The FFFishes' Guide to Waterboarding

October 28, 2006 4:38 PM

I'm thinking about being waterboarded, just to see what it's all about. How can I do it correctly, ie. not end up dead?

Unless someone has a good reason for me to not try this — ie. it's going to have high potential of killing me or breaking my psyche — I just might work up the nerve. Set it up correctly and have a safeword, and I should be okay, right?

So I guess first point of order is: is it safe enough to try? Second point: how?

Thanks. Yes, I know, I might be insane.

posted by five fresh fish to education (31 comments total)

"Just to see what it's all about?" No it's not safe.
posted by DieHipsterDie at 4:47 PM on October 28, 2006

You might have seen it, there is a video example lined in wiki, I don't think your possibility of drowning or being seriously harmed is zero. Set up a time limit, rather than/as well as a safe word, you may not be able to talk
posted by edgeways at 4:50 PM on October 28, 2006

lined=linked
posted by edgeways at 4:51 PM on October 28, 2006

"...and have a safeword ..."

See, right there, that's your cognitive dissonance. It's torture because there is no safe word.

The terror that makes this, or any other torture, "effective" comes from the awful slide from disheartening fear through personal revulsion and degradation, to abject self pity and complete, mindless, overwhelming fear for one's life, that your conception of a "safe word" would attempt to short circuit.

You want to truly be waterboarded, your heart has to know it is being killed.

You don't want to buy that ticket, and you sure as hell don't want to take that ride.
posted by paulsc at 4:56 PM on October 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

As well... you may have a hard time getting anyone you know to carry this out with any level of seriousness. I am not saying this is a "don't do it it's a bad idea", just be damn careful, really really careful and weigh all possible factors before doing it. I'm sure you are, it just bears repeating. If you end up doing this, report back with your experience.
posted by edgeways at 5:00 PM on October 28, 2006

Second point: how?

Your local city weekly alternapaper will have lots of S+M listings in the back pages.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:04 PM on October 28, 2006

FFF, you're in BC, yeah? I know a couple of doms (one in Van, one in Vic) who are probably the only people in the world I would trust to do something like this. My email is in my profile; I no longer have their contact info, but I can certainly give you the rigth avenues and names to ask for.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:08 PM on October 28, 2006

Mythbusters did an episode about Chinese water torture. Turns out just being tied down for hours in a single position drove one of them crazy enough to ask to be let up.

So, it's not the waterboarding, per se, but the full context of the experience. Stay awake for 72 hours, with loud music blaring and strobe lights, frequently getting your ass beat, and THEN get waterboarded. That's when you'll know whether or not it "works."
posted by frogan at 5:11 PM on October 28, 2006

I would think twice about this. Even if you assure physical safety, accounts of people who've been waterboarded include some who face continuing trauma, including phobias and panic attacks.
posted by Mngo at 5:20 PM on October 28, 2006

I'd like to volunteer to help you do this.
posted by bingo at 5:34 PM on October 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

Insane? No, you're an idiot. Doing this in a controlled environment is antithetical to the endeavor. Did you watch the current.tv video? How ridiculous was that producer-type guy laughing about it afterward? Waterboarding, like all "near-torture" techniques, is largely psychological. It's not just the technique; it's the context. Unless you're pulled out of your bed in the middle of the night without warning, with a hood thrown over your head, you're not going to be able to have any idea what this is like.
posted by TonyRobots at 5:46 PM on October 28, 2006

Previously.

People thought it was a stupid idea then too.

(If you are actually Dick Cheney, then never mind, have at it.)
posted by ottereroticist at 6:07 PM on October 28, 2006

I think it's hilarious that someone else already posted this question, and agree that there's no way on earth you could even come close to "seeing what it's all about" by arranging to do it to yourself in a safe setting. Good lord.
posted by mediareport at 6:18 PM on October 28, 2006

The behind the scenes stuff on our "Torture" episode was some messed up stuff. Very disturbing research file. Our "expert" left the crew nearly in tears.

More messed up than that is an email I got about a year ago, from a fan of the show who seemed to be a position to know, about the specifics of water torture.

He was very vague about the specifics and timing, but I've gotten bullshit email in the past, and this one had a real veracity to it. (apparently it's about the randomness of the drops, that's the key, he said it was a time-consuming, but very effective technique)
~shiver~

I agree that one cannot get the full experience without the sense that the perpetrator means one real harm, but I'm not sure that the related implication: that trying it has no value, is true.
I watched the above video, and I have no doubt that being the subject of that exercise would put the debate about torture in a new light.

It's an interesting question.
posted by asavage at 9:27 PM on October 28, 2006 [4 favorites]

I agree with the others here. The fact that you know you're not really being tortured would, in fact, destroy the efficacy of the experiment.

It would be kind of like trying to find out what it was like to be a subject of the Milgram experiment where subjects were recruited to test their willingness to shock other people under direction from the "researcher" --- except you set it up yourself. It is impossible to set such a thing up yourself and find out what it's like, because your complicity in the experiment destroys an essential element of the experiment --- the powerlessness of the real subjects/victims.

If you look at the above-linked Current TV link, there's a clue that a self-imposed waterboarding is nothing like the real thing. In the real thing, people supposedly give in within a couple of minutes. The person who asked to be waterboarded lasted 24 minutes.
posted by jayder at 9:27 PM on October 28, 2006

Well, I'm not going to go with a 72 hour regime of violence against my person.

