"Ask Isadora" sex column

[Goatboy]

I was at work in the breakroom on Sunday and somebody had left behind a newpaper, the "New Haven Advocate." I had never seen it before, so i thought I'd flip through it. Anywya, there was a sex advice column or something in it called "Ask Isadora." Imagine my shock when the question asked had to do with tickling! It seems that this guy wrote in to complain that he gets sexualy aroused when he tickles his wife, especially on her feet, but she hated it and got really mad when he didi it. He said she used to let him tickle her when their relationship started, but now she just complains and gets mad if he tickles her. The wife said if tickling was that important to him, he was with the wrong woman. Isadora said that the wife might b right and he had to decide how important the tickling was to him. She also said that maybe he could "bribe" her, and offer her somethng in return if he let her indulge in his fetish. Sorry I don't have the article, so I can't be more specific. Maybe the wroter was one of us? If so, i wish him the best of luck working things out with his wife.

 

[WorkInProgress]

Good luck indeed, with the bribing thing. For those who don't share the fetish, of whom there are many and many and many, tickling is likely to be torture, not fun. And from the tiny little dossier of relationships I've had in my life, I'm not one bit surprised that she was more tolerant of it in the courtship than now that they're married. He may well have to make do with fantasies.

 

[Ayla ny]

Came up with these when I did a search for the article you mention.


I am writing to you because I believe my husband has a strange fetish. He loves to hold me down and tickle my feet. One night I thought that I would die. He sat on my legs and tickled the bottoms of my feet for at least 15 minutes. No matter how much I begged him to stop, he wouldn't. But the sex we had after he tickled my feet is the best sex I ever had. He turns into an animal! I talked to him about the tickling and he says he doesn't know why, but it turns him on. I love the sex but I can't stand the foot-tickling. My feet are extremely sensitive. What do you think?

I think you have a dilemma. It's like saying I love to mountain climb but I can't stand heights, or I love to eat lots of cake and pie but I don't like gaining weight. If you can't stand the very thing that turns your husband on to such a degree that he becomes a (desirable) animal, then you won't get that resultant desirable animal behavior. Tickling is a somewhat common turn-on, having to do with power and control. You might experiment with other means of his rendering you helpless-tying you down, for instance, or even tickling you elsewhere on your body-but when a person gets to act out a hot fantasy, whatever it is, the result is usually really hot sex.



Tickled

In response to the woman who had her feet tickled by her husband: My girlfriend and I are definitely into tickling. The turn-on for us is the sound of laughter, also the feeling of light touching of the whole body by fingers or feathers. Tickling is safe (as to diseases), a great method of foreplay and brings a lot of laughter into the bedroom. Like with all else, you should respect your lover's wishes and control your fantasies so as not to torture or humiliate one another. Are there any books published on this matter?

Foot tickling as a form of foreplay has been practiced for centuries by many different cultures. In the 1978 book The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe, author Wm. Rossi devotes a chapter to that very subject, going back as far as ancient Egypt. The Psychology of Sex (seventh printing 1960) states that foot tickling was among the pastimes of the Russian aristocracy.

 

[parkcity]

Little Tolerance

for whatever reason, there is little tolerance with our fixation in the public forum. No matter how deviant the practice. it seems, as long as its not tickling its O.K. I live in CT and often read the column you speak of. Dude, if you are looking for any kind of metaphorical hug by sharing a concern about tickling, you might as well talk child porn. We are quite unwelcome, it would seem. I agree with Work's on many levels about his summation. There tends to be a sense of appesment pre-marrige that does not exsist post- said same. Bribery works to a point, but then there is the Law of Diminishing returns coming into play.

 

[Em Es]

There are few things . . .

There are few things a woman won't do for a man she wants to please. It sounds as though the woman who wrote simply doesn't value her husband enough to tolerate the tickling.

I was always a flop with girls. Yet once in a while, there was one who liked me and, when I tickled her like crazy, put up with it because she wanted to satisfy me. Screamed. Complained. Asked me not to tickle. But stayed by my side through every tickle touch I dished out.

 

[SlaverTickler]

Bribing?

Bribing your wife, why not just "Bribe" an escort into letting you tickle her feet. I tell ya it's just not worth it to get married.

 

[isabeau]

there are many reasons to get married. love companionship devotion and the like. however if you could marry someone who shares your so called fetishes it would be even better. i guess we cant have it all. i know i dont. but i do know this, in a bondage room i sometimes go into, they consider tickling sick. and thats from people who indulge in domination and pain. go figure

isabeau

 

[Soda Bobinski]

Sometimes , I also chat with people who are heavily into bondage. When I bring up the subject of tickling , most of the time I'm treated like I'm not even there. I guess some would think that it is sick , as isabeau{E} stated , while others feel that it isn't "hard-core" enough for the heavy bondage enthusiasts.
Face it , TMFers ... we're a special kind of people & most of the time I think we're gonna be looked at as kinda weird by non-TMFers. Tickling: if someone doesn't "get it" , chances are they're not ever gonna get it.

