sticking out of his head. They don't even talk, they just ooh and ah at each other while this demon baby laughs from inside the sun. The pain! You senses grow dim and shudders wrack your body. The baby and wife are absorbed, unaware of your agony.

By the time they get to "Say bye bye poopy. Say bye bye dipshit." you're howling in agony, begging for death.

While children's television is, by far, the most effective forms of torture known to man, they are actually the final product in a long, glorious line of torture methods though out history. Let's take a look at a few of the Gore Monger's favorites.

We could go on for a while about the psychology of torture and why people do it. Let's sum it up this way. People hurt people for fun a profit. Good? Good. The one note we should make is that pain physical or psychological, usually of long duration is the goal. Why kill someone right away when you could have their howls sing you off to sleep night after night?

Thumb screws - A European torture technique worth reviewing, Thumb screws are just that. The victims hands are bolted into place and a screw, a flat, wooden screw in this case, is screwed down one crank every so often, crushing the victims thumbs over the course of several days. What is most wonderful about the version of this machine that I saw, is the head brace that holds the victim so that they have to stare at their crushed fingers the whole time.

Water Torture - Generally credited to the Chinese, this Asian torture technique is psychological. The victim is tied down, often in the dark, with a steady drip of water falling on their face. This doesn't seem to be particularly heinous, but I guess after a few day of not being able to wipe your face or stop the drop, you start babbling like a talk show host with an air hose shoved up his butt.

The glass rod - What I want to know is how this got thought up. Someone in Mediaeval Europe thought. "What if we stuck a glass rod up that guy's pee hole and then broke it off in there." Jeez! My toes are curled just thinking about it. And how do you get it done? "No, I'm going to hold the glass rod, you hold his wanger." Say, I have this friend in the middle of a divorce. I think she'd like to know about this. I'd even hold the glass rod for her. Watch your back Bob.

Electricity - With the advent of electricity, came the advent of hooking people up to jumper cables and turning the car over a few times. The problem with electricity is that it is fatal even in fairly small doses and tends to knock a victim unconscious. The advantage is that, unlike many pain or compression tortures, the victim doesn't become numb. The very effect of electricity is to overload the nerves generating a massive pain response. Another tidbit that might enrich a torture story involving electricity is knowing that dry skin is not nearly as conductive as wet skin and that an important part of getting a nonfatal dose of electricity into a person might be getting the skin wet.

Rat Torture - My very favorite torture in the whole world. Here's how rat torture works; take a guy's shirt off and strap him down. Now, tie a cage full of rats to his belly, only get a cage with no bottom so the rats are crawling around on his skin. Are you ready? Here comes the majik. Put a burning coal on top of the cage. The rats, afraid of fire, will attempt to burrow out. Picture it. Howling man strapped to a table, slimy, gore covered rat crawling out through a tear in the smooth skin of his flank. Wow, suddenly I'm hungry.

There is a general assumption that people are being tortured to try to get information out of them or for the enjoyment of the torturer. In fact, historically, neither of these is the most likely reason for torture. Most torture in history, has been done to set an example. The Knights Templar, for example were determined to be heretics. Since it was impossible to catch all the Templars or their followers, those that could be caught were brutally tortured. One of them took his foot bones to the inquisition to show what he was going through down in the dungeon. The message; "It's not worth the risk to be a Templar."

Ultimately, torture is an ineffective way to motivate people. The same drive that leads people to die for a cause, motivates them to endure torture for a cause, but what fun people have had finding that out. I didn't even get to tying some one to the back of a horse and letting it run wild. I love people. They are so creative.

Well, the howling has stopped in the next room. I've got to get over there before my rats escape. Now get out there and write. 

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