1000 Ways to Punish a Sinner

“Death is everywhere. Most of us try to avoid it, others can’t get out of its way. Every day, we fight a new WAR against FOREIGNERS, HOMOSEXUALS, CRIMINALS, WOMEN & DEGENERATES . . . There’s a lot of ways to wind up dead, the fact that we survive at all is a god-given miracle.
Because, every day they live… Sinners face 1000 WAYS TO DIE.”

If you don’t know what I’m on about, allow me to tell to you about a television show called 1000 Ways to Die. As someone who occasionally enjoys dark humour and unusual trivia, when I saw this television show on Netflix, I was intrigued.
Now, the basis of the show is that they “report on” deaths that have actually occured, by changing the names of the victims, then recreating the events of their death in the slasher movie style, with fake blood, special effects, prosthetics and computer graphics. There are usually six deaths per episode, and they start by explaining the circumstances which lead up to the death, then show the graphic results with a narrator joking along the whole time. It’s dumb, cheesy fun, but after watching a few episodes, I noticed an unusual trend in these stories.
First of all, like I said, I find this kind of trivia interesting - so, I recognized some of the deaths that they were “recreating”, and I quickly realized just how unfaithful these “reports” were. I knew about the deaths by explosive decompression aboard the Byford Dolphin Diving Bell - which was recreated in Death #710 “Tanked Girl” - so, I knew that the actual victims weren’t a bikini-clad young woman in a decompression tank. Although I wasn’t aware of his name at the time, I knew about Lee Seung Seop’s unfortunate death due to a gaming addiction - recreated in Death #126 “Game Stopped” - so I knew that he died in an internet cafe while playing Star Craft, not alone and smelly in his bedroom whilst losing an FPS game to a girl. And, I knew about the senseless death of Garry Hoy - recreated in Death #64 “Habeas Corpse” - so, I know that he died whilst attempting to demonstrate the “safety” of highrise windows when one broke, not whilst pulling a prank to try to impress a female co-worker.

Now, this in and of itself would be perfectly okay, since many of these deaths are senseless, embarassing, tragic or gruesome, and so immortalizing the names of the people involved has the potential to be disrespectful to the people involved and their families. The show even starts by saying “The stories portrayed in this show are based on real deaths, and are extremely graphic. Names have been changed to protect the identities of the deceased”. This alone is fine.

However, what is less fine is that this is a lie. The writers use creative license to change not just the names, but also the gender, age, ethnicity, location, personality & circumstances surrounding the death, often leaving little more than the “cause of death”, and some minor details intact. So, the “protecting the deceased” thing doesn’t work when you can easily see how the show represented them, especially when they turn an innocent 6-year old boy into a drug-addicted rapist or turn an innocent Ukranian chemistry student into a drug dealer and meth cook.
Now, I understand that part of this is based on trying to appeal to the audience. See, a 6-year old child in hospital being killed in a tragic accident isn’t exactly “fun”, and knowing that a young college student made a mistake that ended his life isn’t exactly “exciting”; it’s just horrifying and tragic to see that the cosmos is random and unfair and sometimes kills innocent people for no reason when they not only don’t deserve it, but have no real way to avoid it . . . this show is designed to have a dark sense of humour, and flaunt gore the same way that a slasher movie does. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy the gore and special effects if it was being used to kill innocent children or defenseless victims. Rather than just portraying these deaths in an honest “tragic accidents” way that the majority of them occured in real life, it changes the story of these deaths, often to make the victims older, more capable and more guilty - demonizing the victim and moralizing to the audience about how certain attributes and life choices will often kill. So, like a slasher movie, it also tends to fall into the trope of the “Acceptable Target”, and that’s okay too.

