Here is my response to the author of the article
Any and or all of you can write to her too. She openly invited me to write to her and welcomed my comments and response.
I just did write this to her. She may respond or visit here too but if not, I will post her reply back to me.
Hi Patty,
As promised, I wanted to address your collumn/commentary and or opinion in your article on/about tickling.
I will try not to ramble too much but I do indeed believe, as do many others, that you failed to research the topic enough and subsequently, have made a false judgement against tickling and those who.......tickle and or for that matter LOVE to BE tickled. Not sure if you know or knew that there are thousands upon thousands if not more, who love to tickle and BE tickled.
Whether or not you did indeed visit certain sites where you will/would see that.
Sooooooo, for openers, here are a few of the sites or "Forums". The first two, you do NOT have to be a member to view the posts but would have to be a member to view most of the posts and or material within. The third one listed, you do have to be a member to view anything in the forum.
Membership in all three is free, so you can, discretely join and research all therein, incognito, thus getting a better grip on tickling and those who share the passion OF it.
1.)
http://tickletheater.com
2.)
http://ticklingforum.com
3.)
http://tklovers.com/forum/
Some of the quotes you made in your article I have left in and will address them specifically.
Generally, I believe along with many others, you were way off base in how you made tickling out to be. I will place a star * in front and at the end of each of your statements. My response will be in brackets [ ] followng. Hope I don't confuse you. You seem to be an open and intelligent person(lady), unlike "Dear Abbey" and "Ann Landers" who are clueless about life let alone the subject at hand, in my opinion. So, I am sure you can take this and perhaps grow and learn something you may not have know about before and in turn, write another article with that different viewpoint.
*Tickling is one of those customary kinds of play that is passed down from generation to generation through our families. It deserves to be thought about more carefully, as it's a form of play that can, despite good intentions, hurt a child.*
[Tickling, to most, is a form of affection and playfulness between parents and their children. As a child, my mom would pin me down and tickle me senseless all the time and I loved it. We and or she, would tickle her female friends all the time too and not one of THEM were damaged by it nor was I. The older I got, the more I got "into" tickling both being the tickler and the one tickled(ticklee).]
*Adults and children often feel differently about tickling, although those differences may go unspoken. Adults usually perceive it as a playful activity. It gets children laughing, so tickling looks, on the surface, like a kind of play that children enjoy, and that is good for them. And indeed, some children ask their parents for tickling games. Parents are usually delighted to be asked — it feels great to have an instant way to laugh and be playful together.*
[An accurate statement. I often either asked to be tickled as a child or baited someone, in various ways, into tickling me!]
*In my many years of listening to adults talk about the emotional challenges of their lives as children, tickling comes up again and again as an experience that has been hurtful. *
[Here I think you have only listened to a narrow range of adults and their experiences during childhood relating to ticking and have only witnessed the negative as opposed to widening your range and talking to those who had nothing but positive reactions as opposed to publishing only the negative.]
*I've listened to a number of adults who can't relax when others are physically close to them--they can't sleep through the night with a trusted partner, or are internally on guard any time there's more than casual touching between them and someone they love. When asked what they are afraid of, their memories go straight to being tickled as children, and not being able to get the tickler to stop.*
[You would get the same response and reaction to those who were physically abused and beaten during childhood. By comparison, you will find this to be the case far more than those who were merely tickled and eventually, some of the ones tickled in childhood grow to be "into it" just like those who have been physically beaten or abused, end up being in relationships where physically abuse is present. Just like women will stay married to their husbands who physically abuse them.]
*What makes tickling problematic is that children may not be able to say when to stop, or to get away when they want to. Most of us remember unpleasant or frightening times when we wanted a tickler to stop, but we were laughing so hard we couldn't tell them. Even worse was when we said "Stop!" or tried to escape, and the tickler continued on anyway. Often, while adults are tickling a child, they think they're aware of what's too much and when to stop. But it's easy to overwhelm a child without knowing it.*
[Here I believe you are making a blanket statement that ALL adults do this. Which is not the case. Also, more times than not, children even if tickled to the point you state, they come back for more. Also, a natural reaction to being tickled, is to say "Stop" even if one does not really mean it or want it to stop. This happens even in Adult Tickle play. Stop does not necessairally mean stop and even IF it does, they may indeed want more shortly after.]
*In general, we want our children to be able to say when touching doesn’t feel right to them. Expecting children to enjoy tickling or to tolerate tickling because we are trying to play with them doesn't help a child develop his own sense of what is appropriate. We want children to feel powerful enough to say what they like and don’t like. *
[Here, I think you are misleading. Tickling a childs ribs or feet is far different and should not be compared to or related to touching a child in an inappropriate place or sexual manner and the way you presented this, appears as if you are.]
*Parents and children crave times together when there's lots of free-flowing laughter and playful contact. It's so good for us to play, so good for us to be in touch with each other. We parents become attached to tickling because it seems to be a handy shortcut to laughter. We long to know that our children are happy and responsive to us.*
[Tickling is not a handy short cut to laughter between parents and children. However IF you were to take a "poll", people who grew up with tickling are far more affectionate and playful than those who were NEVER tickled by their parents as children.]
*But my child asks to be tickled!*
[A child who genuinly hated to be tickled would not ask to be tickled.]
There are many adults now who have lived through what you negatively portray and have either grown to be loving affectionate adults or have grown to LOVE tickling and or being tickled.
Maybe you think that is a bad thing too for if we were not tickled as children we would not have grown to have what is negatively portrayed as a "Tickle Fetish". That would be wrong too because some adults who hated being tickled as children and or as adults have suddenly grown to like it and to a lot of folks, it has turned into a "Turn on".
Bottom line is a blanket prognosis may not be true for all and should not be presented as such.
Visit the sites I mentioned. 90 percent of adults into tickling were introduced to it as children and have been INTO tickling and or being tickled since childhood.
The sites I mentioned are only the tips of the ice bergs. There are hundreds if not more and there are 10's of thousands of us out here.
If you have any questions.......feel free to ask either me and or those on the sites I presented to you.
Most Sincerely,
Ed D
