BDSM Digest

Posts Tagged ‘inquisition’

The garrote, also known as garrote vil, garotte and garrotte – the execution device used by the Spaniards until the end of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship as recently as 1974. In Spain, it was abolished, as well as the death penalty, in 1978 with the new constitution. Originally, it was an execution where the convict was killed by hitting him with a club (“garrote” in Spanish). Later, it was refined and consisted of a seat to restrain the condemned person while the executioner tightened a metal band around his neck with a crank or a wheel until suffocation of the executee. With the handle the executioner slowly crushed the victim’s neck causing death from asphyxia.

The safe prototype of the garrote without movable parts is used now in BDSM play. This device is intended only to fix the submissive without causing an injury of the vital structures of the neck.

This device has a Spanish name because it was improved in Spain. It is not clear how complete earlier records are and even modern ones are somewhat patchy. But at least 736 people, including 16 women, were executed in Spain in the 19th century. 65 men and 2 women were executed by garroting between 1950 and 1974 in various parts of Spain. The first woman to be garroted was Juana Rivero in Madrid on the 3rd of November 1824 for robbery. Twenty seven year old Mariana Pineda became the first woman to suffer for treason when she was executed on the 26th of May 1831 in Andalusia. It was reported that the spike of the garrote pierced her neck and protruded through her mouth. Garroting was last used on the 2nd of March 1974, when two men were executed on the same day for the shooting of a police officer during a robbery.
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The chair of torture, also known as the witch’s chair, the chair of spikes, the interrogation chair – a commonly used torture device from the Middle Ages contained a lot of spikes or needles that would pierce the skin of the victim everywhere their skin touched the chair. There was no rest, for the wicked or anyone else who sat in this thing. The chair of torture dates back to the Middle Ages but may have been used till the late 19th Century. These implements were used in Germany up until the 19th century, in Italy and in Spain up until the end of the 1700s, in France and in other central European countries, according to certain sources, up until the end of 1800.

This instrument of torture comes in different versions. These chairs have different shapes and sizes, but they were all equipped with spines and immobilization of the victim. All of them have common characteristics, in that they are covered with spikes on the back, on the arm-rests, on the seat, on the leg-rests, and on the foot-rests. The chair itself contains up to 2000 metal spikes in addition to a means of fixing the victim into the chair, and applying pressure to force the person’s body, or appendages more firmly against the spikes. The bars, either made of iron or wood, fastened the victim around the waist, around the wrists, and around the chest or bust. It’s easy to comprehend the effect of the spikes piercing the victim’s body made even more effective by a screw bar system to immobilize the victim and make the pins penetrate more deeply. The seat was often made of iron that could be heated. Some spiked seat had holes to allow the victim’s bottom to be ‘heated’ by hot coals placed under the seat, causing painful burns, but still keeping the victim conscious.
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The pear of anguish – also known as poire d’angoisser, the spanish mouth pear, the pope’s pears, the choke pear, the anal pear and oral pear – was an iron torture instrument shaped like a pear, which was inserted in the victim’s mouth, anus or vagina. It was used to rupture the sensitive membranes and tissues of these areas. Because it damaged the body only inside body cavities, it was sometimes used to extract “confessions” when there was a need to pass them off as freely given. Used during Medieval Times, the pear of anguish was an extremely painful device used to punish homosexuals, witches and women accused of inducing a miscarriage. The insertion of the pear depended on the crime the victim was accused of, while slanderers and blasphemers would have their mouths mutilated, homosexuals would suffer the same fate on their anus, and women who had induced a miscarriage, or been accused of witchcraft and carnal knowledge of demons would see their vaginas torn apart by it.
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