Too Kinky to Torture



""I hate to be the one to tell you this, Baron, but your torture victim appears to be having a wonderful time.""

- Technician, Mirror Dance

The best way to survive, nay, thrive during torture is to get off on it. (That goes for the victim, not the audience.)

Whether it's masochism, an iron body or mind, nothing is more demoralizing to a torturer than his victim giving him tips, or worse, berating him on a sloppy job!

Even bluffing enjoyment can work wonders when under torture, and we mean the good stuff, not just talkies.

If one really wants to take it Up to Eleven, remember, it's a Good Thing You Can Heal. One way to bypass this resistance to torture is use Forced to Watch.

Compare Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth, Electric Instant Gratification, Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?, Deliberately Distressed Damsel, Combat Sadomasochist, Unishment and, not least Threat Backfire.

A form of Attack Backfire.

Anime and Manga
"Legato: Give me the gift of nothingness. Give me death!"
 * Creed from Black Cat of course. Train tries to beat it into Creed that he is NOT interested in the sword-wielding Stalker with a Crush. The result? Train ends up unknowingly spread-legged on top of Creed, and only realizes too late that Creed got a hard-on and even orgasmed from it all. Disgust and exasperation are pretty much what describe Train's reaction.
 * Hisoka from Hunter X Hunter. Killua, too.
 * Sebastian (in episode 20, anyway), Grell, and The Undertaker from Black Butler.
 * Genkaku from Deadman Wonderland.
 * A demon casts BDSM-themed torture spells on the main cast in Dragon Half. This immobilizes everyone except for Rufa, who can't get enough of it.
 * In one of the early episodes of Excel Saga, after getting a blast of high-voltage current from a soldier, Excel requests "A bit higher, please" with a blush.
 * To put things in perspective, the torturer thinks his gear is malfunctioning and tries it on the unfortunate fellow next to Excel. Said fellow is promptly incinerated.
 * Lisa, Kosame, and Fukuyama in Girls Bravo. Naturally that makes things difficult for Yukinari, Kirie, and Koyomi, respectively. For example, in one scene Lisa attempts to molest Yukinari but he shoves her so hard in retaliation that she rolls back and slams against a wall, blood squirting from her head. Lisa's response is...to give a huge Slasher Smile, get Glowing Eyes of Doom, and scream "Geez, Yukinari-sama! You're unexpectedly violent! But that's fine, please be more reckless with me!" She then proceeds to chase him again, perfectly content with her arms outstretched for a hug. In another scene Kirie prepares to do her usual wrestling moves on Fukuyama and Kosame immediately hugs her legs saying "AH! Onee-sama! Please do that move on me as well!" And Fukuyama continues to act like a huge pervert towards the girls despite knowing Kirie will just beat the crap out of him for it. In fact, it seems to make him even more willing to act like a pervert towards the girls.
 * Germany from Axis Powers Hetalia. Or so Italy claims at gunpoint.
 * France too. After his April Fool's rampage, some of his victims capture him and attempt to humiliate him in retaliation... only to find that he actually enjoys most of their punishment. Until Sweden comes up with a Cool and Unusual Punishment, that is.
 * Ayeka in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki tries electro-torture on Ryoko early on in the OVAs. It doesn't quite work as intended. Her lines translate as something along the lines of "Ahh, I'm coming, I'm coming!" (For the record, that's exactly how Pioneer translated it in the official English dub.)
 * Whether this was legitimate or just Ryoko trying to Squick Ayeka is unclear, since the supplemental material reveals that Ryoko's body isn't capable of feeling much of anything, especially in terms of pleasurable sensations. Then again, thousands of years of only being able to feel pain might have simply led to her liking it because it was better than feeling nothing at all.
 * It's likely that Ryoko wasn't faking, because she reacts very differently when exposed to the Master Key immediately after. If she had been faking, she'd probably just keep doing so.
 * One of the ninjas in Ninin ga Shinobuden discovers a new kink as he's getting spanked during one of Miyabi's rampages.
 * Slan, the only female member of the Godhand from Berserk, definitely qualifies as this. When Guts fights her at one point in the manga, the only thing that he accomplishes by impaling her and blowing off half her torso is giving her an orgasm.
 * Because that alone wouldn't be creepy enough for Berserk, it should be noted that it's not actually her body at the time. She used a pile of guts from the trolls that Guts had just slaughtered to manifest in the physical world. I really wish I made that up.
 * Some odd combination of nihilistic joy and a closeted taste for Plant leads Legato of Trigun to get off on the idea of being tortured or killed by his master and even Vash the Stampede, who he sees as a god or... something... despite really wanting Vash dead.  This is only speculative in the anime, but it's crystal clear in the much darker manga rendition.

"Kurumu: "You act all innocent, but you, Ruby... are kinky!""
 * Ruby in the Rosario + Vampire manga is a masochist, which chapter 15 of R+V II seems to be dedicated to. The chain linking her to Tsukune shocks her with Tsukune's excess power, in order to force him to learn how to control it. However, Ruby literally orgasms over the feedback. Kurumu even lampshades it immediately after.


 * She has also likened tying herself up bondage-style to "wrapping the phone cord around your finger when you're bored", and does it with equal frequency. When the Harem was asked what they were to Tsukune (read: what they want to be to him), her immediate response was "toy" (the official Viz translation uses "plaything" as the answer, but the meaning is preserved).
 * During the Volume 4 omakes the other girls try on the chain and let Tsukune shock them once. Kurumu and Koko hate it, Mizore is on the fence about it, Yukari likes it, and the very last panel has Moka try. Yukari looks on at Moka's reaction and states "Moka is a "yea" for sure!"
 * Taken to the logical extreme in chapter 44 where one of the division leaders electrocute Ruby and she decides she doesn't need to defend against it because she "doesn't hate being shocked."
 * She then counterattacks with a suit of Cast from Hit Points magical armor, called Iron Maiden, which she seems to enjoy as well.
 * When a doppelganger posing as Tsukune gives Ruby what's intended to be a rib-breaking elbow smash, her response is to hug him with a blush of pleasure and beg him to hit her again.
 * Another omake has her state that "... inflicting pain on those you love is a wonderful way to show you care!"
 * Kakihara in the Ichi the Killer manga might be the very god of this trope. The whole series actually evolves around him pursuing something so insanely hardcore that even he will get off on it. The film downplays this somewhat, but is still an example of the trope.
 * Played for laughs in Gintama. Poor Sacchan, nobody wants to beat her.
 * As part of his Freak-Out, Hell Kaiser Ryo from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is forced to duel while wearing electrodes that shock him whenever he loses life points. At first, he hates them, but once his turn to The Dark Side is complete, he hardly duels without them.
 * Also, Yubel, who enjoys pain and insults. The only things that can scare them are being separated from the one they loves forever, and the threat of being erased from existence.
 * It's more than enjoying the pain and insults. Yubel truly believes for most of third season that extreme agony is the only way to express real love. If you don't hurt the person you claim you love, you don't actually love them.
 * Hapxiel of Macademi Wasshoi.
 * Gauron from Full Metal Panic!. Face it—don't even try to torture or threaten him. He likes it. He's so hardcore to the point where he didn't even seem to mind that much that . And apparently, even in that sorry state, he's still in the mood to get off on seeing Sousuke's depressed face.
 * The same goes for the female scientist that Gauron was strangling, as further explained in the novels. They both seemed to enjoy it, as Gauron even lampshades it by mocking her, asking her if she actually likes making him angry, and actually wants him to hurt her. He says this with a perfect mixture of "coldness and joy," and she responds by gasping with "pain and ecstasy."
 * Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-chan!! has Arresta, who nearly orgasms (and wets herself) whenever hit by Sento's baseball bat.
 * Takuma Fudou from GetBackers shows definite signs of being this. He actually enjoys and savors pain during battles, and is shown to start cutting his own chest up while yelling at Ban to "push him to the limit and make him bleed" when Ban doesn't put up enough of a fight. It's even Lampshaded by other characters, who mention the stark difference between Fudou and Ban: Fudou lives for the sadomasochistic, bloody sensation of battle, whereas Ban has no such desire and is a cold professional. On another note, although Fudou seems to have carried a huge grudge for Ban ripping his arm off, it's implied that it's not actually the pain that Fudou hated so much as what was likely Ban's attitude when he did it. Fudou even mentions that he kept his rotting, maggot-infested arm with him, and the sensation he felt were "incredible chills rising up his body."
 * Mitarashi Anko is depicted as this in Naruto Fanon.
 * Hidan is a canon example. He pretty much orgasmed when he.
 * Q & R from Seikon no Qwaser run around begging people to order or punish them sadistically, and when they don't consider the response to be enough for them, they "disqualify" their target in a very violent fashion. Even when they did encounter someone who impaled them on copper poles and shocked them to death with electricity, they regenerated and begged for more.
 * Durarara!!: For Shinra if the torture is done by Celty, it's hot. On one occasion, he spent several hours trapped in one of her shadow-webs, and spent the entire time fantasizing about ways they could be used for S&M. He also doesn't consider regular asskickings a barrier to his friendship with Shizuo.
 * Konuma Ryuuko and Haguro Dou of Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest. So much so that it comes as no surprise when it's revealed that they're dating and that they frequently engage in violent sex and hope to do the same to Inugami whom they both lust after.
 * Ryuuko, however, starts subverting it later. Unlike Haguro, her love for torture does have some small limits...
 * Rip Van Winkle in Hellsing. During their battle, Alucard grabs Rip by the throat, slowly sticks her rifle through her chest until it comes out the other side of her body in an act of symbolic rape, and then sinks his fangs into her neck. And (in the OVA) how does Rip react to this? By blushing and letting out a series of orgasmic moans. Not helped by Maaya Sakamoto's voice acting. In the manga, the scene is drawn pretty much exactly like a hentai dojin (to be fair Hirano DID quite a bit of those), down to the ridiculously intense blush on Rip's cheeks when Alucard drinks her blood. And her constant wriggling and gasping under his hands as he slowly inserts the rifle through her torso.
 * Alucard could also qualify for this trope.
 * Road of D.Gray-man.
 * Fullmetal Alchemist has Kimblee
 * It also has  Greed.
 * Arthur of Air Gear.
 * Ginka of Kyouran Kazoku Nikki.
 * Tsukuyomi of Mahou Sensei Negima.
 * Kenpachi Zaraki of Bleach. He loves fighting, seems to get off on it, and doesn't mind at all if his opponent manages to cut him in battle. In fact, he hopes for that; the one thing he wants more than anything is a good fight where he can actually turn himself loose and still keep it interesting.
 * Tatewaki Kuno of Ranma ½ frequently expresses his affections for Akane and the pig-tailed haired girl by glomping them despite knowing that they always just respond by beating him up or kicking him to the sky. In fact, since it's them beating him up, he seems to enjoy it.
 * Happosai is confirmed by canon on this, not just speculation. You can't win with that guy - he enjoys both chikan and the consequences, as long as the beatdown doesn't actually put a stop to his scheme.
 * Belphegor of Katekyo Hitman Reborn. During their battle, Gokudera manages to hit him with one of his bombs. Belphegor simply sits up while making somewhat orgasmic noises and muttering excitedly "I was hurt again. It's so thrilling!"
 * Mitsuka-sensei of DearS displays a kink for bondage and for being "punished" by her students.
 * Taro of MM!.
 * Yandere Kanojo: Manabu's little sister Mayami is a masochist who enjoys getting beaten up by Reina.
 * While her older sister Panty from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is the horniest of the duo, Stocking seems to be more of a masochist at nature, getting off on Electric Torture at one point.
 * Kou of Monochrome Factor. In the anime adaptation, he's implied to have a bit of a bondage fetish, present for no other reason than to creep Aya out after she beats him up and he begs for more.
 * Yami Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh! is also a good example.
 * Virgo from Fairy Tail will ask for punishment, even if she's doing everything right!
 * Gilbert from Kaze to Ki no Uta.
 * Squalo of Katekyo Hitman Reborn is hinted to be a masochist.
 * In the first chapter of Hekikai no AiON, Minato warns Tatsuya about not messing around with Seine because he thinks she is a masochist that likes being bullied.
 * Hilariously "enforced" by Seine to keep Tatsuya out of her neck.

