No, there are many things that are not painful but can cause serious physical damage. For example, recreational drugs. Scratching an itch is another.EquALLity wrote:I was saying that the fact it can cause physical damage makes it painful.
Waterboarding can also cause no physical damage if done correctly in a healthy subject.
I don't think there's any serious problem calling waterboarding torture in common useage, but we should remember that it isn't technically so.
Particularly if a carnist says something like "that's not technically torturing animals because it's not to extract information or punish" or something, we can respond that waterboarding isn't technically torture either.