Anal “Pear Of Anguish”
If you’ve spent any time at all surfing the kinky web, you’ll have fairly quickly found yourself at one or another of the many many sites that document historical restraints and torture methods, as applied to martyrs, suspected witches, criminal wretches of ancient times, and the like. Although there can be quite a lot of overlap with modern BDSM fantasies and tropes, I’ve never had — despite a few exceptions — a lot of time for that material; my sense of justice, love of due process, and empathy for the real anguish of long-dead victims of oppression tends to overwhelm any sexual frisson I might otherwise get from the tools of bondage under discussion.
One classic example is that infamous tool of the Spanish Inquisition, the so-called “pear of anguish”. In its traditional form (and you can find photos of lovingly-wrought examples of this tool all over the internet) it was a simple screw device with three curved iron petals. Screwed closed, it was roughly the shape of a butt plug, or, poetically speaking, a pear. In this state it could be inserted in the anus, the vagina, or the mouth. And then, of course, the inquisitor would start turning the screw, causing the petals to be forced apart. Whether this caused “mere” pain or horrid disfigurement presumably depends on how far the screw was turned, but many of the historical examples have additional spikes attached, making it clear that avoiding tissue damage was emphatically not a priority. Not sexy, not to me.
But the idea of it has some play room in its memespace. If you had one that was well-machined of smooth steel, small enough to be inserted in the first instance with no greater trauma than any other butt plug or dildo, you could have some fun with it. But the machining, the complexity, the difficulty … nobody’s ever going to bother with that, not for any project less vital than rooting out the dire menace that is witches in all of our cupboards. Right?
Wrong:
Not only has somebody started manufacturing these intrusive beasts for sale, they took the minor added step of making it lockable, so that it can’t readily be removed by unauthorized persons. And — in a move I think clever, given the bloody horror at the historical root of these vicious little items — they are marketing it as an anal chastity “ass lock” device:
Sometimes, you want others to know that your ass is off-limits. One glance at the Ultimate Asslock in use will be enough to let others know move on – this ass is spoken for! Simply insert this steel piece of botany into your back door and widen its petals to blossom while inside you to achieve a truly unique feeling of fullness.
[Update: Sadly, it’s no longer for sale.]
Elsewhere on Bondage Blog:
Don’t worry too much about the actual victims of these sorts of devices. Most of them were invented solely for torture museums after the Middle Ages. Specifically, this pear, the Iron Maiden, and the Judas Cradle are all fictional devices created in order to titillate visitors to museums and as private showpieces. It is possible that complex devices were used in a few rare cases but never in widespread use.
Simpler devices were used for torture. Whips, knives, hammers, stocks, and pillories. It isn’t hard to inflict pain on the human body. Making brutal torture devices was simple and didn’t require complex mechanical devices.
Torture also wasn’t as common as is depicted. The threat of it was usually enough. Inquisitors usually acted as a sort of educator/detective/commissar rather than torturer. Which is not to say that it didn’t get bad at times.
As they say on wikipedia, citation needed.
My understanding is that most of the examples currently in museums were built for display purposes, but that there exist historical accounts of all of them in actual use. Some of these histories are lurid and potentially unreliable — but some of the historians seeking to debunk historical torture accounts have agendas, too (typically, apologia for the Catholic Church).
As for the “torture wasn’t all that common / was usually just threatened” meme, that’s very definitely a historical whitewash aimed at prettying up the Inquisition. I’m not saying that’s your agenda, I don’t believe that — it’s just, you’ve bought a story that’s been several hundred years in the building and the telling. The victims of the Inquisition haven’t maintained a continuous public relations push sustained over centuries the way the perpetrators of it have.
Wouldn’t this device run the risk of pinching something inside when you closed it? Using an inflatable plug just seems safer.
Victoria, I’ve wondered about that myself. As I imagine the physics of this thing closing while pressed around with elastic tissue, I don’t think it’s likely to be a problem; but I’m far from certain. I’d sure enjoy hearing from somebody who has actually played with one!
Rope Guy, this particular post is an appropriate place to ask: Do you happen to know what happened to Inquisition World? After a long period of erraticly-timed postings, they seem to have disappeared altogether. Gone forever?
Well, the site is still there, so I wouldn’t describe them as “gone” or “disappeared”. But they don’t seem to be doing updates for the last six months.
I don’t have any information, but the usual way a niche porn pay site “fails” is that when it stops making enough money to justify doing new shoots, the owners stop doing them, but they leave the site up for existing members and to get a continuing (declining) revenue stream from people who are sufficiently excited by the niche that they will sign up even despite the lack of recent updates.
One common tactic for sites with a deep archive is that they’ll pull the oldest update forward with an automatic script once a week, putting a new date on it. That way new potential subscribers have a hard time seeing that there will never be any new content. IW is, at least, not doing that.
I have just the same model as in starter´s picture. Expensive, well crafted thing.
First of all I am wondering, how long people have been stretching their asses, as I have very hard time inserting something this size, and smaller versions (metal buttplugs also) are rare.
First of all number 2 ;) : feature that it can be locked in place, is one of the greatest sexual dreams for some, like I.
I actually wasn´t happy at all with it for two reasons:
– That pin that the lock goes in, is threaded to the base. It can easily be unscrewed, so there goes the locking thrill… Second, you cannot screw the device to expand. You have to push, and I did not have enough strenght to push it at all, and I am quite big guy. So I modified it to suit better for my preferences. I drilled hole from side towards locking pin, made treads and screwed a plug with screw lock in the hole. Then I axially drilled to the other side hole and threads to the base. I put bolt with threadlock to that. Wingnut is there for slowly opening the device, and when it is fully open, it can be locked.
…addition to my comment: I am heterosexual and primarily using this kind of devices in selfbondage. I planned (not yet tried) to screw a metal post to wall next to bed and lock that thing straight to it. Waiting for the ice melt and drop the keys from ceiling.
Rope Guy wrote:
> The victims of the Inquisition haven’t maintained a continuous
> public relations push sustained over centuries the way the
> perpetrators of it have.
Unfortunately, that’s false. Protestant Europe produced a large corpus of propaganda revolving around “accounts” of torture by the Inquisition, many of them obviously porn, featuring beautiful half-clad women, others less obvious.
See “Inquisiton” by Edward Peters for a start.
[…] you ever think you’d live to see the day when something like the Ultimate Ass Lock (see here) got a loving camera zoom on a cable television drama? The world is changing, oh my […]
I did buy one, and it is fun.
Alas, even when fully spread and locked, it is small enough to remove. :-(
This toy is perfect. If you want to make sure that your girl does not run away you can also make a chains on the locking system and the other end of the chains to a wall. I’m sure it would be also very funny if you would chain two or more girls together with this anal plug and so you could have fun with two girls.
[…] the locking anal pear, AKA “the Ultimate Asslock”? Well, here’s a photo of a guy who’s got one […]
[…] since the anal pear started to become an item of commerce you can buy at The Stockroom, I’ve started paying more […]
It is fine if used carefully and stripped and cleaned between each use. Before mine was used on me we made sure that there were no rough or sharp edges and we used lube. My arse is still tight enough that when opened it will not pull out but it is a little slack when used in my pussy!
wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve bought myself a plug just like this. If you just wear a condom over it, you should have no problem. Though quite challenging at first, minutes with it locked in eventually turned to hours and even a few days. You get used to it the more it’s in, and what really helped me was I would give the keys to someone else. That way I couldn’t take it out until I got them back. It’s quite enjoyable if you’re into that stuff.