However . . . what is definitely not okay is the kind of person that this show portrays as “acceptable targets”. The way that this show chooses to characterize the victims of these fictionalized deaths reveals the writers to be conservative, homophobic, sexist, racist, elitist & bigoted.
This show has four kinds of victims - bullies, criminals, perverts or minorities. Now, bullies and criminals are one thing, sure. I can understand wanting to moralize that “crime doesn’t pay”, it’s a bit sunday-school hopeful, but okay. And bullies, whilst I don’t think they deserve to be murdered, I get why this show enjoys “punching back”. But what about the perverts and minorities?
This show was produced by Spike TV, a channel that was supposedly all about “man things”, which means sex, cars, ladies, robots, boobs & sex - because apparently by “men”, we mean what a 13-year old boy thinks that men do. Yet, this show often victimizes horny men, horny women & people who experiment, sexually. Now, necrophilia, bestiality and paedophilia are sometimes portrayed, and those are paraphilias which we have good reason to be wary of. But, alongside these perversions, the show also kills people who engage in sexual experimentation which includes prostitution, cross-dressing, BDSM, self-pleasure, large women, fetish roleplay, bi-curiosity & stripping. I also want to point out that this show tends to kill lesbians - I consider homosexuality more of a “minority”, not a perversion, but lesbians in this show are always portrayed as sexually experimental or nymphomaniacal, without fail, so female homosexuals are basically “perverts” in the eyes of this show’s writers.
Then, there are the minorities. There are ethnic minorities, such as Hispanics, African-Americans, French & Asians who are killed in this show, and it is kind of disturbing that whenever the killed character isn’t a criminal or a pervert, they are either non-white or a girl. But, amongst these ethnic minorities, they also include social minorities like the mentally ill, nerds, rednecks, gamers, fat people, heavy metal fans, &, as I mentioned before, homosexuals.

I thought that Spike TV was supposed to be for men, not conservative, old grandmothers. Yet, the kinds of people that are killed are the exact kind that make regressive traditionalists pop a monocle. Maybe that's why Spike TV rebranded itself to "The Paramount Network" . . .
But, all of this is nothing new - the people who are dying come right out of the Slasher Movie playbook, the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality. People have been killing gay, black, overweight, horny and poor people in fiction for a very long time; I don’t know why, but the kinds of people that write fiction with a lot of death, tended to be weirdly conservative.
But that doesn’t justify this kind of thing, and whilst I equally condemn slasher and horror movies that demonize people like this, the reason why this show bothers me so much is because it has a much higher body count, and also the way that it is judging these people is that much more obvious. Often the narrator, poor Ron Perlman, has to read out this garbage which is often calling people freaks, sluts, jerks, morons, perverts and degenerates, for the crime of not being a boring, white man.

I decided to look at Seasons 1 & 2 of this show, to really divulge how serious this is . . .
[Due to boring, television production reasons, Season 1 of this show was 2 episodes long, and had a different narrator, style & tone. However, most seasons were twelve-episodes long, so I combined these two to get the following details.]
There are usually 6 deaths per episode, but episode 2 only had five, and there were 12 episodes total, meaning we have 71 deaths to consider. I took note of the cause of death, the ethnicity, gender and body type of the victims and what I listed as their “sins”: crime, bullying, stupidity, sexuality, deviancy, etc.

At the top of the pile, Lust was the leading sin, as thirteen characters were killed due to being lustful (18.3% of deaths). Close behind, was Stupidity with twelve characters killed by their foolish actions (16.9% of deaths); then Drug Abuse, with 11 characters who were under the influence when they died (15.4% of deaths). However, drug abuse numbers were boosted by the inclusion of alcohol, as eight of the characters involved were killed due to Alcoholism or their actions whilst drunk (9.8% of deaths) meaning only four were using other substances (Psilocybin, Steroids, Marijuana & Nicotine each caused one death). Following this were criminals - there were three murderers, five thieves & two drug dealers; and lastly there were also six people who died due to Bullying, or being disrespectful to other people.

Keep in mind that some of these numbers overlap as some characters were both “alcoholic & stupid” or “lustful & criminal”. But, when you consider the characters who are completely innocent of these sins, you start to notice a pattern. Several innocent men are killed, through no fault of their own and having committed no crime or disrespect, and all of them are minorities:
In #422: Constriction Accident -  A Czech man suffocates when a dump truck driver buries him.
In #640: Tumble Die - A Hispanic man boils to death while cleaning an industrial tumble-dryer
In #091: De-Coffinated - A Haitian man suffocates after being buried alive by a cruel witchdoctor.
In #001: Ichiboned - A Japanese couple dies from a heart attack due to overexertion during sex.
In #518: Jake N’ Baked - A narcoleptic Black man burns to death after falling asleep in a curing oven.
In #066: Guitar Zeros - A Chinese man accidentally dances out a window whilst listening to music.
In #072: Bowed Out - A Japanese man dies from a ruptured aneurysm whilst bowing respectfully.


