This is an old thread, and I know no one has posted here in a while, but that article is actually the first one I read where tickling was mentioned as being something erotic. It described tickling as the "New sex fetish", and brought to light things like bondage, and killer ticklish parts of the body. Until I read that article, I had just thought of tickling as playful interaction between lovers or such, or perhaps even opposite sex friends. However, after reading that article, it really shed light for me on tickling as a fetish, and I slowly began to realize just how erotic it could be. At that point, gradually, is when I began to be turned on by tickling, and thought of it in sexual terms.
Also, as you mentioned, Penthouse Letters had several issues in the 90s describing incidents of tickling between lovers, which further enhanced my interest in tickling, and brought it to light as a true sex fetish.
Finally, even though they were body part fetish magazines, publications like Leg Action and Leg Show had many articles about erotic foot tickling in the mid and late 90s. In fact, it was when I answered an ad in Leg Show magazine in late 1997 that I began writing to my late pen pal Don Fraser, whom as I've mentioned was the one who I was able to discuss tickling with on a regular basis, until his death in July, 2002. Then of course I joined the TMF a few weeks later. As I think back on it now, I must have had a budding fetish with tickling that I didnt fully realize until I began writing to Don. I still have some of those old magazines from the 80s, and from looking back on it, I now realize that my tickling fetish did have roots back to the 80s, but Don was the one who fully helped me to come out with it. Without him, I probably never would have joined TMF. For that, Iam forever grateful to him.
Mitch