Comic Books
"Parademon: Thank you, Granny! May I have another?"
 * In an issue of X-Men, at one point during a battle between Iceman and the White Queen, Iceman binds his foe to the wall with ice shackles. Far from being intimidated, the White Queen mentions that she used to pay good money for just such an experience. Taken captive in Generation X...same words.
 * There's a reference in Watchmen to Captain Carnage, a masochist who threw himself in front of masked heroes in an attempt to get beat up. This backfired when
 * In Villains United, Luthor's Society captures the Secret Six and they are tortured. Unfortunately, one of the Six is Parademon, an inhabitant of Apokalips, who has dealt with worse daily since childhood, and seems to enjoy the process.

"Ragdoll: No, don't stop! I've almost finished! Manhunter: Eeew!"
 * Another Secret Six example (They're an odd bunch) Manhunter is wailing on Ragdoll with her sharp steel gauntlets. His response?

""Wait a minute. I'm getting smacked around and intimidated by a weirdo wearing a rubber bodysuit... Then what the hell do I need these hookers for? Usually, I have to pay them $500 a night for that same service!""
 * And the Penguin in both Secret Six and Birds of Prey turns out to be this. He doesn't care when Bane slaps him around and instead asks if one of the female team members could beat him up instead as then he would enjoy it more. And he gets a crush on Dove in Birds of Prey after she knocks him out
 * In the comic series Marshall Law, all the superhumans were created with a process that deadens their ability to feel pain. The Marshal himself wears razorwire wrapped around his arm as part of his costume. Many other "heroes" also mutilate themselves. When the Marshall is tortured, he thanks the torturer for letting him feel again, if for only a moment. Then he feeds the torturer to cannibals. A very dark World Half Empty.
 * Batman's Joker doesn't seem to have a problem with pain, though he laughs at everything so take that as you will.
 * In Salvation Run it's revealed that he's in constant pain ever since the night he was bathed in the chemicals that made him the Joker, and he's just gotten used to it and gotten to like it.
 * His consort Harley Quinn sometimes falls in this category as well, Depending on the Writer.
 * This is arguably taken to its extreme in The Dark Knight Returns, especially in the fight scene at the fair.
 * Mad Magazine features a Batman Begins parody where Bats starts beating up a bad guy. The reaction?


 * A cartoon by Gahan Wilson showed a man on the rack... cracking up the torturers by telling jokes. "... But, seriously...." Of course, it might've been that he was making them laugh too hard to actually inflict any pain on him....
 * A nameless alien in Nemesis the Warlock is in the hands of an inexperienced torturer, while his supervisor comes along. The alien sympathetically agrees with the criticism the supervisor gives, and while the torturer is soon busy receiving an earful from the supervisor, the alien says it'll torture itself if they won't do it.
 * In Supreme Power, Hyperion feels pain for the first time while fighting Doc Spectrum, and asks for another hit.
 * In the comic adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar are just as unkillable as they are in the book and TV series, but they also display shades of this trope. In the comic, Mr. Vandemar charges into a fireball with his tongue hanging out, as though he were lapping up the flames; Mr. Croup, meanwhile, seems to derive almost-orgasmic pleasure from devouring a rare vase, blood pouring from his mouth as he swallows the glass shards.
 * In Croup's case this is possibly more pleasure taken in destroying something of great value which is also ancient and beautiful, but masochism certainly wouldn't be at odds with his characterization.
 * In one comic, The Creeper is tortured to test his pain threshold. Though he obviously feels pain, he only laughs, telling that he can't help it as the torture tickles before passing out. Any less amount of pain and he just speaks his usual nonsense, meaning that torture for any other reason, would most likely be fairly useless.
 * Safe to say that any psychological torture he would only find even more funny.
 * During the Treasures Of Britain arc of Slaine, Sir Lancelot has taken refuge in a monastery after the death of King Arthur. Slaine conceals himself, while Slaine's rival and his troops arrive to torture the information out of Lancelot regarding the whereabouts of the story's MacGuffin. Unfortunately for them, they find that he wishes to be tortured as penance for having an affair with Guinevere and even offers them his own equipment to do so.
 * In Terry Milligan's reboot of Shade the Changing Man, version 3 of Shade is driven mad by his previous death and afterlife. When he finds out he's about to be tortured, he expresses enthusiasm for the idea, as long as it's being done by an expert.
 * With his regenerative powers combined with insanity, torture is completely ineffective for Deadpool.

Fan Works
"Breech: "You're gonna have to quit that, 'cus you're really turning me on...""
 * In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fanfic The Long Walk, the OC Breech Loader is badly beaten, but maintains a facade of finding the experience hugely entertaining - even when threatened with a slow death - and laughs throughout most of it. It's generally implied that while she doesn't enjoy the pain, she finds it hilarious to make her torturers feel ineffective against her.

"Umbridge: I believe you are inappropriately dressed for your detention today. Harveste : Am I? Did I need my own manacles? Should I go get them?"
 * In the Harveste series, a Harry Potter fanfic series by kyaru-chan, this applies to, well, pretty much all of the protagonist characters. But then, it's a crossover with The Addams Family, so that's not so hard to imagine.


 * And:

"The dark red writing glowed wetly for a second before disappearing and slicing itself into the back of the abomination's hand. He gasped. "Oh, Professor, this is a Blood Quill! I haven't used one in years!""


 * And when Voldemort has Harveste in the graveyard at the end of year four:

""Crucio!" Pain. It was unbearable, excruciating, maddening. It felt like he was being roasted, like hot pokers were pressing into his eyes, his mouth, his ears, every inch of his skin, followed by knives being tapped into the very marrow of his bones then twisted, twisted, twisted until he was like Karkaroff's hand or Draco's green peas. He felt like foot-long splinters were being driven under his nails, and he couldn't move, couldn't breathe because he was screaming, screaming so loud, louder than anyone had done under Wednesday, under Grandmama, and there was just pain, pain, pain everywhere… Lord Voldemort laughed cruelly as he lifted the curse from Harry's panting, shaking body, and his Death Eaters laughed with him, too scared to do anything else. "Oh…oh…" "How does it feel, little boy?" Tom hissed threateningly. "How does your first taste of real pain feel?" "Oh." Harry took a deep shuddering breath, then another one. That pain… had opened his eyes to what was really happening now. "Now I understand why Mother loves red-hot pokers so much." "What?" "My Mother – oh -" Harry shuddered as another spasming ripple danced along his nerves. "-I've never really understood until now – ah- it was glorious. Absolutely divine. Do it again.""

