Tickling
By Andrew Impey
Generally construed as a legal form of torture, the victim is restrained and tickled repeatedly for anywhere between minutes and hours. To be most effective if needs to be accompanied by loud expletives, preferably barked at the subject, such as “you ate the cake, didn’t you, didn’t you, did you, did you do it?”This method is a sure winner and it’s no surprise that it dates back to Roman times when goats were used to lick the feet of individuals until they spilled the beans, or just ruptured their sides laughing. There is even evidence of tickling from the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th Century and from the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in Massachusetts.
One of the few people to successfully demonstrate resistance to this method of gaining the truth was Asterix’s druid friend Getafix. The Romans tried to get him to reveal the formula for the Gaulish power potion; needless to say our hero didn’t even whimper.
EffectivenessMost people are powerless to resist. You have to be either super human, or just very thick skinned to survive. 4/5
Ethics
Based on the fact that it’s tantamount to torture, it’s probably not exactly fair, but hey, you spend most of the time rolling around the floor laughing so it can’t be that bad. 3/5
How to get out of it
Run - plain and simple.
Back to Top Ten Ways to Get the Truth
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Image: Shyle Zacharias
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