Gunge Tanks

So, last time out I concocted a “basic” list of methods of gunging someone and said that there was some reasoning behind it, and that it wasn’t just a very lazy, very easy, thing to write about. This is the part where I attempt to justify my claim that there was something more behind it, and that it wasn’t just an ass-pull. I’ll let you be the judge of that when I’m done. ;)

I’m going to try to write about gungetanks then. Firstly, my own definition of a gunge tank (and I should point out that I do not work for any sort of dictionary, so it is *my* definition and therefore not worthy of Webster’s or anyone else) is as follows:

Any form of messing where the victim(s) is enclosed on at least three horizontal (front, back, left, right) sides and mess is dispersed via pressurised nozzle(s) or gravity-assisted pour (typically from above), involving some sort of lever or other mechanism.

…And that’s it. It might not be “right” in everyone’s eyes, but I think it covers the basics. If there’s no “tank”, it’s not a gungeTANK, is it? If the gunge is simply buckets poured over someone sat in a tank/chamber, then I don’t see it as a gungetank, even if it gives pretty similar results. To me, a gungetank needs to involve some kind of “mechanical” element, and having someone pouring buckets doesn’t give the same effect. An arbitrary distinction? Perhaps. The fetish is WAM; Wet And Messy, if all “Wet” things are “Messy”, then why make that distinction? Arguably, if you refuse to accept soil or sand as “Messy”, then all “Messy” things must be “Wet” too. It’s a kink full of arbitrary distinctions, so I’ll keep on making my own.

So here’s the bit where things get a little theoretical. I’m going to propose a list of things that work/don’t work with gungetanks, and a vague description of the ideal recipient(s). The astute of you will realise that I’m going to milk this idea and attempt to do the same thing for the other methods listed (buckets, dunk tanks etc.) and drag it out for a few weeks longer.

First up, substances. You’ve got your gungetank, so what do you put in it? Well, gunge is the obvious thing, but I don’t see it as a name that limits the tank to just gunge. It’s just a name, in much the same way that you can have a biscuit barrel, intended for biscuits as per its name, but still wholly capable of housing your sweets, crackers, cereal or any other snack food that you might wish to store in a convenient container with a lid.

By my reckoning, a gungetank needs a fairly runny substance. Given the method, having something slow and thick, like treacle, would be possible, but given that most tanks involve the gunge being sprayed/poured at speed, that sort of thick substance would either jam the mechanism, or result in a very long gunging that could take an age. It’s one thing to have the gunge continue to drip onto the victim afterwards, and something altogether different for the “main” gunging to last forty-five minutes because the treacle won’t “pour” properly. Not to mention that something so viscous would be slower and probably easier to avoid, thereby resulting in a bad gunging anyway.

I don’t think you would ever want to use a substance any thicker than this (the first clip, featuring Sue Lawley). As a clip, it’s not bad, but it works on NESR because they tended to show the victim for a little while after the gunging so you can truly appreciate the thick gunge falling in splats onto Sue’s head and slowly oozing down over her hair and face. It actually does work very well, especially for creating a prolonged “torturous” gunging where the victim’s humiliation continues long after the initial splatter of gunge.

Conversely, even the thinnest gunge (or, to use its proper name, “water”) works well enough, provided you enjoy wetlook, of course. To demonstrate, here’s Sammy Winward, showing that even the thinnest of substances can work with a gungetank. I know many people complained about the gunge being rubbish and watery, as opposed to being the glorious thick gunge used by the BBC, but I don’t recall people complaining about the method.

Provided that the tank’s opening could take it, something lumpier would work just as well, as this clip shows. Is it oatmeal? Is it porridge? I don’t know. I know it’s an amateur tank (that doesn’t quite hold up to the force of it) and it’s a decent clip. Baked beans would work just as well, and, in truth, so long as the lumps wouldn’t clog up the nozzle, then it can make for a good gunging. After all, having lumps that splatter and drag and clump can make the overall sensation of the gunge seem a lot worse.

To compare, imagine a texture like smooth custard, and then lumpy batter, with clumps of congealed flour. The smooth one is still not necessarily something you want to have poured over you, but it’s a far sight better than having something with unpleasant squishy lumps that might ooze into sensitive areas,  like between a person’s toes, or under their armpits, or even between their legs. As if the cold wet feeling of the gunge wasn’t bad enough, there are now some lumps that “pop” against your body as you move about and writhe in the tank.

So, what’s the ideal substance? Well, that’s a bit subjective, but for me, the standard gunge is probably about right. Maybe a little on the thick side, so that it splats (like the above clip of Sue Lawley) instead of splashing (like the Sammy Winward clip, also above) and perhaps with some lumps, but that’s because I’m a bit sadistic. It’s meant to be unpleasant, right? Let’s make it downright awful!

The final part now, is my own opinion on the appropriate usage of a tank, and the kind of people best suited to it.

Firstly, most gungetanks involve overhead deployment devices. This means that the victim’s head/hair should be the first part of them to come into contact with the gunge. I say “should”, because some tanks are a bit too big and people can lean out of the way, which brings me to another point, gungetanks benefit from having some kind of a restraint to ensure that victims are in the right place at the right time. The victim doesn’t need to be chained from the tank ceiling, or anything like that, but a simple seat means that they’re roughly in place, so that even if they duck out of the way, they won’t be getting away entirely clean.