"Ranma: You call this torture? My mom would call it foreplay...."
 * In the Harry Potter fic Reparations, Harry is a healer. At one point, one of his colleagues talks about a patient who kept trying to get out of bed, so in the end she had to conjure ropes and tie him up. Apparently, he liked it.
 * In the Tenchi Muyo! fanfic The Devil and Miss Mihoshi, Mihoshi proves that not only is she too kinky to torture (breaking the devil's best torturer into a shell of his former self), she's too
 * ToyHammer features as one of its antagonists a Slaanesh cultist (as described under Tabletop Games.) The only thing that actually gets to her is being sneezed on—she enjoys being cut, and being zapped with lightning, and she's used to being bit and clawed at by beings significantly more destructive than the protagonist.
 * This Yu-Gi-Oh fanfiction.
 * In the Katekyo Hitman Reborn Slash Fic Homecoming Chapter 4 Tsuna is about to be molested by Mukuro and hits him. This doesn't deter Mukuro in the slightest but he is stopped when guards arrive on the scene.
 * A variant happens in the Azula Trilogy, as Iroh isn't too kinky but too awesome: the attempt ended in the torturer wannabe escaping because his attempts had ended either in miserable failures or Iroh torturing him.
 * Yocchi of Yamara ends up getting this turned around on herself in this Anime Addventure episode, however. And yes, it is another example of this trope.

"Mars: [after being bitten by a snake] "Ow! Oh, God... it felt good! Don't worry, Serena, I'm used to putting worse things in my body.""
 * Sailor Mars in Sailor Moon Abridged.


 * And in a far less subtle example, the moment where she demands some rough sex from the villain attacking her.
 * Sailor Venus as well

"Malachite: "I'm going to hit you with a beam now, that is supposed to knock you out, so I can molest you, take the crystal, and then molest you." Lita: "No way!" Mina: "Me first!""

Films -- Animation

 * In a G-rated variant, Po in Kung Fu Panda is initially unbowed by the beatings he takes from the Furious Five, as he's too hyped up about seeing his martial-arts heroes in action to care that it's him they're pounding on.
 * He also thought he was being taught awesome kung fu moves, so he put up with the beatings. Later, Tai Lung tries a nerve strike on Po, a move that previously disabled and completely paralysed all of the Furious Five... only to have Po giggle as it only tickled him. (His fatness probably helped.)

Films -- Live Action
"Gomez: Leather straps, red hot pokers... Morticia: Later, my dearest..."
 * Morticia (and pretty much the Addams Family in general) reacts quite favorably to pain and torture. When interrogated in the first movie, she compliments the turncoat lawyer stretching her on the rack with, "You've done this before!"
 * Not to mention when Gomez is freeing her:

"Morticia: Don't torture yourself, Gomez... that's my job."
 * In certain incarnations, they even merrily torture or attempt to murder each other for amusement, never mind the insinuations about Gomez and Morticia's sex lives.

"Morticia: So... you still desire me after all these years? The old ball and chain? Gomez: Forever. Morticia: I'll get them."
 * Addams Family Values includes a much more, um, direct reference:

"Morticia: To pleasure. Gomez: To pain. Morticia: Tonight."
 * Also:

"Gonzo: I might even have a future in the NBA!"
 * Barbarella, who's such a hussy, she breaks the Excessive Machine. Of course maybe really intense orgasms weren't the most reliable means of execution in the first place.
 * Bonus points for creative use of Smoking Hot Sex. The expression on Dr. Durand's face is classic Why Won't You Die?.
 * Not only does Barbarella overload the Excessive machine, she is vocally disappointed to learn it has broken down.
 * James Bond in the 2006 version of Casino Royale makes a show of enjoying being smacked by a knotted rope in a rather delicate place by Le Chiffre, which convinces Le Chiffre that he's never going to break. Luckily for Bond, Le Chiffre doesn't last long enough to up the ante.
 * Bond: *grunts in pain* A little to the left...
 * It does sort of explain why he never has to worry about having little James Bonds running around though (besides the ladies all dying)
 * Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye seems to enjoy getting beaten up almost as much as killing people. Her fight scenes with Bond indicate that she wasn't going to stop fighting simply out of pain.
 * Muppet Treasure Island has Clueless Morgan and company trying to torture Gonzo for information. They put Gonzo on the rack... of course, this is a Muppet whose idea of fun is getting keelhauled, so the only thing they succeed at doing is making his arms and legs ten feet long.

"Arthur: I think I need a root canal. I definitely need a long... slow... root canal!"
 * The DVD commentary put it best in its simplicity: "They picked the wrong guy."
 * It's not so much that he's kinky. It's more like he's a Nigh Invulnerable adrenaline junky.
 * Used and ultimately subverted in the Street Fighter live-action movie. When Honda is being tortured by one of Bison's mooks, it seems like a straight use of the trope, since it looks like he's enjoying it and has a peaceful smile on his face. The subversion kicks in after the guard leaves, when his ally Balrog cringes at the damage done to him and Honda, clearly in pain, explains, "I'm Sumo, brother. My body can be in one place, my mind another."
 * The Joker in The Dark Knight laughs maniacally whenever someone attacks him, especially Batman, since it only drives him closer to "breaking his rule." The Joker rubs the futility of it all in Batman's face, saying, "You have nothing! Nothing to threaten me with! Nothing to do with all your strength!" It's also lampshaded by the cop he later takes hostage, who says, "I know you're going to enjoy this. I'll just have to enjoy it even more."
 * Vampire in Brooklyn: "Interesting. I've been stabbed, and I've been hanged, and I've been burned. Even broken on the rack once, but I've never been shot before. Kind of itches a little!" And then to demonstrate the fact he puts his finger inside the hole and wiggles it a bit.
 * In Wasabi's first scenes, Hubert is tasked with interrogating a transvestite of this ilk. After a violent punch that makes him spit teeth, he compliments his captor: "You really know how to talk to women."
 * Arthur Denton of Little Shop of Horrors (played by Bill Murray, based on a similar character in the 1960 movie played by Jack Nicholson) is a masochist, who goes to Dr. Orin Scrivello, D.D.S in search of some really intense pain. Scrivello is a sadist who delights in tormenting his patients, so Denton's enjoyment of the process really ruins his day.

"Prince Barin: You tortured Aura! Klytus: An interesting girl. I think she found it rather enjoyable."
 * Lou in Fight Club tries to intimidate Tyler Durden by beating him up. Tyler gets really into it, inviting Lou to join the club, and laughing maniacally as Lou pounds his face in.
 * In Videodrome, jaded psychotherapist Nikki Brand has Max Renn thrust a hatpin through her earlobes during sex, idly burns herself on the breast with a cigarette during a relaxing moment, and eventually runs off to Pittsburgh to audition for a reality show in which people are savagely tortured for the amusement of the television audience.
 * Gene Wilder pretends to be this way in Stir Crazy when the warden is trying to force him to join the prison rodeo.
 * In Top Secret!, Nick Rivers realizes that his being late to school was All Just a Dream and he is very relieved to find out that he is in reality only being whipped by two henchmen.
 * Klytus states Princess Aura is this in the 1980 movie Flash Gordon. From what we see of the torture, though, he is most likely lying.


 * In The A-Team, Murdoch is placed into an army psychiatric hospital after his arrest. When given electroshock therapy with no anesthesia, he responds pseudo-orgsamically - "Oh, yeahhh. That's the stuff."
 * In Under Siege 2, our Damsel in Distress tries to threaten the main goon with mace. This proves to be ineffective after he corrects her that it's actually pepper spray, and then proceeds to spray some into his mouth to "clear the sinuses".

Literature
"Mark: You see me, Baron. But I see you, too."
 * Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age involves someone who reacts to a seemingly horrific form of torture (direct pain-nerve stimulation) as if being tickled because he's got nanobots installed in his body to counteract it. His torturers simply decide to do things the old fashioned way.
 * It doesn't quite fit in here, but in one of the Dragonlance Prequels, some minotaurs attempt to torture Sturm Brightblade and Tasselhoff Burrfoot. Sturm, being a Solamnic Knight, stoically endures everything with nary a change of expression. Tasselhoff, on the other hand, helpfully makes suggestions to his torturer. Being a Kender, he's incapable of feeling fear, and his bones are difficult to break—and heal quickly. Thus, the worst thing the minotaurs can do is to bore him by trying the same form of torture for more than ten minutes, which is why he starts making suggestions. In the end, the torturer might have come away from the session feeling worse than his victim—if nothing else, he probably got a nasty headache.
 * In the Saga of the Exiles, there is a character named Felice Landry. In one scene Culluket the Interrogator picks her out of a group of prisoners to torture for information. She later spends quite a bit of effort looking for him to return the "favor."
 * In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, Han Solo is tortured a number of times. His response is usually along the lines of "Is that all you've got? I was tortured by Darth Vader."
 * In a threat of torture for two, Leia followed up with "So was I. That was before we met."
 * Meanwhile, the Yuuzhan Vong love pain and torture. Their idea of a lazy Saturday afternoon involves spending time in an organic device called the Embrace of Pain.
 * As a result, a young woman shaped by the Vong to be like them gets lines like these: "I'm half Yuuzhan Vong inside. The only thing pain would cause me is a religious experience." and "I know something about pain you don't. Pain drowns other people. I just swim in it."
 * In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, represses any expression of pain during torture, showing determination that reaches its climax when
 * In Lois McMaster Bujold's Mirror Dance, Mark, the insecure clone brother of the usual protagonist, Miles Vorkosigan, develops into this. While captured by a Mad Scientist crime lord with a torture obsession, he splits his personality into five aspects; Mark, the normal, goofy businessman; Killer, the result of his assassin training; and Grunt, Howl and Gorge, representing Mark's sexuality, masochism and gluttony, respectively. The last three are used to withstand any and all torture, while keeping the rest of his psyche relatively sane. Meanwhile, Killer and Mark are plotting a particularly awesome jailbreak.
 * The split personality was actually anticipated and planned for. (The next step was to change the torture regime in order to encourage discord between the personalities and confuse the issue of who should be in charge when.) Mark only escapes because (1) they underestimate him and (2) they underestimate his initial mental fragility.
 * They don't know that Ser Galen tortured him worse when he was a teen.

