This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can. (January 2010)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2011)

An over-the-mouth gag

A gag^[1] is usually a device designed to prevent speech, often as a restraint device to keep its wearer quiet. This is usually done by blocking the mouth, partially or completely, or attempting to prevent the tongue, lips, or jaw from moving in the normal patterns of speech. They are often less effective in reality than in crime fiction^{[citation needed]}. They carry a strong risk of killing the victim by suffocation^{[citation needed]}. The more "effective" a gag appears to be, the more hazardous it is: for example, the use of duct tape over a person's mouth is fairly effective but is hazardous if for some reason (e.g., the common cold) the subject cannot breathe freely through the nose.

The use of gags is commonly depicted in crime fiction, particularly in movies, television, comics, and novels. Notable examples include The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Coronation Street and The Bill. Gags are more often used in films as a device to prevent women from speaking, as seen in Terror Among Us and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! among other films.

Very rarely, courts have been known to gag unruly defendants; Bobby Seale was the most famous case so far.^[2] Occasionally a cloth over-the-mouth gag is used not to prevent speech but to keep dust and aerosols out of the lungs.^[3]

Types of gags [edit]

One familiar type of gag in fiction, particularly in crime comics and novels, is a suitably sized piece of cloth pulled over the subject's mouth (and sometimes also the nose) and tied at the back of his/her head. It is sometimes called the "detective gag" because many of its first appearances were in crime serials. It is sometimes called an "over the mouth" (OTM) gag^{[citation needed]}.

Sometimes a gag is shown pushed back between the victim's front teeth into the mouth ('cleave gag'), or with a hard ball in its middle ('ball gag') or reinforced by pushing small cloth items or even underwear into the mouth ('stuff gag'). This is common in BDSM, but in practice these sorts of gag can usually be got rid of by working the jaws about and/or pushing with the tongue, and they often do not stop the victim from making a loud inarticulate noise to call for help. Another most common type of gag in working practice is an over the mouth (OTM) gag of duct tape.^{[citation needed]} Note that a tape gag is extremely dangerous, and a very likely cause of suffocation or fatal gagging.

Other uses of the word [edit]

The word "gag" has come to have various extended meanings, for example:

• Various sorts of laws and orders preventing or stopping discussion or revealing of information, e.g., a parliamentary procedure to end a debate. See gag order.
• A gag rule can be a part of court proceedings and congressional proceedings.
• Gag (medical device),^[4] a surgical device used to keep the mouth open
• The word "gag" has been used for a cloth tied over the mouth and nose when the purpose was not to prevent talking or screaming but to keep harmful dust out of the lungs.
• The term "hand gag" is sometimes used for temporarily silencing someone with a hand over the mouth.
• A gag bit is a special bit type used with horses.
• In metalworking a "gag" is a shaped block of steel used with a press to straighten or bend a bar or rail.^[5]
• "Gagging" may mean the feeling of nausea or vomiting.

In symbolism [edit]

• Sometimes in political cartoons, a character is shown gagged to represent that in the real world some law or rule or order is preventing him/her from speaking about some matter. (see gag order)

See also [edit]

• Gag (BDSM)
• Muzzle
• Physical restraint

References [edit]

External links [edit]