Interesting article on "Tickling Fetishism" and psychology

tickltulz said:

This fetish is many different things to many different people and it's truly hard to get any two people here to agree on any one format or subject. But don't you just love how people who have zero passion and who are clueless as to what this fetish is about try to explain to the world in cold medicinal and psychological terms what and who we are never having met any one of us? Acting as if each one of us is exactly the same with the same desires? What is the freakin' purpose?

I'm shocked how Psychology Today has changed from being at the forefront of opening people up to new ideas in psychology, especially about sex and fantasies, to that mechanical and dispassionate article that makes us about appealing as a kettle of dead fish.

I've collected a massive amount of legit materials about tickling (not write-ins) from a vanilla standpoint, including Dr. Joyce Brothers and other psychologists. For a better taste of what Psychology Today used to be like in regard to a time when the world was more accepting as our fetish didn't yet exist but was on the horizon due to a brave few souls, travel back in time now to the early days way before we existed here, before I was born, maybe before many of you were born too, and there's several issues that covered how in-depth tickling & bondage used to be played out.

Such as this one from October 1977, one of my favorites, where they covered a daring early Kujman club demo at The Project in NYC that involved his very erotic style of audience hands-on themed play with bondage and tickling used as torture-

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There's actually several throughout the 1970's and early '80's about tickling, s/m and bondage. Two of them also interview [him] about his club demos on both coasts with wonderful photos very racy for the era.

Another good one from 1984 about spanking and tickling covers the West Coast fetish explosion, which for some reason Doctors tried to lump spanking and tickling together for a while.

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Laughthirsty Lr said:

rdhd makes a good point. Vanillas can be pretty judgemental at times. That's not to say that all or even most are like that but, I know from experience what it's like to make mild tickling jokes in front of "normal people" and no one be amused. Some will even get creeped out by it and start avoiding you. Have you ever seen that wary look in someone's eyes when they aren't sure that they should be in the same room with you? To me a lot of vanillas are like that when it comes to fetishes and other kinks. It's all funny to them when they are joking about it in conversation but, when the fetishist speaks up, they're like on no! One of them is here! Right here in the same room with us! Anyway that's how it seems to me from my POV but, like I said before, I don't believe that all of them are like that.

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magic fingers said:

I think it's because so many "normal" people hate being tickled or have such a negative association w/tickling. Even kinksters who are into other forms of BDSM, and other fetishes seem to look down on tickling.

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OmahaTickler said:

Sorry, that inference was not intentional. By "clinically," I mean that pretty much every psychologist would classify our urges as deviating from the norm, i.e., vanilla sex. Now of course, this would make nearly everyone out there deviant on some level. However, if you put the fetish on the same level as regular sexual contact, as I and others do, most "clinical" types would say that's deviant to the point of needing treatment if that person can't function sexually without the fetish. I don't think that's necessarily right, but that's how it's viewed.

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Laughthirsty Lr said:

Yes. I agree. Years ago I remember reading somewhere about a dude who was a masochist bragged to a ler that nobody could break him and that he could take any amount of pain so, the ler was like "What about tickling" or asked if he was ticklish and the dude suddenly looked uncomfortable and walked away. I just wonder how much this sort of thing continues to happen today.

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magic fingers said:

Believe it or not, I think I read that same article

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