""Fitz," Anji hissed. "Are you telling me you really don't mind trotting around starkers in a collar and lead?' He grinned. "Are you kidding?""
 * Averted, ironically, in the Kushiel's Legacy trilogy. The heroine literally experiences pain as pleasure, but when a captor begins, the sensation is so intense as to be torturous anyway. In the third book when she's trapped in the harem of a mad dictator,.
 * Just to clarify: she enjoys pain, rather than experiencing it as pleasure. (And that's all pain, including emotional pain and unfulfilled desires, though the effect is strongest with physical pain.) So torture still hurts her.
 * In The Book of the New Sun, Severian the Torturer both mocks the ineptitude of his tormentor and offers professional tips. The casual manner in which he retells the experience makes it a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 * To be fair, Severian has been raised to be a professional torturer from a very young age.
 * When the Doctor is psychically tortured in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe novel Return of the Living Dad by reliving painful memories, the pain he's experienced turns out to be more than the psychic torturing him can cope with. So instead, the torturer takes his most pleasurable memory (a nice cup of tea) and increases the sensation a million times, at which point he breaks.
 * Semirhage does this intentionally in The Wheel of Time. Apparently nobody trains their operatives to resist intense pleasure, so it works better than pain in some cases.
 * A couple of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels feature this as regards to the Doctor's companion and the TARDIS's resident Lovable Sex Maniac Fitz. Subverted in one, in which he is hit with a whip and learns he doesn't get the appeal at all. In another (Mad Dogs And Englishmen), he, the Doctor, and fellow companion Anji are stripped and collared by space poodles. Anji hates it, the Doctor is wholly indifferent, and Fitz...


 * In John Ringo's A Deeper Blue, a drug lord kidnaps Mike's manager/mistress/etc (long story), Anastasia, and tortures her for information. She's a hardcore submissive and enjoys it. Very, very much. It helps that the torturer in question is an ignoramus who fails to tell the difference between sounds made in response to pain and sounds made in response to orgasm.
 * In one of the Dune sequels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, a group are trying to reawaken the memories of a ghola of the Baron Harkonnen, which is usually accomplished by pushing someone to breaking point with some great trauma. However, he proves Too Kinky to Torture and the only thing that eventually works is sensory deprivation.
 * Played dead straight in Anita Blake. The villain Gabriel's dream was to be slowly killed by Anita. Nathaniel, a protagonist, was also quite the masochist. As well as Narcissus, who was more of a grey character.
 * Gabriel actually wanted to rape, kill and eat Anita, while she was armed and doing her best to kill him. He was very masochistic, not suicidal. And he's never actually tortured. Also, Nathaniel has limits, but Raina and Gabriel broke him, so that he was incapable of saying "no". He is shown badly hurt and clearly not enjoying it in "Narcissus in Chains" (pinned to the wall by multiple blades) and mentions that he was enjoying prostituting himself until he was gutted in "Burnt Offerings", but not during or after.
 * Brutally subverted with Tomasso in Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana. He is known throughout the land for being an open homosexual and masochist, but he is nearly driven to tears before the real torture even starts, when the guards are allowed to "play with him". It doesn't help that he was deliberately exaggerating the more outrageous aspects of his lifestyle in order to make people underestimate him, so the masochism, for instance, may have been a complete and utter fiction on his part.
 * The Pilfered Princess: Sarah annoys her torturer by orgasming during a torture session, and spends the entire story begging Inferno to "rape" her. Because, frankly, the Dark Lord's ogres, trolls and other assorted underlings just aren't that good at the whole sex thing.
 * In the Wheel of Time, the Aiel are very, very resistant to torture. Perrin only manages to break his Shaido prisoner in the ninth book by chopping off one of his hands and threatening to chop off his other hand and his feet and leave him like that. When Egwene finally masters the Aiel technique she starts laughing her head off while being beaten, much to her captor's startlement. Semirhage, as the best torturer in the history of existence, doesn't eventually get broken through torture but by the humiliation of being spanked by a woman less than a seventh of her age.
 * Also,.
 * According to Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited, a group of students were about to throw him in a fountain, but were put off when Blanche claimed he would enjoy it too much.
 * In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are captured early on by the Vogons. The Vogon captain proceeds to read his poetry, the third worst in the universe, but Arthur bluffs his way out of it, claiming he actually enjoyed the poem. He and Ford start an improvised literary analysis,.
 * In Clive Barker 's Hellraiser mythos, this is how the Cenobites initially came to be: they spent such a long time being tortured in Hell that eventually they found that they actually enjoyed the sensations. The natural extension then was to reshape their bodies and inflict this exquisite pain upon others.
 * In the Italian fantasy novel Balthis the Adventuress there's an entire underground subrace that lives by this trope: they sleep in hard stone beds, eat and drink awful-tasting things daily and often flail and beat each other up as a form of greetings. When we get to see on of their on kind "tortured", we see her sit on comfortable pillows, with no chains or restrains and with delicious food and excellent wine. And she complains a lot for it.
 * Cara attempts it in ''Temple of the Winds'. Doesn't work that well because the torturer A) can read people very well and B) can also use psychological torture

Live-Action TV
""William, I so love you.""
 * True Blood: Maryann's reaction to being bitten by Bill. "Yes! Ravage me! Ravage me!" Plus she probably knew that her blood was toxic to Bill, since she is a supernatural being.
 * Maryann again in the Season 2 finale, when being impaled by a bull.
 * The bar is set even higher in Season 3. At the end of Episode 3, Bill and Lorena have a very violent sexual encounter, where Bill (pissed off beyond belief) twists Lorena's head 180 degrees. Lorena's response?

"Buster/Kim: Torture me all you want, Demonica, I'll never crack! Demonica/Jenny: Oh, but you will. Malicia/Megan: By the time we're through with you, you'll be begging to tell us everything you know. Demonica/Jenny: You'll be our puppet. Malicia/Megan: Our slave. Buster/Kim: (enthusiastically) Great! You're doing great! (Tom Paris [playing the hero Captain Proton] bursts into the room waving a raygun) Proton/Paris: You're done for, Demonica! Malicia/Megan: Malicia! She's Demonica. Proton/Paris: Whatever. You two are going to jail for a very long time. Buster/Kim: I've got everything under control, Proton! Shouldn't you be getting back to Headquarters?"
 * Sam Puckett of iCarly is implied to be this. In, iDate a Bad Boy, she describes being tased as "not so bad; it's actually kind of a rush" with a rather wistful look on her face. In iHatch Chicks, Carly bites one of Sam's hands for making a joke about fried chicken; Sam then implores her to bite the other one.
 * Jade from Victorious is also implied to be this. In one episode, she got disappointed because something wasn't painful, and in another, she said "this is causing me pain, and not the good kind."
 * Episode villain Namtar in Farscape could re-wire his nerve responses from pain to pleasure, turning a pinned arm near breaking into an intensely pleasurable experience. When Aeryn gives an experimental twist, his response is "Harder!"
 * Stark has spent so much time in Scorpius' Aurora Chair, he now appears to enjoy the process of having the memories ripped out of his brain and shown on screen, to the point of screaming "Again, Scorpy! Frell me again!"
 * And, in turn, when Scorpius is being tortured by the Scarran War Minister Ahkna, in between bursts of flesh-searing heat to the face, he waggles his tongue at her and remarks "I've been searching my whole life for a female like you."
 * An unintentional example occurred in House (Although Dr. House might have gotten a thrill out of it.) They put a teen with severe burns into a hyperbaric chamber (which would hurt like hell.) Apparently, he's in so much pain, his brain confuses pain with pleasure, and he orgasms.
 * There's a running gag in The Mighty Boosh where any time Bob Fossil, or anyone played by the actor, will respond to being tortured/raped/brutally murdered with "Ooh, ah! A little to the left!"
 * Once in Just Shoot Me, Jack put electric buzzers on Nina and Elliot's chairs as punishment for making too many jokes at his expense. Nina enjoys the charge, and asks for "two short ones followed by a long, sustained one."
 * Several years before Farscape, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine featured the enigmatic character of Cardassian tailor Elim Garak, a former spy, secret operative and assassin of the Cardassian Obsidian Order. In episode 22 of Season 2 ("The Wire") Dr. Bashir discovers that Garak has an implant in his brain that is wired to stimulate the pleasure centers of his brain to produce large amounts of endorphins whenever Garak suffers strong physical pain. Originally, it was meant to "protect" Garak against physical torture. During his exile among Bajorans (who hate Cardassians), humans and other aliens, Garak built a device that allowed him to remotely control the implant and turn it on or off whenever he wanted. At first, Garak had merely planned on using the implant from time to time, whenever the stress and depression of eking out an existence as a humble tailor on a space station among hostile aliens became too much for him. But one day, as he admits to Dr. Bashir, he turned the implant on and never turned it off; he became addicted to the high endorphin levels.
 * Mirror Universe counterpart of Kira, "The Intendant", seems to like the idea of torture. When she's captured by the Rebels, she advises Mirror!Julian to turn up the setting on his "little toy" (a pain-inducing Phlebotinum).
 * The torture of Gaius Baltar in the episode "A Measure of Salvation" (Season 3, Ep 07) of the 2004  Battlestar Galactica. While Cylon Number Three / D'Anna is torturing Baltar with pain inducers and psycho talk, Baltar tries to project himself to a beach to avoid the pain. There Head-Six appears to him and coaxes him into having sex, with her which results in a rather explicit reaction from Baltar. Naturally, D'Anna is really weirded out. Seriously, if the guy you are torturing and who only a moment ago was writhing in agony suddenly starts writhing in arousal and yelling "I love you!" and "Don't stop!" over and over doesn't make you think he's gone completely bonkers, lost his marbles, or gone nuts, then you're probably unflappable. Also, he's a keeper.
 * Baltar's case is arguably a deconstruction though. He wasn't Too Kinky to Torture and was visibly distressed until Head-Six distracted him.
 * From the same series, Leoben Conoy, the crazy Cylon Number Two. He actually fell in love with Starbuck while she was torturing him.
 * The last episode of the first season of Burn Notice has Sam captured and continually beaten for information by heroin dealers. He begins by complimenting their technique in beating him, subverts Torture Always Works by giving one false confession after another, and basically constantly mocks his captors and actually encourages them to kill him (this is both to psyche them out and because he doesn't want his friends to be killed trying to rescue him).
 * The Addams Family, as said above.
 * Played for laughs in the Star Trek: Voyager "Captain Proton" holoprogram. In "Thirty Days" Ensign Kim (playing Proton's sidekick Buster Kincaid) has been captured and chained up by the Twin Mistresses of Evil (played by the ship's babes, Megan and Jenny Delaney from Stellar Cartography).

