The cringe factor I get regarding "Tickled" is from people who criticize the film as being detrimental to the tickling community.
I got to interview the co-director of the doc, plus was witness to communication that Farrier and Reeve had with the m/m tickling community before, during and after its film release.
Let's get to the elephant in the room first:
If you are not familiar with M/M tickling; had no experience with M/M tickling; expressed no interest in M/M tickling; and even more to the point, don't like M/M tickling--then the chances are greater that your feelings about this documentary will give you a greater sense of icky about the entire M/M tickling scene than about an individual (David D'Amato) who was taking advantage of that prejudice against M/M tickling desires for his own fetishistic desires.
The interview and scenes with Richard Ivey, the legit M/M tickle fetish filmmaker, I thought were fun, hilarious and, yes, did bring a sense of humor about all of our fetish desires. Personally, I have no problem with that. Fetishes can be erotic, and yes, can be erotic between men. If a playful homoerotic fetish scene in "Tickled" was a problem, really stop and check yourself. There are tons of examples in media regarding fetishism used either (1) as a joke, totally mocking or making fun of someone who ends up having a fetish phobia, or (2) ends up with someone getting murdered. Target those scenes instead.
It's funny that "Law and Order" gets mentioned in regards to how the editing is handled. We're not talking about a half-billion $ production here for the documentary. This was crowdfunded. And not only are we talking about lower budgets, but we're also talking about filmmakers who had to endure taunts from some in the community who, at one point, believed the filmmakers took the money and ran with no intention of making the doc. In reality, the filmmakers were threatened with massive lawsuits and even had their families threatened. Some of the guys who appeared in the film also were threatened, with one person actually forced to make an insincere video claiming he did not mean what he said in the movie. Anyone want to talk about "confessional" videos made under duress by terrorists or totalitarian regimes? That vid gave a layman's example.
I loved "Tickled" as an example of a bizarre crime with a criminal who used the male/male tickling fetish community as a protective cover. The crime only worked for a while, because once D'Amato was found out, his name was trash in the m/m tickling community. Believe me, novices will be reminded repeatedly whenever anyone "discovers" the old Jane OBrien videos.