I won’t link to it, but there’s a GYOB Clip on YouTube, with Emma the horse-riding instructor in the “Ghost Train” (pumpkin) era. She answers five questions correctly to gunge the child that brought her on… Except that the child stood right back out of the way as the gunge harmlessly poured down in front of her. Perhaps, at most, some of the backsplash might have landed on her feet or lower legs, but, by and large, the child avoided the gunge. There’s a lot to be said for “playing the game” and accepting your gunging graciously, but there will be those that seek to avoid it when possible. Just putting a seat in the tank changes this, and the seat doesn’t even need restraints to manage it.

However, if the tank is overhead, and it’s going to go for the head/hair, then someone that particularly loves their hair or face would be an ideal candidate. Not that I can think of anyone that wouldn’t be “compatible” with a gungetank, but someone vain, that spent a lot of time on doing their make-up or styling their hair would likely take a bit more humiliation from it. Compared to, say, being dunked in a chest-deep pool, where the head/hair stayed mostly clean, for example. In a similar way, if the tank has nozzles in the base, that aim at the legs/feet, then it might be ideal for someone that favoured those body parts. For the sake of argument, some girl with a great pair of legs that was always showing them off to manipulate people into doing things for her, if she was brought on the show for her legs then covering the same offensive legs in gunge seems very fitting, right?

On a humiliation factor, well, gungetanks do the job, certainly, with added humiliation for anyone that loves their hair and has it “ruined” by the gunge being applied directly to it, but I don’t see them as being the most humiliating by a long shot. A dunk tank is worse, as would anything more elaborate than an ordinary gungetank with its overhead method. I’d argue that having another person smearing the gunge about would be worse, as would pelting because that also tends to involve another person more directly. Sure, someone’s got to pull the lever to release the gunge, but the added mechanics do create a barrier to humiliation in my mind.

If your rival is sat on a stool and you have hold of a bucket, then you can pour it fast, or slow, or however you please to play with them and to drag it out if you want to, or to “transform” them quickly if that’s more your style. It can be done in a vicious manner, or in a teasing, playful manner to show that you mean them no harm, but are still going to enjoy it all the same. A gungetank isn’t really like that, because you load it up, put someone in place and then let rip with the gunge. If the circumstances are similar enough (same kind of mess, a victim of similar height and build etc.) then the results will often be quite similar, too, because it’s got a reduced human element. It’s a lot like the idea of home baking compared to machine baking. Check out the cakes in any supermarket, and all the chocolate cakes will all look the same, with the same decoration, same textures and so on. If you asked someone to make fifty chocolate cakes by hand then you would get minor differences between each of them. Some might rise a little more than others, or they might get a bit of extra chocolate cream, or any other number of possibilities. It allows for more “mistakes”, but sometimes these can be the best parts.

Not that this is inherently a bad thing, but I firmly believe that to get the most humiliation possible, you need the gunger and the gungee to have some sort of a relationship, because how many people can really get the best results out of a total stranger? That guy in the coffee house might look vain, but perhaps he’s just very well-groomed, and surprisingly willing to be gunged? Or maybe that girl that’s always laughing and giggling would be genuinely pissed off by a gungetank, so rather than embracing it, she would huff and stomp her feet and try not to react? Of course, if the victim is your OCD-level neat-freak housemate, then you know exactly the right words to use to make it even worse for her, by reminding her of how “filthy” it is, and how even when she’s washed it off, she’ll still be able to smell the mess and feel it on her skin for weeks to come.

…Re-reading that, it sounds awfully vindictive. Ho hum. If anyone is interested, the OCD example was actually about myself, but we’ll get to that some other time.

Carrying on, the gungetank will not ensure total coverage, unless there’s so much gunge (and the tank is properly sealed) that it begins to fill the tank up from the floor. Many gungetanks fail to even achieve total saturation of hair and face, much less covering a victim’s arms, legs and torso, however it does tend to concentrate the gunge on the head, which is often the more humiliating place, so it isn’t without merit. I doubt too many people would be bothered if their forfeit for losing was to have to dip their hands/feet into a bucket of gunge, but to then tip that bucket over their head is an altogether different matter.

On top of all this, gungetanks do make for some spectacular gungings. Often because of the victim being in the right place (in a well-planned tank, or with a good sport, of course) and the gunge being delivered at high power resulting in a “dome” that looks quite impressive. The second of these clips features Nina Myskow, who was being Simon Cowell before Cowell came along, and was rightfully gunged for it. She leans back under the gunge, which is sufficiently runny enough to splash off in all directions and look pretty spectacular in doing so.

Of course, there are times when the gunge doesn’t dome and splatter off, because it’s that bit thicker/heavier, so it tends to pour and ooze instead. Not that it’s a bad thing, as Heather Suttie showed us all.

As a final note, gungetanks are quite self-contained. By this, I mean that you put someone in a tank, gunge them and then it’s pretty much “done”. You can’t really use it as part of a “Humiliation Conga” on the way to a bigger gunging, so it is definitely and end in itself. Not that it’s a bad end, at all, and you could sit someone in a tank, barrage them with buckets of mess and pies, and then flip the switch to wrap things up. A little like the NHP Carwash, where victims were sprayed with water and pushed through some soapy rollers and then given a gunging at the end. Not a massive build up, but it’s something.

And I think that’s it, really. Am I right? Wrong? Got any particular favourite gungetank scenes to add in? Let me hear what you lot think!