"Carla: Woody, you don't know what you're getting yourself into. I mean, those guys at Gary's are vicious. They could strip you naked, paint you red, and put you on a subway. Woody: They wouldn't do that. Carla: They did it to me. But I got the best of them. Norm: How's that? Carla: (chortling) I loved it."
 * Carla Tortelli of Cheers loves abuse.

"Drusilla: Not in the least. You won't even hurt me just a little bit."
 * The entire run of Mystery Science Theater 3000 could be seen as an example of this directed at Cool and Unusual Punishment. The Mads whole goal in life is to try and break Joel/Mike's spirit, but he and his robot pals just laugh at all the awful movies sent their way. Not sure if you'd call that 'kinky,' but it's gotta be somebody's fetish.
 * The bots sometimes show strange tastes. In Gamera Vs. Guiron, character Tom is threatened with a spanking. Tom Servo talks back at the screen, "I'm Tom. Spank me!"
 * In The Movie, Tom ends up plugging a hole in the ship with his body, exposing his lower anatomy to the vacuum of space. His reaction is "I'm experiencing a sensation altogether new to me. and frankly...I love it!"
 * The contestant in Pod # 9 on Solitary 3.0 exhibited such behavior during the metal clips treatment. All the other contestants screamed in agony as they attached 40 hard metal clips around their body. Unbeknownst to them, contestant # 9 acted nonchalant about the whole thing and even seemed enthusiastic about furthering the "torture". Later, when another contestant got to punish someone of their choosing with a second 10 clip treatment she chose # 9, unaware of his preference for the "torture". # 9 proceeded and mocked the treatment by feigning pain then laughing about it.
 * In a third-season episode of La Femme Nikita, "Threshold of Pain", the terrorist Simon Crachek is captured by Section. The Torture Twins, a mousy-looking man and his equally mousy-looking woman both sporting large orange plastic briefcases, are brought in to interrogate him. Up to this point of the season, Madeline always sent them in to crack the more difficult prisoners, whereupon they'd emerge wordlessly a scene later, leaving the prisoner quivering and shaking and ready to spill his guts. In this episode, the Twins emerge after a session with Crachek, look at Madeline and shake their heads. Meanwhile, strapped to his chair in the interrogation room, Crachek has a big smile on his face.
 * Drusilla of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel falls into this category as a result of the torture and madness inflicted on her by Angelus. It seems likely that some of it is inherent to being a Buffyverse vampire but not to the degree found in this insane seer. As seen in the Angel comics when she is sent to Hell with the rest of L.A., but she sees it as her family's pleasant old home.
 * Spike: "I'm gonna tie her down and torture her until she loves me again!"
 * And Drusilla's response when Angel says she isn't alone because she has him and Darla:

"Gwen: ON YOUR KNEES!!! Captain John: Honestly, it's always sex, sex, sex with you people."
 * Darla: "You're hurting me. I like it."
 * All Girls Want Bad Boys met Happiness in Slavery, for Drusilla and Darla both...at least in the case of Angelus. Soon enough, they were truly afraid of him; and wouldn't have traded it for anything.
 * Also, Zachary Kralik, a one-shot villain from season three, thorougly enjoyed being burned by a cross in his... nether regions.
 * Torchwood: No matter what punishment someone gives him, Captain John Hart manages to turn it into a fetish:

"Alpa Vampire: [bored] Oww. Please Stop. That hurts."
 * A Saturday Night Live Dickens parody had the young protagonist on board Her Majesty's ship The Raging Queen, where discipline was rigidly enforced and enthusiastically accepted.
 * Was that Miles Copperthwaite? In which all the sailors are "manly men"?
 * The Jackass crew. They certainly enjoy hurting each other, especially Knoxville.
 * On Chuck, Jeff is quite the weirdo. Tie him to a tree, inject him with sodium pentothal, he just thinks it's a party.
 * In Supernatural, many characters display this over the course of the show in response to torture, although it's usually just meant to piss off the torturer as they're still in agony when it's actually applied. One of the few who doesn't even display any physical signs of discomfort is the Alpha Vampire when he's captured and interrogated (read: getting electrocuted). This trope is also Crowley's reason for changing Hell from physical torture to an eternal waiting line.


 * Community, milder than most examples here, but the Dean misinterprets Jeff's threats to step on him as some kind of pleasure to enjoy.
 * Larrin in Stargate Atlantis once experiences the terror of being fed on by a Wraith, a process which is known to be extremely painful and causes rapid aging in the subject. Sheppard forces the alien to return the lifeforce it took from her, after which a once again young Larrin remarks with a confused grin that "it felt kinda good".
 * In fact, this is how Wraith worshipers are trained by their masters: the worshiper is fed upon until he or she is on the brink of death then the Wraith gives it all back. Rinse and repeat over and over again until the subject swears loyalty.
 * Micheletto Corella of The Borgias seems to enjoy being whipped by Cesare far, far too much.
 * In Sons of Anarchy there is an episode where Tig is captured by a crew of bounty hunters. He insults one of them to provoke a beating, and seems to enjoy it.
 * Blackadder II: when Blackadder is captured by the dastardly Spanish, he is taken to the second degree by gloating Inquisitors and shown the implements of torture. In his usual yawningly disdainful way, he corrects their poor English and suggests better Spanish terms for the devices. He also spot-translates a leering Spanish guard's threats conerning the pain that will soon be inflicted on him.

Music

 * The music video for "Happiness In Slavery" by Nine Inch Nails. A man walks into a room, gets naked, lies down... and then a machine rips off his penis and grinds him into meat. And he enjoys it.

Newspaper Comics

 * A The Far Side strip features a pair of demons forcing the damned to toil in a mine. One guy is cheerily pushing a wheelbarrow while whistling. One demon says to another, "You know, I just don't think we're reaching that guy."

Professional Wrestling
"Mankind: You know what you tell the people, week in and week out? You say, "Look at Mankind! I don't even know if he feels pain... or maybe, maybe he likes pain!"... What is it about pain that I love?... Is it when I can't get up when my little boy says, "Daddy, I wanna play ball!" and I can't do it? Is that where the fun starts? Is it where a doctor injects a 12-inch needle into the discs of my spine so I can wrestle one more day? Whoopee! Let the party begin!... All you've done to people is mislead them, and let them believe that I'm having the time of my god damn life when I'm in pain!"
 * WWE's Mankind used to be an example of this, back when he first started, with the announcers going on and on about his seeming affinity for pain. It was then brutally Subverted, during a Worked Shoot interview by Jim Ross...


 * Raven, during his WCW days, invoked this a few times. One of the most memorable being during his first grudge match against Chris Benoit, when caught in the Crippler Crossface (Benoit's finishing move), he started laughing.

