User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 594 (something something ech)/@comment-5496403-20140827100046/@comment-24913480-20140828134044

Sadomasochism is the giving or receiving of pleasure — sometimes sexual — from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. In other words, sadomasochists experience pleasure through pain. First, this practise calls for the mutual consent of everyone involved. Second, if the individual that receives pain feels pleasure from it, can it be considered a form of torture nonetheless? If the pain only boosts their pleasure and they are perfectly fine with it and enjoy it, is it really torture or wrong? Pain is a sensation that is felt by nearly every living thing of this planet but it varies from individual to individual. Someone's threshold to pain can be different from another's. One might consider something as a form of torture and another might disagree, although, I think it's the one that receives pain that decides that. If the one at the receiving end does not deem it torture and feels much more pleasure than pain, I'm inclined to agree with him.

BUT, even if they enjoy those acts, there is always a limit. Going beyond that limit would mean the amount of pain they receive surpasses the amount of pleasure they feel. In that situation they would no longer be masochists but victims and they would want it to be over. I hope you can recognize this.

Of course, only beings that have experienced pain and feel compassion and empathy for others are capable of understanding what the word "torture" implies. The issue here is that, although everyone can feel pain (I assume) not everyone feels compassion. Meaning, not everyone cares if they're inflicting pain on others. Take those civilizations you mentioned: the individuals with power inflict pain on the less powerful. They view themselves as just and right. The ones that receive pain (or atleast many of them) view them as monsters and think they are wrong. Now imagine one day there's a revolution and the rolls are reversed. The ones that used to inflict pain now receive it. Do they still think that it's just and right to do it? This is mostly speculation, I know, but it does make you think.

A more complicated scenario that still puzzles me is, for example, the use of live test subjects (of any species) for experiments in order to test a vaccine or study the genetic code... Should that be stopped as well or is ok to do it? Progress is attained many times through the suffering of one or more individuals. Lives are improved while others are destroyed. A necessary evil?Feel free to comment.