Now, some white people died, despite having no “sin”, but when an innocent white person died, they were almost always a woman:
In #832: Lesbocution - A woman is electrocuted by accidentally standing near a broken lightpole
In #674: Killdo - A woman dies by an “internal cut” caused by masturbating with a carrot.
In #818: Frightmare - A woman randomly dies of Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome
In #892: Gorgeous Gorge - A woman dies from sepsis due to complications from bulimia.
In #770: Face Offed - a woman dies due to cutting her legs while shaving, causing necrosis.
In #963: Fin-ished - a woman dies while fishing when a jumping fish gets lodged in her throat.
In #196: Radium Girls - Four women die of cancer due to accidentally ingesting radium.
In #710: Tanked Girl - A woman explodes when someone opens her decompression chamber.

Now, I’m not just ignoring the innocent, white men. There just aren’t that many. Once you look at the numbers, there are exactly four.
In #208: Semi-cide - A man bleeds to death after being cut in half by a semi-trailer truck.
In #713: Dive-Bombed - Two men and their pilot die in a crash when they all collapse from the Bends.
In #171: Nite-capped - A man is killed by a stray bullet, from a gun fired during New Year’s Eve.

But, keep in mind, three of those deaths are from Season 1, which had a very different tone. For starters, the first victim, Frank Soriani, is not fictionalized - apparently that is the real name of the victim, and this is really how he died - this was the first episode and first death depicted in the show. The next two men appeared in Episode 2, the last episode of Season 1, and they died as the result of the pilot not following protocol in regards to avoiding the Bends.
This means that in Season 2, of the sixty people killed, only one was an innocent, white man.
So, what does this tell you? Well, it means that in the eyes of the writers, being a minority or a woman is the same as being a criminal, a drug addict, a bully or an alcoholic. In the eyes of these writers, you are more deserving of being killed. Actually, not just killed, but to die slowly, often from choking to death or suffocating; burning alive or bleeding to death. You deserve a torturous, slow, painful death, because you are a sinner in their eyes.

I still enjoy this show, because it is very silly, and you occasionally learn some things about biology. I eveb enjoy trying to psychoanalyze which particular bigotry influenced the writer’s murderous desires. But, it is a terrible show, and incredibly bigoted. I’m not even going to beat around the bush here - there are few different writers involved, but the head writer is called Tom McMahon, he is credited as a writer on seventy-five episodes in this series, and so I consider him at fault for the hatred within this show. So, fuck you Tom, you bigoted asshole. I don’t know why you like killing women, minorities, gays, sexual minorities & people with mental illnesses, but you’re such a piece of shit for considering them more worthy of killing.

I’m the Absurd Word Nerd. And please, keep in mind, the deaths portrayed within this show are extremely bigoted. Do not attempt to recreate the hatred within . . . because if karma is anything like the way it’s depicted within the show - You Will Die.
Or, if you’re in the real world, you’ll probably just piss people off with your stupidity. Until Next Time . . . I’m going to watch more of this stupid, cheesy, fun, stupid show.

Sticks and Stones

On the Tenth of December, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 5 of that Declaration included the following:

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

This unfortunately means that, prior to this, there wasn’t a universal declaration condemning torture, inhuman treatment or degrading punishment. Of course, some countries adopted such laws a little earlier or a little later - America’s Eighth Amendment condemning “Cruel or Unusual Punishment” was adopted in 1791 after all - but these laws were neither universal nor timeless.

Torture, at one point, was considered a tool of the ruling class to keep people in line either by shaming, severely harming or disfiguring those who stepped out of line, and by judicially murdering those that crossed the line. It is also sometimes used by terrorists or secret police, but today I wanted to look at some of the disturbed mechanisms that people once used to torture people.
It fascinates me that people can dedicate themselves to pain to such a degree that they can design and build devices specifically to hurt someone. So, I’ve done some research into different torture devices, and created a list of the top ten most gruesome tortures, in order of . . . well, in order of how horrible they are.

Now, as a head’s up, I didn’t think this was too “disturbing”, but whenever I spoke to people about my research, they tended to feel sick, and even I found one or two of these devices a little stomach-churning, so you should keep in mind that this list might not be for the faint of heart. But, with that in mind, let’s begin with . . .