Tabletop Games

 * This is why the Inquisition in Warhammer 40,000 hate having to deal with Chaos cultists from the Slaanesh faction. At least one Inquisitor found a sensory deprivation tank the best option. Makes sense.
 * Most Slaaneshi cultists tend to be too kinky to care even about that. Whatever you do to them, if they win, they get the high of winning. If they lose, they get a new experience to savor. In fact, in a Ciaphas Cain novel at least one of the Slaaneshi cultist got off of being killed, and the others were fighting each other to get hacked to pieces, which lead to a great deal of Squick from Cain when he realised that they were actually getting sexual pleasure from being slaughtered.
 * One example of this is towards the end of the novel Fulgrim where one of Ferrus Mannus' bodyguards is about to crush a fallen Emperor's Children legionnaire, the legion that fell to Slaanesh, who took a full hit from a flamethrower and pauses when he sees the look on the Marine's face isn't pain from having his entire body burned with futuristic napalm but ecstatic pleasure. This pause doesn't end well for said bodyguard.
 * Easiest way to deal with Chaos followers would be a Pariah—particularly a Culexus Assassin. Pariahs are utterly horrific to regular people, and even more so to those touched by the Warp. A Culexus doesn't have to do anything in order to Mind Rape someone. Yet they are given device that focus the effect to the levels dangerous even to normal people...
 * Dark Eldar. Just Dark Eldar. Bonus points since it actually rejuvenates them.
 * Naturally, the same problem exists for Witch Hunters in Warhammer Fantasy Battle. One enterprising Hunter figured out a way around this, by numbing the cultist's entire body before proceeding, torturing him by not letting him feel it.
 * Exalted has a fighting style called Laughing Wounds, pioneered by the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears, who may very well be the physical incarnation of this trope. To give you an idea of what it's like, one of the first Charms one can learn in the style allows you to turn wound penalties into attack bonuses. And yes, whips and chains count as form weapons, and a BDSM sense of fashion is included.
 * In the Forgotten Realms setting exists the goddess Loviatar, The Maiden of Pain. Similarly to the Dark Mistress from Dungeon Keeper as mentioned below, her worshipers absolutely adore pain, both inflicting it and experiencing it--in a battle too. This goes double for Loviatar herself, who will actually wade into a pitched battle solely to get injured and experience the sensations.
 * In Deep 7's Red Dwarf Roleplaying game (yes, it exists), humans get extra dice to their fortitude because of this trope. They're crazy enough to enjoy things like Yanni concerts and five-alarm curries.
 * Pathfinder gives us the god Zon-Kuthon. Estranged brother of the Goddess of Love, he presides over darkness, suffering and sado-masochism. He is depicted in styles reminiscent of the Cenobites, having flayed and pierced his flesh countless times. His priesthood's creed is 'Experience Without Limits', and one of their most holy ceremonies involves stripping one of their number of limbs, eyes, ears, tongue, and lips (and often eating them in the process), leaving a head and torso which are kept alive to be violated and tortured ever after. They call this 'The Joymaking', and the victims are high ranking priests. They don't just volunteer, they demand it be done to them.

Video Games
"Soldier: You call that breaking my spine? You RED-team ladies couldn't break a spine if-*snap* "
 * There's also the Dark Mistress from the Dungeon Keeper series—where all other minions are sent to the torture-chamber to punish them for not working hard enough, thus scaring their colleagues into working harder—or for captured enemies, who can be turned to the dark side or into vengeful ghosts by the ordeal... the Dark Mistress is sent there to raise her morale. Actually, she tends to go there of her own accord, which can be troublesome if you've got many of them, since they wind up taking up slots you could use for your enemies.
 * Have you ever wondered who is running those torture chambers? The name implies that she is sadistic and would probably prefer to do the work herself—in fact, if you have a victim in it and put one of these ladies in, they sometimes begin to work on the victims which increases the speed of the torture.
 * Also implied to apply to the Keeper himself, as shown by the phrase given should you reject all Minions bar Mistresses; "Your dungeon is full of Mistresses. There's a word for Keepers like you."
 * A mild example is Calisto Yew of Ace Attorney. When Franziska von Karma threatens her with her trademark, Yew says it "kind of sounds like fun". Of course there's still some situational squick.
 * Mao from Disgaea 3. Upon discovering that his butler has been experimenting on him while he was unconscious, he decides to march on over to him and demand video of it for his own viewing pleasure.
 * Subverted by SIE from Alpha Protocol. She clearly gets some enjoyment from her own pain (if you attack her, she'll send you an email about how she enjoys pressing her bullet wounds) but when she  she can clearly be heard crying out and nearly sobbing.
 * City of Villains' Silver Mantis, second in command to Black Scorpion, thrives on this trope. Almost every boss has dialogue as you damage them further, from three-quarters to half to one-quarter health, and upon defeat. The average Silver Mantis dialogue sounds more like she's engaged in other activities. At least one defeat dialogue has her congratulating your character on really knowing how to treat a girl, with an invitation to call her later. This after you, depending on powerset, may have inflicted anything from blunt trauma to third degree burns to direct psychic assault on her mind... To being cut with steel claws by a shiny-black clad Catwoman look-alike.
 * Silver Mantis is more disturbing to those who have actually read her backstory. She grew up with an addiction. To having pieces of metal surgically grafted into her skin. Without anesthetic. If you look closely at her costume, you'll notice that it has a metallic sheen, and that it includes small metal spikes coming out of her exposed skin.
 * Hanch from Drakengard 2 does this too. Over the course of the boss fight against her and her pact-beast, the things she says (and the noises she makes) imply that she's actually rather enjoying getting the crap beaten out of her.
 * Shadow Hearts: Covenant has this when the party is thrown in jail on St. Marguerite Island and held at the mercy of dominatrix foe Veronica. The player has to choose which character will be tortured by her from a list of each character's responses to the idea of being tortured, most of which are defiant or fearful, but one of which is ecstatic as the prospect. Since they're not lined up in the same order as the cast onscreen, you can only find out who said what by choosing each option, after which you learn that the one excited about it is not Yuri, as you might think, but Gepetto.
 * Okami : "The Labyrinth of Torment is for the enjoyment of everyone on Oni Island, so don't make a mess of it while playing."
 * In the PlayStation 2/Xbox release of The Bard's Tale, as the eponymous Bard makes his way to battle Fnarf, the guy that follows him there disables magic electrical forcefields by jumping into them and geting electrocuted. However, he claims to enjoy (and even anticipate) it, to which the Bard amusedly remarks "And they call me a deviant!"
 * Tenshi Hinanai of Touhou Project has been immortalized as a masochist thanks to a few lines in the game where she tells other character(s) to punish her.
 * In The Suffering: Ties That Bind the boss battle with The Creeper ends with the monstrous spirit being stabbed to death by his own cojoined whores. As their knife-like tongues rip into his stomach, he screams, "Yes! That's it! Faster! Harder! Deeeeeeper..."
 * Gray Fox of Metal Gear Solid blatantly enjoys being attacked. "That's good, Snake... hurt me more!" A milder example is MGS3's The Pain (doesn't blatantly claim to enjoy pain), and he's ambiguous. Could just be that as his beekeeping hobby probably involves insects attacking him, pain barely hurts ...or you could interpret it that he covers himself with them because he enjoys pain.
 * Lightning Warrior Raidy, despite being an H-game, averts this pretty hard. The female bosses enjoy giving out torture, but sure as hell can't take it. Raidy herself semi averts it. It's of a sexual nature, thus she's physically enjoying it, but in all other respects is NOT enjoying the experience (again, outside of the sexual aspect).
 * This video from Knights of the Old Republic II. Wow, I didn't even know it was possible for droids to have fetishes. Creepy.
 * Homer Pieron from Valkyria Chronicles enjoys getting hurt, which is emphasized with a potential that boosts his stats when his health is reduced to less than half. To top it off, the animation for activation has him practically orgasm.
 * Edy's DLC has him encourage Edy to keep hitting him, causing her to remark "So pretty, so broken."
 * Doviculus of Brutal Legend if FAR too kinky to hurt. When fighting him, his normal combat banter is "More pain" and other such comments. Also, some of his attacks inflict pain on him, such as using his heart as a guitar pick and stabbing himself with a huge spear as a double team attack.
 * In Six Days A Sacrifice, you can threaten an acolyte with torture unless he gives you information. He points out that, as a worshipper of what's basically the God of Pain, he's already done far more horrific things to himself than the characters can even conceive of.
 * In one of the Team Fortress 2 promotional videos, Meet the Sandvich, you are treated to the inside of a refrigerator where the titular Sandvich resides. After the Heavy grabs the Sandvich, you hear the sounds of the Heavy attacking and the Scout begging for mercy while the Soldier insults the Heavy on his sloppy work.


 * Subverted in Dragon Age by Zevran's dream - he may joke about being tied up, but the cold blooded torture he suffered at the hands of the other Crows is clearly not something he enjoyed.
 * Albedo from Xenosaga. When he has his arm blasted off by Jr., he simply laughs.
 * Some Pokémon in Pokémon Black and White have a dream world trait called "perversity," which reverses the effect of stat affecting moves, effectively making the Pokémon Too Kinky to Torture.
 * In the game In Famous the Big Bad of the story Kessler tells the protagonist Cole that in order to survive through torture and pain in general is that you have to enjoy the beating, even come to LOVE the pain. This is over the phone as Kessler had just gotten through torturing Sasha another villain in the story, despite Cole's indifference to Sasha as a person, as a result of her psychological torture on him and her sexual advances on him that he was blatantly uninterested in, he finds Kessler to be disgusting for torturing her.
 * The Rabbids in Rabbids Go Home, but replace "kinky" with "dumb." They enjoy Video Game Cruelty Potential, and happily enjoy getting smacked in the face, having their features pulled at or exploded, and getting knocked around like pinballs.
 * The Sims Medieval has an Interrogation Chair, a chair Sims can tie other Sims up in to extract information either by "Persuasion," which requires interactions the Sim will like, or "Interrogation," which requires interactions the Sim will not like. Some Sims you can interrogate will actually like being doused with water, and liking a Chinchilla Attack is not unheard of. Almost, but not quite, this trope, since the interaction still affects their Will and can lead to the interrogating Sim getting the information.

