Reply #244: What if Rudolph didn't perceive it as torture? Would it still be torture?

[Katzenjammer]

How about if he perceives imprisonment as ipso-facto torture? Would it be torture?

What if UNHRC and AI didn't classify it as torture? Would it still be torture?

What, when you get right down to it, is torture?

We know some things qualify as torture no matter what (waterboarding, etc). Probably there are a few thousand people in the world who'd find that kind of experience orgasmic rather than horrible, but they're pretty aberrant. Everyone else would be distressed beyond measure. So we can say that stuff is torture. But where do we draw the line? Is something torture any time the person experiences it as torture? Or only when an international body says so? Some other standard?