Before we begin, I have a few Dishonourable Mentions:

i. DENAILING
Device: Sharp Metal Skewers; Pliers; Heat; Oil & Sulfur
Method: After restraining your victim, you dip your sharp, metal skewers in sulfur, and drive them under the toenails of your victim. You then remove the skewers and dip them in boiling oil and repeat the process. You do this until the skin is loosened by the heat and repeated skewerings, then you remove all of the skewers, take the pliers and rip the nails from the victim’s toes.
Horror: The fact that this is such a slow process is pretty disturbing, and the fact that at the end you’ll have a constant reminder of the torture is pretty disturbing. But, ultimately, as much as this churns my stomach, it wasn’t enough to make the list.

ii. CROCODILE SHEARS / BREAST RIPPER
Device: Crocodile Shears, a set of half-cylinders, lined with sharp teeth and designed to open and shut, like a pair of shears; Breast Ripper, although sometimes attached to a wall, this could exist as a pair of tongs, each with two spikes facing each other, designed to be clasped shut.
Method: For both of these devices, the function is simple - clasp it around the genitalia of your victim, and pull. For the breast ripper, the genitals involved were almost always breasts; for the crocodile shears, it was most commonly the penis. This would either tear off the offending body part, or severely disfigured  your victim.
Horror: This is a device specifically designed to mutilate your genitals. If that’s not horrifying, I don’t know what is. Unfortunately, as much as it makes me cringe, this also wasn’t harsh enough to make the list. Also, the fact that this is in fact two different devices was a bit of a let-down. I just felt that it was appropriate to include both sexes in this horrifying torment, but they still didn’t make the cut.

iii. THE BRAZEN BULL
Device: The Brazen Bull, a large, bronze bull with a hollow interior, and a door to allow a person (or more) to fit inside; A source of heat, often in the form of a logfire.
Method: Simply place at least one victim inside, lock the door, and start the fire. You continue to cook your victim until the screaming stops.
Horror: This would be a terrible way to die, if it existed, but I am not convinced that it did. Most people who mention this form of torture like to go on and on about how the Brazen Bull included a set of pipes specifically designed to make the screams of the people inside transform into the sounds of an angry bull. And the legend surrounding this device claims that the sculptor who built it was the first to die within, as the tyrant who commissioned was so disgusted by it. It sounds a lot like a made-up story to me; not to mention, a large intricate sculpture made of brass wouldn’t be a very efficient torture device. And even if this did exist,from what research I have done, you can die from asphyxiation or blood loss or even just from heatstroke pretty quickly in a situation like this. That’s definitely not a pleasant way to go, but it’s not exactly the torture I was hoping for, so it doesn’t make the list.

iv. THE GARROTE
Device: The Garrote, a device composed of a pole (or a chair stood up next to a pole) with a metal band around the pole that can be adjusted to the height of your victim’s neck, with screws to tighten it.
Method: Simply sit your victim in the chair, or stand them by the pole of your garrote, then fasten the metal band around their neck. You then simply tighten the metal band until the victim dies of asphyxiation, or their neck breaks.
Horror: To me, the most horrifying part about this is that people thought it was more humane than the guillotine. I am not exactly keen to die, but having your head sliced off would be a lot quicker than having a metal band tightened around your throat. Hell, at least with a guillotine you get to lie down, but some garrotes don’t even have a chair. It is a terrible form of torture, but it wasn’t terrible enough to make the list.


These devices are just the ones that don’t make the list . . . so, let’s move on to -


The AWN’S TOP 10 MOST GRUESOME TORTURES

10. THE RACK
Device: A Rack, a large table with two large rollers underneath, often turned with a crank; Ropes.
Method: Simply bind your victims arms and legs, lay them on the table, then wrap the ropes around the large rollers of the rack. Once they’re secure, you begin turning the crank, tightening the rollers, and thereby pulling the ropes. You should keep turning until the victim’s arms are dislocated, but you can also continue turning until the limbs are torn off entirely, if the ropes are strong enough.
Horror: This torture could kill if a limb was torn off, as the victim would bleed out, but this torture was not designed to kill, but to cause severe pain by tearing muscles, dislocating bones and stretching the skin. But even if you survive, you may never be the same again. Not only would this often break bones, but if you stretch a muscle far enough, you can rip out the tendons or shred the muscle fiber, rendering them useless. So, after this torment, a victim can be left with stretch marks, and limbs like limp noodles. Also, since this torture involved strapping the victim to a device by the arms and legs, torturers often combined it with other tortures, such as denailing. However, on its own, the rack is only gruesome enough to make the bottom of this list.