( but that shouldn't stop us from trying , should it? )

 

[Outspacer10]

for whatever reason, there is little tolerance with our fixation in the public forum. No matter how deviant the practice. it seems, as long as its not tickling its O.K. I live in CT and often read the column you speak of. Dude, if you are looking for any kind of metaphorical hug by sharing a concern about tickling, you might as well talk child porn. We are quite unwelcome, it would seem. I agree with Work's on many levels about his summation. There tends to be a sense of appesment pre-marrige that does not exsist post- said same. Bribery works to a point, but then there is the Law of Diminishing returns coming into play.

I can't see that this article displays "little tolerance with our fixation". The general message seems to be that it's relatively normal and it was practiced by the Russian aristocracy and the Egyptians, and that an *entire* chapter is devoted to it in the 1978 book "The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe". All of which is fine by me - certainly can't see why any of this puts it in the same category as child porn. If you mean the suggestion that the woman might be with the wrong guy then I can't see that this displays any kind of bias towards tickling fetishes - it simply means that if she's concerned enough about this to write in to some agony aunt column then perhaps there's an issue of sexual compatibility between the two of them.
Sorry, I think that came across a little stronger than I intended.
🙂 Cheers

 

[mark 19]

Personal I think that if your partner has a fetish you should indulge it, in general it won’t put you out much and it will make your partner happy which in turn should be making you happy. I can understand the guys girlfriend not being in to tickling but why not do it anyway?

Still maybe this is just me being the naive 19 year old again, I guess maybe in proper adult relationships what makes each other happy isn’t important ????

 

[Mitchell]

In a case like this, I say that the husband should respect the wife's wishes if he loves her. After all, to many who dont share the tickle fetish, tickling is a form of torture. I have asked enough female letter pen pals this to know. Most of the girls that I have asked "The Question" to have told me that they are indeed very ticklish, but hate to be tickled.
What I would probably do in a case like this might be to ask my wife, if she hated to be tickled as much as that woman does, is to perhaps ask for brief tickles during foreplay or sex, say, maybe a minute or two during foreplay, or after orgasm. This way, the man gets some pleasure, but the wife doesnt feel she is being tortured for a long period of time. 15 minutes of holding a girl's feet down and tickle torturing her, especially if she hates it, unless she herself is into pain, or feelings of enjoyment from being tormented, is to me excessive. 15 minutes is a long time to be held down and tickle tortured continuously, unless the lee really enjoys being tickled for that length of time.
I think this guy needs to modify his tickling techniques, and to consider his wife's needs. We can derive pleasure for ourselves, while respecting others. For those who know me, this would be like me tormenting a wife who was terrified of heights to stand barefoot on ladders all the time, in spite of her fear of heights. I love to see women barefoot on ladders, but if a girl I loved hated heights, I wouldnt berate her into standing barefoot on a ladder for me to satisfy my interest. It is the same thing with this guy. People need to indulge their fetish, but not while totally trampling on their partner's feelings or needs. End of rant.

Mitch

 

[switchtickler]

Grrrrrr. . . . .

Oh this just makes me so mad! The wife 'just doesn't value him enough', she's a conniving bitch who let him tickle her until they were married, there's something so manipulative about having to 'bribe' her to let him tickle her. . .

How would you feel if you have a partner who had one favorite thing that they liked, and you had three things that you really liked, and you'd often spend lazy weekends toghether in bed exchanging favorite things, over and over again. . .
Pretty sweet, right?
Now imagine that your partner is always asking for their favorite thing, and doesn't offer to do your favorite things in return. You always have to bring them up, ask, beg, try to do it sexy, then serious when sexy doesn't work. . .and often you still didn't get them. Now imagine it's Sunday morning, and your partner wakes you up so that you can give them their favorite thing again. What kind of mood do you think that you are in?

Sure for some people tickiling is unbearable torture. But I highly doubt that it is so for the majority of humanity. C'mon people! You can even train people to enjoy most things pretty quickly by alternative short periods of that thing with something they love that brings them eventually to orgasm.
We want our partners to be generous with us and let us tickle them. . . are we being generous first? Are we setting the standard in generousity? Are we raising the bar? Are we being the lovers that we want our lovers to be? Because I am here to tell you men: if a man gives me what I need in bed and gives me lovely attention and takes his time and obviously cares about what I need, I will do all sorts of nasty dirty slutty stuff I've never thought of before for him! I will do things I'm not natively into, just to see his face light up. Because he earned the right to be the focus of all of my feminine attention and wiles - my every brain cell bent on finding what makes him come repeated like a blushing schoolgirl.
And when a man keeps trying to take what he can get without replenishing the well, I will eventually get pretty goddamn grumpy. And so would you.

Whew! OK, I'm done. I feel better now. Back to our regularly scheduled program.

 

[Em Es]

Switchtickler . . .

Switchtickler, of course we don't know if the man in that relationship gives the woman everything or at least most of what she wants. But whether he does or doesn't, my arguement remains the same: There are few things a woman won't do for a man she wants to please. The woman who wrote simply doesn't value her husband enough to tolerate the tickling!

I never said the situation is all the woman's fault.

