The Pear

Information from http://www.vaginalpear.com/ website Updated: ( X Site down 02/22 R/ )

What is The Vaginal Pear?

The vaginal pear (along with its infamous cousins, the anal pear and the oral pear, for use in the anus (see pics) and mouth respectively) was a terrible instrument of torture. Often called "The Pope's Pears" because they were used so often to torture accused witches, these bulbous metal devices were inserted into an unfortunate woman's pussy (or into the assholes and mouths of men and women alike) and slowly expanded to enormous size by turning the built-in screw. Obviously great pain resulted, along with enormous physical damage if the pears were opened very far.

The Wikipedia calls this device the choke pear and describes it thusly:

The choke pear was an iron torture instrument shaped like a pear, which was inserted in the victim's mouth. Upon insertion, a key was turned, causing spikes to emerge from the pear and wedge it in the victim, ensuring it could not be removed.

Pears were also used anally and vaginally for torture, most notoriously in the case of those accused of witchcraft.

Uses Of The Pear

The pear was also sometimes known as the "poire d'angoisse" or "pear of anguish". Because it damaged the body only inside body cavities, it was sometimes used to extract "confessions" when there was a need to pass them off as freely given.

The different uses of the vaginal, oral, or anal pear were usually determined by the alleged crime. A person accused of homosexual acts would be tortured anally, while a woman accused of carnality with the Devil might be subjected to the vaginal version of the torture. A scold or shrewish woman, or a blasphemer, would sometimes get the oral pear.

Effect Of The Vaginal Pear:

According to Torture Instruments: From the Middle Ages to the Industrial Era the pear had these effects:

They are forced into the mouth, rectum or vagina of the victim and there expanded by force of the screw to the maximum aperture of the segments. The inside of the cavity in question is irremediably mutilated, nearly always fatally so. The pointed prongs at the end of the segments serve better to rip into the throat, the intestines or the cervix. The oral pear was often inflicted on heretical preachers, but also on laypersons guilty of unorthodox tendencies; the rectal pear awaited passive male homosexuals, and the vaginal one women guilty of sexual union with Satan or his familiars.

Erotic Use Of The Pear:

Although the original pear was a destructive torture device, there are fictional accounts of similar devices being used for erotic purposes. In a story called "The Pear" one such device is described like this:

The pear was one of the most vicious devices in the arsenal of medieval and Renaissance torturers, which was why he recognized it. Perhaps even had an encounter with it in some forgotten or not-so-forgotten past life. This one wasn't that old; I'd had it custom-made, out of polished wood instead of metal.

It looked like an elongated wooden pear or a fig, only three inches wide at the widest part, with a little metal crank where the stem would be on a real pear.

I demonstrated its workings, turning the little crank to open it up. The four beautifully dovetailed 'quarters' of the pear opened up, widening like vise jaws in reverse, to their maximum width as I kept cranking - about five inches, as big as a large fist.

The Oral, Rectal and Vaginal Pear

From http://www.houseofdesade.org/torture/pear.htm ( X Site down 02/23 R/ )

These instruments were used –and still are, no longer ornamented but otherwise not much changed– in oral and rectal formats, like the present specimen, and in the larger vaginal one. They are forced into the mouth, rectum or vagina of the victim and there expanded by force of the screw to the maximum aperture of the segments. The inside of the cavity in question is irremediably mutilated, nearly always fatally so. The pointed prongs at the end of the segments serve better to rip into the throat, the intestines or the cervix. The oral pear was often inflicted on heretical preachers, but also on lay persons guilty of unorthodox tendencies; the rectal pear awaited passive male homosexuals, and the vaginal one women guilty of sexual union with Satan or his familiars.

Mutilation of breasts and female genitalia has been an omnipresent and constant usage throughout history. Insomuch as the soul of torture is male, male organs have always enjoyed the benefit of a species of immunity notwithstanding certain exceptions, a fact that leads to the hypothesis of a fraternal understanding between male victim and male judge-torturer, an understanding that must have been welded into the nascent primordial mind eons ago.

And since the soul of torture is male, and in the tenebrosity of his unilluminable nature the male is terrified by the mysteries of the female's cycles and fecundity, but above all by her inherent intellectual, emotional and sexual superiority, those organs that define her essence have forever been subjected to his most savage ferocity, he being superior only in physical strength. Hence centuries of witch hunts, with unspeakable methods. The pear had more than one implementation, with the most popular being the oral use. The pear was also used in the rectum and in the vagina.

The pear was "expanded by force of the screw to the maximum aperture of their segments. The inside of the cavity in question is irremediably mutilated, nearly always fatally so. The pointed prongs at the end of the segments serve better to rip into the throat" or "the intestines."

When applied vaginally, the spikes wreaked havoc on the poor woman's cervix. The vaginal use was devised for women who had been found guilty of sexual union with the Devil or his familiars. Ken Russell's film The Devils shows a few implements similar to the vaginal pear in use.

Information and photographs in this virtual exhibition proceed from the book Torture instruments; a bilingual guide to the exhibition Torture Instruments form the Middle Ages to the Industrial Era presented in various cities in the world in 1983-2000.