Web Comics
"Yuuko: This murder is becoming less of a random act of revenge and more like a public service."
 * Undead warlock Richard from Looking for Group. He was only trying to be helpful to the torturer when he pointed out there was room by his calf to insert another knife. In fact, when he was taken back to the dungeon he asked if he could have another go. He seemed to mistake the torture chamber for a spa. Oh, and he started singing during his torture sessions. Which rather unnerved the Legion soldiers. Though he did complain about the waterboarding.
 * Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic: Practically any scene where someone tries to torture the drow women Arachne and Charlotte. They like a well-equipped dungeon. Eventually the Dark Mistress who tried to torture Arachne admitted defeat and begged to teach her.
 * In fact, when Arachne needed to punish Charlotte and felt really mean, she put Charlotte in a cage in sight of the instruments... and refused to torture her. Instead, she read a magazine.
 * Later the Rannites caught Elzear'bith. "C'mon, girls, show a little creativity. I'm getting bored here."
 * Sexy Losers: Yuuko comes back to life and plans her revenge on Shiunji for the things he did to her corpse. When she finally starts threatening him, he's excited by it.

"Phobia: You know, some people whip their slaves for less than that. Klepto: Phobia, it has been my goal to be whipped by an Amazon since I was thirteen."
 * In Flipside, protagonist Maytag has learned to accept pain rather than fight it, allowing her to be virtually impervious to torture and even mutilation. One scene has her smiling gently as her arm is being eaten, much to the dismay of the person doing the eating.
 * In Gastrophobia, Klepto is either telling the truth or using this strategy to avoid being tortured at all:

"Elsa: You're welcome to kill Yocchi as often as you like, but I warn you: she'll enjoy it. After a few agonizing deaths, Yocchi may take to following you around."
 * This quality is one of the reasons why Yocchi in constantly and utterly cheerful: because'' she's The Chew Toy...

"Gloog: I really did enjoy that wonderful burning pleasure you gave me. Adam: (embarressed) Don't mention it... Gloog: You are a wonderful lover. Adam: I SAID DON'T MENTION IT!!"
 * Girly (here) features a torture chamber designed as a mock-up of hell, but when Winter and Otra arrive, there are only two prisoners. One of them is an immortal who loves being eviscerated. The other is a veterinarian who, while she has not shown any masochistic tendencies in this comic, is an Expy of an earlier character who has appeared in some less reputable comics.
 * Girl Genius: André, just André. It's implied that all or most Jägers tend toward this.
 * What happens when a sadist meets a masochist: not always True Love.
 * Gloog from A Game of Fools, who, among other things, enjoys the feeling he gets from being shot by a laser gun. (although, as we see later, that's more due to Sylvester not really knowing how to use it)
 * Played completely straight however when Sylvester and Adam eventually do try to torture him, which ends up being far more torturous for them. He eventually DOES give them the information they want though, as thanks for how much pleasure they gave him.


 * It's as much not understanding the situation, but Fooker from General Protection Fault shows signs of this.
 * San: Three Kingdoms Comic's version of Huang Gai enjoys whipping too much that it scares the living daylights out of his officer (Zhou Yu).
 * Played with in this The Order of the Stick strip, the Lantern Archons assume this when the Monster in the Darkness wants them to attack him with their rays of light, when really he just doesn't like the dark.
 * In Ghastly's Ghastly Comic, Zsa Zsa (local dominatrix) said about Freddy that "I can neither beat nor fuck the otaku out of her".
 * The grey aliens in the Sluggy Freelance story "Oceans Unmoving" are a bit weird like this, none more so than Murdock, who even likes to watch Dr. Viennason's DVDs. When he's put in futuristic manacles that cover his hands entirely, he wants to wear them permanently after he's been freed from imprisonment.
 * Lighter versions occur in Ménage à 3:
 * Zii, as seen here.
 * Yuki shows shades of this in the beginning with her "emergency handcuffs". Later, Didi comes home unexpectedly and mistakes Yuki for a burglar. As Didi's tying her up on the bed, Yuki yells out, "Harder! I can slip out of these easily!" She even asks Gary for some clothespins!
 * Also see Yuki's happy place.
 * Equius Zahhak from Homestuck not only gets off on someone of a lower blood status defying his orders, but also on
 * Mimi of Grim Tales from Down Below seems to rather enjoy being beaten up.
 * This Oglaf comic is what happens when Too Kinky to Torture meets Completely Missing the Point.
 * Martian Magazine has a guy who doesn't mind large cats.

Web Originals
"Sage: Same time next year? [kisses Spoony on the cheek]"
 * Dr. What in AH Dot Com the Series (and arguably Landshark as well). The only person who ever managed to successfully torture information out of What was one of his Alternate Universe counterparts, and that was by tantalising him by holding lesbian porn just out of reach.
 * Similar to the nun below but 1000% more horrific, these guys are (were? this picture was classified under "undead") religious flagellants who became masochists. The only pain they feel comes from the fact that since they secretly take pleasure from their self-torture they can't get into heaven.
 * This was the basic premise of an erotic story titled The Pilfered Princess. In addition to being erotic, it's also a hilarious, self-aware parody of many Heroic Fantasy tropes. The Hero and the Evil Overlord are both determined to carry the Idiot Ball in the name of enacting tropes, The Dragon is also the Only Sane Man, and the kidnapped princess is Too Kinky to Torture. Eventually, The Dragon does manage to find a torture method that works on her, though: a chastity belt. The story ends with the princess becoming the new Evil Overlord and quickly demonstrating that she is Dangerously Genre Savvy.
 * The titular Salad Fingers appears to have masochistic tendencies.
 * A non-sexual variant occurs in Survival of the Fittest v4, where Rein Bumgarner is well-known for enjoying pain, enjoying the adrenaline rush that it gives him. As a result, he actually attempts dangerous stunts partly for this reason.
 * The Ask That Guy guy loves getting tortured by his boss, whether he does things right or not. There could also be another example after the Sage episode, while he clearly didn't enjoy it while it was happening, the next episode is basically nothing but sex jokes and orgasm-faces.
 * Well, if Spooning With Spoony is any indication, Sage is also this. Note: he was rather nonchalant about being roofied and raped by Spoony. Twice.


 * Superdickery.com has a special tag for Wonder Woman: "Suffering Sappho!" due to just how many times she's been featured in various forms of barely-justified bondage on the covers of her series and dropped comments that don't even amount to Double Entendre. A running gag jokingly regards her as being like this: "I'd make some crack about how if they really wanted to get information out of her, they should threaten to untie her, but it's just not funny anymore..."
 * Diamanda Hagan tries to torture LC in Project Million. He thinks she's giving him foreplay.
 * Warhammer 40,000 Joke Character by JoPereira -- Lolicron is too kinky to kill: "...she just keep going back for more". The only way to get rid of her is to fail at causing damage. But then she takes offence.
 * Hilariously deconstructed in Reflets d'Acide, where the villain Mortis uses the Priest of Pain Sacher-Masoc as his Mole among the other priest of Maender-Alkor, convincing him to work for him by promising him to torture him as a reward. Similarly, when the priests find out about his betrayal and attempt to interrogate him, they quickly realize torture won't work on him and are Genre Savvy enough to promise him they will hit him if he confess. And it works.
 * (The Customer is) Not Always Right presents a little-explored turn of argument.

Western Animation
"Peter: Um, oh I'm sorry were you just whipping me or did I just get bit by a mosquito? (Dungeon Master whips Peter again) Say Lois, if you happen to see the Dungeon Master could you tell him his grandmother was just trying to work me over?"
 * Futurama: When Fry first awakes in the 31st century, he's put through a machine called the Probulator that almost leaves him in tears. Bender later undergoes the same treatment and says, "That Probulator sure knows how to treat a man."
 * Of course, seeing as how Bender and the Probulator are both machines, it was probably a little more consensual than when Fry was on it.
 * In Bender's Game, Leela is forced to wear an electric shock collar to discourage her tendency to violence. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), she comes to associate the electric shocks with the pleasure of beating people up, and starts to enjoy being shocked.
 * In Total Drama Island when one of the challenges the campers face is to withstand ten seconds of torture, Izzy gets the challenge of being electrocuted by electric eels. She enjoys it. "Again!"
 * She then gives herself a poison-ivy face-wrap.
 * In the same episode, Lindsey thanks them for putting hot, gooey marshmallows on her face than ripping them off, though only because it was the best lip wax she's ever had.
 * In the episode I Triple Dog Dare You, Owen becomes this. The entire episode was a long game of truth or dare (without the truth part), and until Gwen and Owen team up, Owen gladly undertakes each and every dare thrown at him. The highlights include chewing Harold's saved and chewed gum, giving a bear a purple nurple, and eating dog food.
 * One episode of Family Guy contained a flashback of the Griffin family being tortured by the Dungeon Master. Peter was being whipped, but casually made fun of the torturer.

"Stewie: Come on, discipline me! Make me wear panties, rub dirt in my eye, violate me with a wine bottle- my God, I really do have problems, don't I?"
 * Let's not forget the cow that enjoyed being milked and branded.
 * Or when Stewie found Lois hitting him stimulating.