"Now it ain’t hard feelings or nothin,’ sugar
That ain’t what’s got me singing this song
It’s just nobody knows baby where love goes
But when it goes it’s gone gone"

 

[Ticklish9's]

for whatever reason, there is little tolerance with our fixation in the public forum. No matter how deviant the practice. it seems, as long as its not tickling its O.K.

Although I would have agreed with you moments ago, this has got me thinking.

I wonder if the perceived "lack of tolerence" is just us expecting EVERYONE to share our view and they simply don't (unless they do and aren't telling, which is a whole new ball game ::lol:: )

I don't think there's any particular "ticklism" that discriminates against people who are into tickling. People tend to regard at as sort of silly, perhaps, but then, I can remember saying things like "that's silly" or "no way, that's so stupid" because I was paranoid that people we're bringing it up because of me (thus perpetuating the whole repression through society by pretending to despise or not understand what was actually my own interest).

So really... I can't say I really believe people are actively against tickling as a fetish (and certainly not as a behaviour).

Hmmm.

 

[Ayumi Emi]

I think this is interesting, because I have been at both ends of the argument now.

I used to hate being tickled, and I used to think tickling was MEAN MEAN MEAN cause everyone tries to run away from it right? My friends were always having tickle fights, because it was a girly thing to do. The boys liked you more if you were ticklish.

But I used to have nightmares about being chased and tickled, and I would wake up screaming. I'd sleep with my arms tight to my body and the blanket wrapped around me so tight I could barely breath, just so no phantom tickles could get in. Whenever a boy tried to tickle me, I'd freak out completely and usually punch him as hard as I could in whatever I could reach!

That being said, for some reason or another, I eventually conquered my fear of tickling. I got fed up of being terrified of something that my girlfriends thought was fun, and decided that I would LIKE tickling. It took some work, and some more nightmares, but I eventually convinced my head that tickling was a good sensation, and that it was a fun activity. However, I think my head took it a little too far 😉

I don't have to deal with my girlfriends at school much anymore (especially since I moved to Canada for school) but the boys like to tickle here just the same. I think the article was partially right, it is kind of a power thing, cause they like to be in control of me, they like when a woman is helpless sometimes...

Of course, when they find out the woman also likes to be in control sometimes, they also learn just what it's like to be helpless

 

[hamneggs]

Ticklish Wife's Follow Up ...

Being a ticklephile & subscriber to the mag that featured Isadora's column, I though it would be interesting to post her follow up several months later:

Remember me? A while ago I wrote to you about my husband, the foot tickler. After reading your column about the woman who turned the tables on her husband, I asked my husband if he would let me tickle him. He reluctantly agreed. I tied him naked and spread-eagled to the bed and slowly began to tickle the bottoms of his feet. He was laughing and screaming in no time. Then I used the goose feather--the same one he had used on my poor feet all the time. All the while he was begging me to stop, and I felt like a goddess having this great power over a 210-pound man. Then I noticed his huge erection, so I used the tip of the feather to tickle the sensitive spot on the underside of his penis, just below the head. Within a minute he exploded like a volcano. I can't thank you and your readers enough for helping me. Now I know I can take it so long as I can give it ...

I think that says it all. It's all about reciprocation, sharing, love and respect.

 

[RobAce]

I too agree that a commitment is a two way street. Im sure that there are things that his wife (or women) in general do that the husband (or men) do not like as well, but simply put up with it out of love. After all, whats giving up 15 to 30 minutes a day to someone you love to indulge them. It doesnt seem like much of a big deal.
I as many of you know am a very blessed man, my wife when we meet I told her within 1 week of my fetish and desire. Even though I had previously massaged and tickled her goregous size 6's 4 times before the admission. Where my wife wasnt so much into the tickling she did enjoy the attention I wanted to lavish on her feet and agreed to let me tickle, only after or as I rubbed them. And after about a month she began to enjoy the tickling and expierenced multiple orgasms for the first time ever after being tickled during sex and foreplay. Now she loves it, and recently has started fighting back and tickling me! ME! Which is something I thought Id never let happen. For one Im not very ticklish and only in very few spots. Not my feet as hers are incredibly ticklish, but more like my ribs and thighs. I let her though because she lets me, and I will attest as will she that the sex is GREAT after a good 30 minute foot torture session. Heck we mix it up with role-playing, costumes, and the like. So fortunatley Im one of the lucky ones who found a great, beautiful, sincere and lets not forget ticklish woman to spend the rest of my life with. I hope that all of you one day find the same.

 

[ilovethickbbws]

there are many reasons to get married. love companionship devotion and the like. however if you could marry someone who shares your so called fetishes it would be even better. i guess we cant have it all. i know i dont. but i do know this, in a bondage room i sometimes go into, they consider tickling sick. and thats from people who indulge in domination and pain. go figure

isabeau

I have the same problem. I sometimes go to play parties at a local dungeon, specifically in the hopes of getting tied up and tickled by Female Dommes and being able to worship their bare feet. I am NOT into giving, nor receiving pain. Getting Female bare feet to worship at the dungeon is usually not a problem. But getting tickled is. Sometimes I will get tickled, but that is very few and way too far in between. It seems to me that Female Dommes much prefer flogging a man than to tickle him.