09. RAT TORTURE
Device: A Large Ceramic Bowl; A Burning Fire; Rats (optional: a sharp knife)
Method: There are two methods of rat torture, but both are based on the same principle. In the first, you lie your victim on their back, then simply place one or more rats on their stomach, then trap the rats there by placing the upturned ceramic bowl on their stomach. Then, you take some hot embers from the fire, and place them on the bottom of the bowl. This will cause the rats to panic and try to claw their way out, through your victim. In the second method, you simply cut open your victim’s stomach, then stuff rats face-first into the slits, forcing them to claw their way through the victim. Either way, your victim is being burrowed through by rats.
Horror: Rats are disgusting. A domestic rat is cleaner than a mouse, but if you grab a sewer rat or a rat that is racing around a torture chamber, that’s a different story. So, if one were to climb around someone’s insides, even if they didn’t die from the blood loss, the infection would kill them. That alone may not seem relevant, as rat torture wouldn’t give much time for an infection to set in, but the fact is that an infected wound tends to sting and burn, meaning that during rat torture, alongside the pain of an animal gnawing on one’s skin and organs, every wound would be an angry, stinging gash, gushing with blood. Not to mention that rat teeth and claws aren’t very big. Imagine someone pinching you so hard that they draw blood, then ripping out the bit of skin. If that sounds painful, imagine them doing it so much that your intestines fall out, and you’ve understood why rat torture is on this list.

08. THE HEAD CRUSHER
Device: A Head Crusher, a form of standing vice with a bar on the bottom, and a bowl-like cap on the other side, and a simple handle on the top which, when turned, lowers the bowl-like cap.
Method: Simply restrain your victim in a way that prevents them from escaping, then place their chin on the bar, tighten the cap over their head, and then keep tightening as the victim’s skull is crushed. You can either stop once their teeth break and their eyes pop out, or continue tightening until their skull breaks and they die.
Horror: Every time I think about this device, I get a headache. Just the thought of it makes me feel unwell. Your head is such a vital bodypart, and having it slowly crushed makes me feel sick. Worse is that this clearly wasn’t used for interrogation since it requires the victim’s jaw to be clamped shut on the lower bar, so it was just a tool for pain. But, more disturbing for me is that this wasn’t always used to kill. If you keep tightening until the skull cracks and the brain is smooshed, then the victim is going home in a coffin. But, after enough turns on this device, their teeth could crack and come out, and their eyes could literally pop out of their head - in fact, I’ve read that some devices would include little cups to catch the victim’s eyes when they popped out. So, if they survive, they would be left a blind, stammering slackjaw with a squashed, disfigured face.

07. PITCHCAPPING
Device: Pitch, or boiling tar; a Cap, a large, cone-shaped “dunce cap” large enough to fit on the head.
Method: Simply invert the cap and pour the boiling pitch into the the cap until it is full, then slap it onto the victim's head. For added pain and humiliation, wait for the pitch to cool, then rip off the cap. Due to the scalding of the skin, this should effectively scalp the victim.
Horror: There aren’t many burning or boiling tortures on this list, and that’s because - as I explain in the dishonourable mentions - fire tends to kill pretty quickly, which means that as agonizing as it is, it rarely lasts, which puts it lower on this list compared with prolonged tortures. However, because pitchcapping doesn’t kill its victim, and also requires putting boiling tar on a victim’s head, potentially allowing said tar to drip down their face, neck and into their eyes, the burning pain lasts much longer. Add onto this the pain of having the pitch-cap removed, ripping out your hair or even the skin on your scalp, and it makes number seven on this list.