I'm curious about the current.tv video. If it's true that the waterboarding itself, when one's aware of what's going to be going on, isn't much of an experience, then I'm starting to understand how I'm being manipulated.

Sounds more and more like it's the cumulative, unexpected, unprepared abusive experience that, as a sum, breaks people, more than any one act.

Guess I won't be pursuing that idle thought. I've done some pretty exhilirating things in my life, what with various speed sports and vertical challenges. I was kinda curious that it might be possible to scare oneself shitless without dangling ropeless from a cliff. (Which, come to think of it, was fairly traumatizing...)

How very curious that typing "waterboard" into the searchbox didn't bring up that previous AskMe. Matt?
posted by five fresh fish at 9:29 PM on October 28, 2006

(ah, I see I was given the current.tv link. Thx!)
posted by five fresh fish at 9:31 PM on October 28, 2006

o shi Adam Savage has a membership here! I love this place more and more.
posted by exlotuseater at 10:38 PM on October 28, 2006

I'm not sure that the related implication: that trying it has no value, is true.

Fair enough. There's *some* value to forcing yourself into a semi-real waterboarding experience. Just don't tell me it's even close to the actual experience of Dick Cheney repeatedly dunking you underwater until you choke nearly to death. Cuz it's damn sure not.
posted by mediareport at 11:05 PM on October 28, 2006

Secondary drowning is a risk even in a controlled situation. I'm not a torturer nor am I a doctor so I may be compeletely wrong.
posted by rdr at 12:24 AM on October 29, 2006

Second point: how?

Become an unlawful enemy combatant.
posted by djgh at 2:18 AM on October 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

Become an unlawful enemy combatant.

Don't worry. You already are.
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:47 AM on October 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

The fact that you know you're not really being tortured would, in fact, destroy the efficacy of the experiment.

But you are being tortured. What's the difference? Your friend isn't trying to kill you? Well neither are CIA interrogators. The objectives, experimentation vs. information extraction, may be different but if done correctly beating is beating, electrocution is electrocution, and waterboarding is waterboarding. The point is to induce the sensation of drowning, which is a physiological response to being held underwater.

Anyway, I agree that this is a silly experiment, because:

a) you're taking an awfully big risk with your own well-being for dubious purposes.

b) anyone who's been tortured will testify that the physical pain is not what really messes you up, but the extended mindfuck that they pile on you. Isolation, degradation, humiliation, that sort of thing.
posted by randomstriker at 12:41 PM on October 29, 2006

Your friend isn't trying to kill you? Well neither are CIA interrogators.

The prisoners don't know this - what they DO know is that enough people have already died during violent US interrogations that it doesn't really matter whether they're trying to kill you or not - for you know, they could be trying not to kill you, but have a long history of incompetence at keeping the subject alive. Either way, you have no assurances that you'll survive the treatment.
posted by -harlequin- at 2:16 PM on October 29, 2006

If you try this, and come back tomorrow and say "Now I know what it feels like" then that will just mean "Now I know what it feels like to have a wet cloth on my face". Just nth-ing the message that the actual physical sensation is not what torture is about.

Compare a visit to the dentist with the dentist scene from "Marathon Man".

Or how about the torture supposedly inflicted on IRA suspects by the British Army? They were blindfolded, taken up in a helicopter and pushed out of the doors. The trick was that they'd just been flown to the top of a hill and they only fell a few feet. You could re-create the experience by blindfolding yourself and jumping off a wall, but so what?
posted by AmbroseChapel at 5:08 PM on October 29, 2006

I think you can effectively recreate the physically sensations that occur with waterboarding, but only can come a small way in effecting the psychological. Which is not to say that such an experiment would have zero legitimacy in its recreation, it just wouldn't give you a full picture of it. To be sure it's more than "Now I know what it feels like to have a wet cloth on my face". I see you have pretty much decided not to do this, and I certainly understand why, but counter to what many people here have stated, I can see where someone may want to try this in order to come to some understanding, however imperfect, of what occurs.
posted by edgeways at 5:57 PM on October 29, 2006

I had thought waterboarding might be effective because it tricks the brain into really believing the end is near, regardless one's confidence in the technique. Autonomic systems, that sort of thing. Can't override it.

But having seen the video (unless they had the technique wrong), it looks like it's only really going to be effective in a situation where the subject doesn't trust the interrogator, doesn't know what's going to be happening, and doesn't have any ability to control the situation whatsoever.

IOW, circumstances impossible to fake.

Anyway, thanks all for the feedback. I figured it was probably a cheezy, bad idea... and it was!
posted by five fresh fish at 4:14 PM on October 30, 2006

FWIW (which is probably little) a FOX reporter is undergoing waterboarding. According to Salon:

That blog's more than a little flippant, but to his credit (and Fox's), in his first appearance today to discuss the experience of the early stages of the torture method, Harrigan seemed chastened, and deadly serious. He'll be making another appearance to discuss the full procedure tonight at 10 p.m. ET.
posted by Rumple at 5:28 PM on November 4, 2006

Hey, I was just about to follow-up this thread with that link, too. Unfortunately, I can't view it.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:08 PM on November 4, 2006

Here's one that works on my system.

Again, the reporter doesn't feel that wb is all that big a deal. Effective, harmless.

Methinks one needs to kidnap and wb some journalists or politicians, in order to give them the real experience. The lack of control must be key to its success as an actual torture.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:31 PM on November 5, 2006

The fact that the Khmer Rouge used it says all I need to know on the subject.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:47 AM on May 23, 2007