Picture a scrawny redneck sitting on a rickety rocking chair on the porch of a dilapidated one-room shack. A long stalk of grass hangs from the corner of his mouth, bobbing up and down as he chews away on a thick wad of tobacco in his cheek. A mangy old cur of indeterminate breed lols on the cracked vinyl front seat of a rusted out Chevy pickup truck parked at the side of the shack, a small cloud of tired flies circling its head.

The yokel reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small folding knife, snapping it open with a flick of the wrist and then proceeds to whittle away at a piece of wood grasped in his left hand - the shavings flipping through the air to land on a pile already accumulated at his feet.

Now tell me that piece of wood (an inanimate object) isn't being tortured.