06. CRUCIFIXION
Device: Crucifix, a standing pole with an interlocking crossbeam; Nails or Rope (or both).
Method: First, you strip your victim naked, then secure them to the crossbeam, either with rope or nails, depending on how much pain you want to inflict. Then, you lift the crossbeam up and connect it to the pole, so that the victim is hanging from the pole, and then you can secure their feet to the pole with more rope or nails through the ankles. You leave your victim until they die of asphyxiation or exposure.
Horror: I almost didn’t want to include this on the list because Christians like to go on and on about how dramatic crucifixion is. However, I honestly couldn’t leave it off because crucifixion is one of the worst tortures. Even without the nails or a “crown of thorns”, having one’s entire bodyweight hung from the wrists is very painful. But what puts this so high on the list is the fact that crucifixion tended to kill by asphyxiation - the victim will run out of breath. As hanging puts a great deal of pressure on the chest, breathing becomes shallow, and as the victim’s arms stretch from hanging, the ribcage is pulled tighter and closer. It can be even quicker if they become tired, as drooping the neck would close off their airways further, meaning that a victim would be unable to live more than a day in this torture. The victim will die slowly, painfully, struggling for breath. But, I have to say, it’s not the most gruesome form of death by torture. Instead of a cross, consider . . .

05. EXECUTION BY ELEPHANT
Device: Elephant, well-trained; A stake with a chain attached .
Method: There are two methods of Execution by Elephant. In both, you begin by chaining your victim to a stake in a large courtyard. Then, you can have your elephant enter the courtyard and, on command, grab the stake and throw it high into the air, with the victim attached and attempt to then catch the falling victim on their tusks, goring them in the process. Or, with victim tied to stake, simply have your elephant slowly trample them, step by step, from foot to head. For a well trained elephant, they can even apply pressure slowly, prolonging the torture.
Horror: This was mostly done by royalty to flaunt how much power they had, and I can see why; but, that’s not what gets it on this list. Your average adult elephant weighs between two-and-a-half and five tonnes. A human bone will break if a mere five-hundred kilograms - or half a tonne - is placed upon it. This means that if an elephant steps on your leg, it can basically turn your bones to powder, and crush your muscles to mincemeat, which is both gross and painful. Now, add to this the fact that the elephant not only starts at the feet and slowly walks up their body, crushing thelegs, then the pelvis, then the stomach and ribs - but also that it can take those steps slowly and carefully, if it’s trained well enough. It can even be trained to slowly step on the head, applying pressure slowly but surely, acting like the Head Crusher described above - except face-first.

04. DEATH BY SAWING
Device: A two-man saw, serrated; a tree or hoist slightly taller than your victim; Rope, at least two.
Method: Simply tie your victims feet, and hang them upside-down with their legs spread apart. Then, hold the saw between their legs, at the groin, and begin sawing downwards. Your victim will usually die when the saw reaches their heart.
Horror: The reason why this is so high on this list is because it requires the victim to hang upside-down. That might seem odd, so allow me to explain. To begin with, this means that blood and guts would fall down over their head and face, which is pretty disturbing. Secondly, this means that the sawing begins at the crotch. I’m not adding this because I think it’s funny, or I want to see guys cringe; I’m adding it because genitals are very sensitive, and damaging them in any way is extremely painful. But, much more important than both of these is that, when someone is hung upside-down blood rushes to their head (inside their body) and it teds to keep you conscious. This means that, although the victims often lost a lot of blood, they would still remain conscious until their heart was sawn through. So, you would feel your genitals getting ripped apart by the serrated teeth of a long saw, then get the bodily fluids of that spilled all over your torso and head before the saw starts struggling through your pelvis, rattling through your bones as it slowly cuts through. Then the teeth would tear through your your intestines, guts and stomach, grating against your spine, until finally sawing through your heart, spilling blood everywhere.