"Slave-driver: [whips him] What's you name? Tobi: Tobi with an "I." With an accent over the "I," and a little line over the "O" so you know it's a long vowel sound and not a short one. And sometimes I like to dot the "I" with a little smiley face or a heart or something. Something to brighten the reader's day. Slave-driver: [whips him] I asked you what your name was. Tobi: Honey, you keep that up it's whatever you want it to be."
 * Or Lois's interest in BDSM and how in one scene Peter shoots her and she excitedly demands that he "Stick your finger in there and twist it!" or when Peter started kicking everything after seeing Road House, Lois asked him not to kick her, unless it was her nipple.
 * Another flashback:

"Don't stop"
 * In "Fecal Matters", Brain scratches Meg's hairy leg mistaking it for a scratching post. Stewie tells about it, as blood from the scratching appears. Yet, Meg's response

"Pam: Well, what's the poem gonna be when Cyril snaps and horribly murders you? Cheryl: ...I dunno. "World's Gushiest Orgasm?""
 * In South Park, when the boys approach Mel Gibson demanding their money back after seeing The Passion Of The Christ, Gibson proves to be this. The problem is, the boys have absolutely no intention of torturing him. Nevertheless, he oils and chains himself up whilst insisting that torture will do them no good (especially if they torture him in just the right place). The boys are, needless to say, utterly freaked out by this.
 * Partially justified, in that a few of his more memorable characters (namely Riggs and William Wallace) were tortured.
 * And in the Mad Max movies, Payback (this little piggy), Conspiracy Theory... um, just how many Gibson movies involve torture?
 * Again, that episode was based on The Passion of the Christ.
 * Captain Hero from Drawn Together, being a profoundly perverted parody of a superhero gets off on most anything, from being smashed by a lead model of the Eiffel Tower, to having his intestines removed from his body. Given the show he's in, this is pretty much expected.
 * An episode of Moral Orel has the title character misinterpreting the preacher's sermon about renouncing worldly pleasures as getting rid of everything that feels good; unfortunately, what makes Orel feel best of all is his relationship with the Lord. He tries to counteract this by subjecting himself to 24/7 torture, but ends up... well, looking forward to his father's next discussion "in the study."
 * The 1953 Pepe Le Pew cartoon Wild Over You. Click here and scroll down to the third cartoon of the first post for a description (or watch here).
 * Homer, in one episode of The Simpsons gets sent to hell for a day after selling his soul for a donut. A demon forces Homer to eat all the donuts in the world in order to drive him insane, but he just keeps asking for more.
 * One episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes had Heloise trying to give Beezy the rack. His only response is "Ah, that feels good." Another episode had him getting shocked by an electric helmet, only to clap "Again! Again!" Yet another episode has him constantly punching a Hollywood Voodoo doll of himself, saying "Neat!" every time.
 * Another episode had Lucius hiring Jimmy as a product tester, specifically because he knew anything that could break him would be Misery Inc. material. Sure enough, he enjoys all the products, even when Beezy suffers.
 * Archer has Cheryl, who's got a serious kinky side:


 * On Pinky and The Brain, Pinky ends up in a Fire and Brimstone Hell during the Halloween Episode and is subjected to numerous tortures...all of which he enjoys.
 * In King of the Hill, a pornographer makes a perverted website about Peggy's feet. Her husband, Hank, finds out about it, meets the pornographer, and gives one of his signature lines: "I'm gonna kick your ass!" The pornographer sticks his rear out and says something like, "Ooh, good! Let me get it on camera!" Hank decides against doing what he had threatened, as he usually ends up doing when he makes that threat.
 * Interesting variation here. It's not for him, it's just that he takes his job seriously, and is clearly a pragmatic businessman.
 * On Batman: The Brave And The Bold, Red Hood, a heroic Alternate Universe version of, tells Silver Cyclone (the evil Red Tornado) that his electroshock torture "tickles!" He seems to be bluffing, but then, Red Hood admits that he sort of has a screw loose.
 * In Batman: Assault on Arkham. Harley has been subjected to electroshock therapy so much, she's grown to like it, claiming it's "like a shiatsu massage for your brain!"
 * Johnny Bravo in the original short when a girl zaps him with a stun gun at the Aron City Zoo, although (like the series that would later follow) it just may be that he actually doesn't have a clue (and thus is actually that stupid)...
 * Rocko's Modern Life: In one episode Rocko is in the yard, practicing his jackhammering, only he can't see very well, so he's land the jack hammer on Spunky. Heffer dives taking Spunky out of harm's way at the last second, but Rocko lands the jackhammer on Heffer's back-side instead. Rocko apologizes for running him over, but Heffer says that he "kind of likes it" while biting the grass and looking extremely pleased.

Real Life

 * Lawrence of Arabia seemed to get off on being tortured, which really unnerved his captors.
 * It's made even more awesome when you remember that Lawrence was said to have a fear of pain, and had overcome it prior to said torture.
 * There's good evidence that, sometime after the War, he repeatedly hired a young man to beat him, and got off on this, too. There are also allegations that he attended at least one private sadomasochistic party, but was afraid of being recognized and blackmailed.
 * In his autobiography The Seven Pillars of Wisdom he writes a description of being kicked in the balls that is, to out it politely, rather enthusiastic. After an extended, unpublished, and much more obviously erotic version of the scene was found in an unpublished version of the manuscript some autobiographers have come to the conclusion that the whole scene never actualy happened and he fabricated it from whole cloth for his own personal gratification.
 * Not torture, but... the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau went to a religious school as a boy, where he received corporal punishment (probably spanking or caning). As he wrote in his Confessions, not only was it not as bad as he thought, it even turned him on. His teachers got it and stopped using this kind of punishment.
 * A flame war erupted on a parenting newsgroup over an assertion that spanking should be abolished because it's overly tinged with eroticism. The intensity of the backlash diminished (somewhat) after the original poster clarified: she meant it was too arousing for the child, not the parent.
 * Serial killer Albert Fish, who had extremely masochistic tendencies and actually got an erection during his execution in the electric chair.
 * Not to mention how all the bits of metal he shoved into himself over the years short-circuited the electric chair on the first try.
 * Apparently, he liked to hit himself... with a nail-studded paddle.
 * Peter Kürten, the "Vampire of Dusseldorf" who inspired Fritz Lang's movie "M", was aroused by stabbings and dismemberments. Eventually sentenced to be guillotined, he appeared to be excited by the thought of his own death, asking the prison psychologist on the way to his beheading: "Tell me, after my head has been chopped off, will I still be able to hear, a least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck? ...that would be the pleasure to end all pleasures."
 * Not torture, but, the Tyrolean 19th century hero Andreas Hofer is said to have taunted his executioners for their poor shooting skills after they didn't manage to kill him at the first round of shots.
 * Maybe unrelated. He knew that he will not leave alive, having shot wounds does hurt, and executioners should have killed him quickly and without prolonged pain.
 * Algolagnia causes sensations of physical pain to be replaced with physical pleasure, something of a physiological version of masochism.
 * Most humans, when it comes to natural hallucinogens and spices. Plants and animals produce these toxic compounds in the hope that whatever tries to eat (or touch or sometimes just smell) them will get so sick it won't ever want to look at another funny mushroom, cane toad or chili pepper. But humans? We love this stuff. We grind it up and snort it or put it on our food!
 * There is even a (probably apocryphal) story of released prisoners in Wild West-era Texas who would re-offend days after leaving jail, just to get back to eating the chili con carne - which was incredibly fiery in order to cover up the flavor of the sub-standard meat being used to make it.
 * Biologically speaking, humans are incredibly omnivorous. Most of the stuff plants do to keep things from eating them work on most animals.
 * "What other species would eat something like that [jalapeño peppers] and sit there with nose burning and eyes watering, trying to figure out how to make it hotter?" - Florence Ambrose, Freefall
 * Considering that the spices and hallucinogens induce humans to cultivate certain plants, failure to repel humans is actually an evolutionary success for them.
 * In the case of the Capsicum family, the fruits (which we call peppers) are spicy to mammals because Capsaicin latches onto their taste buds. Birds, on the other hand, lack the receptors for Capsaicin and thus can eat the fruits without pain and then poop out the seeds (which is the evolutionary point of the spiciness).
 * Double Subverted by many real-life sadomasochists. Researches show that, for most people examined who admitted engaging in masochistic sexual activities pain is not enough to get off. When there's punishment involved, on the other hand...
 * It's apparently pretty common with porn actors as well. Many BDSM websites will add before-and-after interviews with the actors to a scene (to show that they're volunteering before and that they're OK after.) It's fairly common for the actors involved to say that they've never done it before but that they kind of like it.
 * In what may be an inversion of this trope's usual form, sensory deprivation is an uncommon but valid practice in BDSM. Some people enjoy it as a punishment, others enjoy the Sensory Overload that comes at the end.
 * Doug Walker willingly put clothespins on his scrotum because he needed to make his eyes watery. Why he couldn't have just cut onions we don't really know.
 * Tradition holds that St. Lawrence said to his torturers: "Turn me over, this side is done" while he was burned alive in a gridiron, which made this trope Older Than Feudalism
 * On a related note, there were attempts to Cure Your Masochists using electric shock therapy. They didn't work, for possibly more reasons than one..