(Answer - Rowan Atkinson as the Black Adder)
As I've been writing the Aurora series, I remembered back to some great "period piece" testicle torture stories I've read. In particular, M. Hammer's My Punishment and My Public Nutting come to mind because they put BB and TT into a believable historical context.
The idea of being naked in front of a bunch of strangers, knowing your testicles are about to be removed entirely for their entertainment is a very sexy idea. Knowing that the assembled rabble just wants to see a good nutting, and not caring a whit about you - just your humiliating sacrifice for them, seems very erotic to me.
Although I generally don't like cutting stories, Rob Cole's Biology Class is a perfect example of this. A young teenager, in a classroom, forced to strip in front of the other girls and boys and sit with his legs wide open while the teacher pokes and prods his nuts and rigid dick by way of anatomical description. Then he's forced to cum for the class's amusement after which the teacher bloodlessly dissects the whole lot so that the boy's classmates can handle what were, seconds before, his most intimate parts. The ultimate humiliating sexual situation. Total exposure for a period of life when being embarrassed is worse than death. Very cool.
And what occurs to me is that historically, public castrations should be true. Public executions were the norm, and public torture sessions were also common. If it was a man, then surely the nuts would be the most interesting and sexy thing to torture and remove. I'm sure torturers naturally pandered to their audience just as any showman would, and what better thing to do than humiliate a man than by slowly ruining his manhood before moving on to more traditional tortures? I do know for sure that the genitals were at least sometimes an important focus - I remember reading about witches and potions and how a hanged/condemned man's semen was considered to be a potent reagent in medicinal brews; something naturally collected from execution sites or prisons.
Sadly, most of the sites that I've investigated about historical testicle torture are pretty sparse on details, but I suppose that's to be expected. And, although I've read treatises on historical torture, I've never come across an academic work that solely focuses on genital torture. More's the pity, as one can never have too much inspiration.
Of course, testicle torture is the more extreme aspect of ball busting, and it's not for the faint-hearted. Some people love it, some people shy away from it, and for me, the line blurs back and forth, really. But I don't seem to ever get enough of these kinds of stories because they exalt humiliation and exposure - two of the core elements that make up the BB fetish. mmm. So good.
Anywho, just a personal commentary about the merging of present literature and historical practices. Carry on!
n.