03. IMPALEMENT
Device: Pole, tall and sharpened to a point; Razor; Mallet; Clotting Paste
Method: Simply strip your victim naked, grease your pole, slit open their anus with the razor to widen the entry wound (using the paste to prevent them bleeding out), then drive the spike through your victim up their anus. Once inside, you use a mallet to drive the pole deeper until it reappears out the other side. Most commonly, it will appear from the victim’s shoulder or chest, but for truly unlucky victims it will come out through their neck or mouth. Once the point emerges from their body, stand the pole upright, in public, and wait for them to bleed out or die of exposure. Other forms of impalement included impaling through the stomach, spine or heart.
Horror: Crucifixion is pretty nasty, but it could be worse. What if, instead of nailing you to the pole, the pole was nailed through you? This torture is everything bad about crucifixion, but worse: Instead of pain in your wrists and ankles, it’s through your anus, up through your stomach, puncturing your windpipe and oesophagus. Instead of trouble breathing due to pressure on your chest, it’s trouble breathing due to the wooden pole in your throat. Instead of exhaustion from your arms stretching out, it’s exhaustion due to the immense pain caused by a pole in your anus. Also, did I mention that the pole would be slicked by anything and everything it penetrated? Blood, intestines, stomach acid & bile. And it could take anywhere from a few seconds to three whole days to die, especially if the pole was driven along the spine and missed most vital organs.


02. KEELHAULING
Device: One sea-faring sailing ship; Ropes, long and sturdy.
Method: This is a simple but effective torture. Simply take your victim aboard your ship whilst it is at sea, and get a length of rope so that it goes under the keel (bottom) of the ship. Tie your victim to one end of the rope, then pull it, dragging them under the water, across the hull of the ship, and then out the other side.
Horror: Dragging someone under a ship might not seem like a very harsh form of torture, but there are three key factors to keep in mind. Firstly, ship hulls aren’t smooth. They begin rather smooth, but after just one month in the seawater, algae, barnacles, worms, mussels and seaweed can begin to cover the hull of your ship; mussels and barnacles are quite sharp, so being dragged across the hull of a ship is like being slid across a cheese-grater. Secondly, seawater is very salty and dirty. Rubbing salt into a wound is itself a form of torture, but seawater is also often full of microorganisms; not only would every cut, slice and scrape sting relentlessly, but the likelihood of infection is almost a certainty. Thirdly, most people can hold their breath for less than a minute. Holding one’s breath is hard at the best of times, let alone when being dragged through cold water, as barnacles flay your skin; for this reason, keelhauling could and did kill a lot of people. That’s why it’s so high on this list, but I can still think of one thing even worse.

01. SCAPHISM
Device: Two boats, specially designed so that they can seal together, with five holes for arms, legs and a head respectively; Milk and honey, or other sweet, organic foodstuffs.
Method: First, you seal your victim into the boats, and seal them together. Then, feed them (by force) milk and honey until they are bloated (you can also pour milk and honey over their body, if you desire). Then, take your victim to a body of water and leave them floating on the water until they die of exposure.
Horror: Being stretched, stabbed, crushed, burned, suffocated, gored, eviscerated, impaled or drowned are all pretty horrendous. But, to me, worse than all of these is being trapped, and left to slowly rot. Now, starving alone is a pretty bad way to die, but scaphism isn’t designed to starve the victim - they’re even force-fed to prevent it - rather, the honey and milk is meant to attract bugs. That’s why they’re left on the water, since bugs often live nearby. Not only does the sweet food attract stinging, pollinating bugs, but the milk and honey fed to the victim is also meant to cause diarrhoea in the victim, which would encourge flies and other waste-feeding insects. Essentially, the goal is to cause the victim to begin to decay and decompose before they die. The victim would be stung and gnawed upon, their muscles cramping as they can’t move, dehydrating, all alone in the elements. The worst part is that, according to one of the few historical reports of scaphism, the victim died after seventeen days.

— — —

On that note, what tortures do you think were the worst? Do you agree with this list? If not, feel free to comment below. If there are other which you think I should have mentioned, even if they don’t belong on this list, I’d love to know.
I’m the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, I’m going to go lie down . . .

Nailing the Colours to the Man

As I write this blog post, my nail polish is chipped. It is a dark purple, and the colour is rather pretty, but because I have been pretty rough with my hands, the purple has chipped off near the edges of my painted ring finger, but I wanted to write this blog post first. I figured that since typing requires me ramming my fingers into these plastic keys, even if I let it dry, it would be a bit rough to put a newly painted nail through that, even if this post is about my nail.
If you’re confused as to why a man is wearing pretty, purple nail polish, allow me to explain . . .

I am a Polished Man. 

