Seven (1995) as the origin of Puritanical torture porn, not Saw (2004)

Continuing on the theme of disgust vs. fear in horror, the origin is really Seven from 1995, not Saw from 2004. Maybe you'd say it's a bridge between two eras or styles, since it could be a noir-ish suspenseful crime thriller without the gross-out scenes. But so many of the defining torture porn tropes are already there:

Disgusting rather than dangerous or violent scenes. Horror / thriller used to do the opposite -- depict the chase and violent act, but not show the disgusting gory result. Sometimes both were shown, but rarely only the gory result without the dangerous / violent / fear-inducing act.

Only disgusting, not even potentially violent, scenes -- like cockroaches showing up where there's a dead body (which doesn't even need to have died in a violent manner to trigger cockroaches showing up).

The main negative physiological reaction in the audience shifting from elevated / pounding heart-rate, sweating, etc., to the gag reflex.

Degradation, corruption, debasement, and humiliation of victims, which does not need to accompany violence, danger, and fear. Deliberately spoiling and contaminating and staining their purity. Contaminated purity involves the emotion of disgust, not fear. So this reinforces or compounds the literal contaminated purity (i.e., the disfigured body) with figurative disgust (at the person's dignity being degraded in such a way).

The shift toward sadism in the villain, rather than psychopathy (meaning, lack of empathy or remorse, and/or a psychic break with reality), revenge, anger, opportunism, etc., which could induce a person to violence -- but not toward the humiliating and debasing behavior they show toward victims.

Villain is a self-appointed moral crusader who wants to shock the normies out of their complacency, and instigate a grand purification, which will put grand meaning back into our humdrum dull existence.

Puritanical focus on vindictive punishment of sin, rather than on preventing it through cautionary tales about how seductive and tempting and sensorily pleasing sin can be. We never see the seductive side of pigging out on tasty food, of lazing around the house and procrastinating at work, of getting your brains fucked out by a hot lover, and so on and so forth.

In fact, the Puritanism goes further in assigning a lustful motive to a prostitute, rather than a woman who is obviously having sex for money. It should have been a promiscuous / nymphomaniac party girl -- but to self-appointed moral crusaders, prostitutes are just having their cake and eating it too. Ditto for their view of girls who have sex on camera, even though they typically aren't that into it and are just faking it long enough to collect their easy money.

Director David Fincher did a better job in The Game of just two years later, at creating the disturbing mood of being targeted by someone who's toying around with you in a probably malevolent way, potentially roping others into the job -- who you were first inclined to trust, all in order to shock a comfortable normie out of his complacency and security, to make him take bold actions that will provide Existentialist meaning to his otherwise humdrum life.

And all without appealing to disgust, which would have gotten in the way of all the suspense, danger, violence, and fear.