When Vanillas Attack!

[MaleTickleeDC]

I've often wondered what motivates vanillas to tickle other people. I mean, the type of person who visits a site like this enjoys tickling because of the specific sort of thrill that it gives us. But do vanillas experience the same thrill that we do when they tickle other people, or do they tickle for reasons that are different from ours? Have any of you talked to vanilla friends about this, or perhaps had vanilla friends who enjoyed tickling other people even though they weren't one of "us?" For example, in my younger days, I knew a few girls that just seemed to enjoy tickling other people. I doubt they were full blown fetishists. But every now and then I would see them attacking some poor ticklish bloke between classes or whatever. As I get older I see tickling far less frequently than I used to. But given that vanillas DO tickle, I wonder what their reasons are for doing so, and if those reasons are similar to ours or vastly different.

 

[Comfort Eagle]

Most people think it's fun or funny to tickle people, they just don't necessarily get boners from it. That doesn't mean they can't still "like it" to some extent.

 

[Myriads]

Tickling is first and foremost a bonding activity. In that it's a 'touch' behavior that crosses into the flirting and playful areas of interaction.

Folks like us here on the TMF bring an added perspective to it and it's meaning, but the vanilla's see it as a simple activity that holds other meanings.

Look at it like this: There are a lot of behaviors that to you have no sexual aspect. Say, giving a friend a back scratch because they asked. It's just a close touch behavior to you. That is how the vanilla's see tickling.

Myriads

 

[WorkInProgress]

I think it's akin to why non-BDSM people like to play paintball, which is largely about giving each other painful welts and bruises (just one of many examples).

 

[rhiannon]

Tickling is first and foremost a bonding activity. In that it's a 'touch' behavior that crosses into the flirting and playful areas of interaction.

This. It's an innocent, playful way to make physical contact. I mean, why do parents tickle their children? It's a game, it produces laughter. Hardly anybody minds being tickled playfully - and shortly! - by someone they like. Most people just wouldn't agree with the duration and extent that we like it.

 

[Wade]

Given that so many people say they hate to be tickled -- and I, for my part, can't stand it either, while it's happening -- it's a striking phenomenon insofar as the reactions that the stimulus elicits from the target (smiling, laughter, amusing and/or adorable squirming) seem to be uncommonly designed to encourage the tickler to continue doing it. Most or all of the ticklings I've undergone have been from vanillas, but given how fundamentally encouraging and entertaining a ticklish person's responses are I'm surprised it's not an even more common platonic activity.

 

[ticklemepls]

my guess? they enjoy the reaction they get from the one they tickle. that and it's commonly seen as a intimate act...

 

[milagros317]

Hardly anybody minds being tickled playfully - and shortly! - by someone they like.

Exactly so. It is playful and fun for a short time in the vanilla world. But they don't understand why some of us want to be tied down and tickled for over an hour.

 

[SadCuzNotTcklsh]

Exactly so. It is playful and fun for a short time in the vanilla world. But they don't understand why some of us want to be tied down and tickled for over an hour.

And why do we anyways

 

[milagros317]

And why do we anyways

That's a subject for another thread, but I'll answer in one sentence. Speaking for myself, it's because I love turning over control to a woman who will dominate me by making me laugh until I'm exhausted (and perhaps even begging for mercy).

 

[Ticklerguy4u]

I believe tickling in the "vanilla" world is used as a form for "unsexual" (even though we know that isn't true-)touching and flirting.