This is to say that I have polished one of the fingernails of my right hand a vibrant colour as part of the 2018 campaign, hosted by YGAP (Y-Generation Against Poverty), called Polished Man.
The aim of this campaign is to help manage and prevent violence against children by starting conversations regarding domestic violence and child safety, and also by raising money for trauma recovery and prevention programs.
By signing up, I’ve actually been given the opportunity to raise money for Polished Man, and if you are willing and able, I - and of course, these vulnerable kids - would appreciate it if you would donate money towards this great cause. You can do so at this link:

https://my.polishedman.com/kelnius

But, why am I talking about this during my Halloween Countdown? Well firstly, it’s because this campaign goes through October - I coloured my nail on October First, and will maintain it until October Thirty-First. But, secondly, it’s because not only does this tie in with this year’s theme of pain and torture . . . but, I personally find this entire situation horrifying. The reason why this campaign asks people to colour one fingernail, whilst the nail polish was inspired by a young Cambodian girl named Thea, is because according to worldwide statistics, every five minutes one child dies as a direct result of violence against children.
That is over 100,000 violent deaths every year. 100,000 murdered children.
Also, despite the fact that both men and women are encouraged to take part in this campaign and paint their nails, this is called Polished Man for a reason. According to statistics, 88% of sexual violence is perpretated by men. Now, the campaign isn’t about demonizing men or pointing the finger, but rather asking men to lead by example. Not only does a Polished Man raise awareness and perhaps money, but this campaign asks men to lead by example. When you paint your nail as a part of this campaign, you dedicate yourself to being a good man and encouraging others to do the same, and you take a stand against violence against children.

But, that is why this is so disturbing. This campaign exists because children are being beaten, raped and killed, worldwide. This means that this is happening - right now - in your country.
I live in Australia, and I have looked up some of the statistics from the campaign’s website. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, one in six Australian women and one in ten Australian men report having been physically and/or sexually abused as a child. According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, a new case of child abuse is reported to authorities in Australia every 90 seconds (355,000 reports in 2015-16). According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Indigenous Australian children are seven times more likely to experience abuse or neglect.

These are just the Australian statistics that I have verified, but these issues get worse for children who live in poverty, as they often don’t have the resources to get help. In this country we have child protective services, but in places where people are isolated or rural, they are often cut off from healthcare facilities and protective services . . .
The Polished Man campaign began in September 2013 when Elliot Costello, the co-founder of YGAP, visited Cambodia to get to know some of the people from Hagar International in Cambodia, one of the beneficiaries of their fundraising efforts. They visited a restaurant on the Mekong river to have dinner with twenty-one young kids who they had helped. Elliot sat at the table next to a young ten-year old girl named Thea. She spoke little-to-no English, but she enjoyed playing games and so she played noughts-and-crosses with him for hours. At the end of the night, Thea took a blue texta pen, and drew a blue heart on the palm of Elliot’s left hand, then she turned his hand over and coloured all of his nails in blue. After this dinner, Elliot came to learn that the reason why Thea was in the care of Hagar International was because at the age of eight her father had died and she had been sent to an orphanage as her mother couldn’t care for her. Whilst in this orphanage, she was sexually and physically abused on a near-daily basis for two years at the hands of a Western man who ran this orphanage.

This is a child who was sent into care, and as a result of that was abused for two years, and has been left with mental and physical scars. But, thanks to the help of campaigns like Polished Man, Thea was given the opportunity to have a childhood, and is now fifteen years old.

Thea, and the other twenty kids in that facility, have a better life as a direct result of the help given by YGAP and the monetary support provided by campaigns like Polished Man. But this is just one of their beneficiaries - funds are also directed towards some of the best trauma recovery agencies in the world including the Australian Childhood Foundation, SAMSN, Hagar Australia, and the New York Center for Children, as well as YGAP's own accelerator programs.

So, with that all that in mind, I want to once again ask you to please donate if you can. I won’t see a cent of your money, in fact I’ve donated some of my own money towards this campaign because I think it’s the right thing to do. Because it shouldn’t hurt to be a child. You can help end violence against children, by donating money to this link:

https://my.polishedman.com/kelnius

You can help save vulnerable children from this torture, at the hands of cruel men and women. Even if you can’t afford a one-off donation, I would appreciate it if you could help spread the word either by sharing this blog, or links to the Polished Man website at PolishedMan.com. I think that together we can help to end violence against children.

I’m the Absurd Word Nerd, and until next time, I’m going to go put on a fresh coat of nail polish . . .