Justice capers
The island’s system of justice is innovatively silly. If someone accuses someone else of a crime, they have to challenge the accused to an egg-and-spoon race. If the accused wins, he or she then tortures the accuser for twenty minutes, using both pairs of eggs and spoons. If the accuser wins, the accused is sentenced. The sentences are determined in accord with the principles of whist. The criminal has to guess what sentence the judge will pass. The difference between the criminal’s guess and the judge’s sentence becomes the actual sentence that the criminal then serves.
Another ethics-related custom on the island, slightly similar to ‘masochists and sadists’ described below, occurs on 23 February at 10.30 am. Everyone on the island lines up in a horseshoe shape, according to how good they are. Then they pair off, with the best person pairing off with the worst person, etc., etc. The pairs have to go out for an evening together. The good person’s boringness is considered appropriate and proportionate punishment for the bad person’s badness, while the bad person’s naughtiness is considered appropriate and proportionate reward for the good person’s goodness. It’s all very progressive/stupid.
To add at a little spice/Old-Testament style to the ritual, the person in the exact middle of the horseshoe shape (an odd-numbered population total is assumed here, in contrast to ‘masochists and sadists’ below) is given a peculiarly awful punishment, as a kind of sacrifice to something or other. Regular readers (yes I know it’s a pathetic delusion that I have even any irregular ones) will not be surprised to learn that last 23 February muggins/yours truly was the person in the exact middle.
My punishment was horrendous. I got banished from this fictional realm, and cast out into reality.
Thwart me with your paradox, baby
On 19 October each year, all the inhabitants of the island gather on the beach to play ‘masochists and sadists’. The starting point of this game is the presumption that there are exactly as many masochists on the island as there are sadists. The next requirement is that all the masochists line up on the beach in order of the extent of their masochism. Then, three feet in front of them, all the sadists line up in order of the extent of their sadism. Next, everyone pairs off with the person three feet away from them. Pain is then inflicted appropriately. Thus, the most extensive sadist inflicts the most extremely strong pain upon the most extensive masochist, the least extensive sadist inflicts the most extremely mild pain upon the least extensive masochist, and everyone one else does something in between. It’s an impressive exercise in social cooperation.
Sadomasochism, however, is unique amongst sexual practices in that it is spiced up by logical conundrum. For, if a masochist receives the pain that satisfies him or her, it’s not really pain but pleasure. It would be more painful for them to have their ‘pain’ denied. This conclusion was reached by a team of academics, after several years’ research at the island’s top logic laboratory. On the following 19 October, sadists denied masochists their pain by merely making them cups of tea, or by chatting inanely about the weather.
Several years later, though, a more sophisticated team of academics worked out that causing masochists pain by denying them pain was still providing them with pain nonetheless. It was more painful still to deny them the denial. So on the following 19 October whipping etc. was back on again. It took less time for this research to be capped by a team who concluded that denying the denial of the denial of pain was one exponential stage further: back to tea and weather discourse. The team who asserted that denying the denial of the denial of the denial of the denial of pain was where it was at actually got their findings in before the team who merely advocated denying the denial of the denial of the denial of pain had worked out their case.
On the following 19 October, masochists felt thrillingly thwarted by logical conundrum. Exasperated sadists, on the other hand, gave up on sexual gratification and retired to the pub.
Debbie's Island 
