The Oral, Rectal and Vaginal Pear

	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.