Dear 'Lee: How voluntary is your reaction?

[brotherted]

At first blush, most will see this post title and say, "of course it's involuntary; no one *decides* to laugh or squirm when tickled."

But I'm wondering about the percentage of ticklee's that could repress it if they wanted to, (particularly if they're adults). By contrast, there's also what I consider the minority -- people who even if they were annoyed, mad, or scared, would still laugh uncontrollably and really couldn't turn it off if they wanted to.

It's not that the first group isn't ticklish, per se. They are still feeling impulses from nerve endings making them squirm. It's just that they have the ability to block it out.

(I realize we all like to think that all 'lee's are the second group. But that's often just the fantasy.)

So my questions: what percentage of adults do you think would laugh or squirm anyway, even if they didn't want to? Like if they were hypothetically tickled by a scary kidnapper -- would it be any? And could YOU repress reacting if I tickled you, and you hated the idea of showing it got to you?

Just curious what I'll hear on this. Thanks!

 

[Lee47]

It's situational in my case. For a female, who I know and am friendly with, in the right setting, I am ticklish and giggly as all get-out and even get laugh-out-loud ticklish when I let myself go. I had some light bondage experience in my 20s and 30s that probably had the neighbors wondering what the hell was going on.

On the other hand, my friend, if you just walked up to my in the street and tried to test my reaction, you would get decked... 😀 So that would count as a reaction, just not the expected one.

On the other hand, there are so many fantasy scenarios out there about the sexy lady interrogator (clad in your choice of leather wear or lingerie) who reaches into the black bag and pulls out a feather, that if that were to somehow come true? Who knows what my reaction could be? (Any ladies that own some lingerie and feathers, and want to test it out, can kidnap me by appointment, I will accept your PMs. Just kidding mostly- 🙂)

But she wouldn't count as "scary" kidnapper, I tend to think that the 'scary' thing instead would provoke 'angry' as a reaction.

 

[brotherted]

I completely understand your reaction & think you're in the majority.

For me, the whole hypothetical is to get at the question: how much control over this do we really have? And no, my hypothetical isn't about being tickled in the street, (for that matter, I'm into girls), but if you were tied up, and someone you didn't like were to tickle you, could you repress the reaction?

I tend to think most children couldn't, most adults could... but a certain percentage of adults couldn't. What's the percentage? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

 

[Lee47]

Bro, I got your hypothetical, & I assumed you were into girls :huh which, me too, if you couldn't tell by the context in my reply- I guess I had other things on my mind though (check out my new story post if you want to know what other things!) and didn't choose my words with care when I replied. Or maybe I just was reluctant to picture myself tied up & tickled by another man (yuck, ptooey). Still am, by the way. That's why the "scary kidnapper" scenario morphed automatically to the "sexy kidnapper" scene in my mind. (Can you say "captured by Catwoman"?)

Apparently there are historical incidents, which I have read about on Wikipedia (I can check the reference sometime if you don't beat me to it) in which really horrible people, Nazis and so on, did use tickling as a torture, and in one example quoted, Nazi officers tortured a young man, naked, by tickling him with goose feathers, under arms, on genitals, etc. I don't know if his orientation was mentioned, or if it played a part in his reaction, or if he was just one of the small percent that have no control. Maybe he was young enough not to have developed that control yet. Certainly there is a certain amount of nerve stimulation- e.g., sandpaper, metal file, goat licking- that makes it so you truly would have no choice BUT to laugh, no matter how much self-control you had.
But in my opinion that moves it out of the arena of "tickle-torture", which is a harmless and fun fetish, and into "torture", which is a crime against humanity.

 

[Lee47]

On the other hand, how much of our fiction is about being captured and tickle-seduced by an enemy- whether it is F/F or F/M or M/F (or even FFFFFF/F, FFFFF/M or what have you). But again, that's fiction, and the implication in all that is that the "victim" truly wants to give in, just as in non-tickling fiction where seduction is an element (ie. soap operas).

In real life I just can't see it happening. If you have someone you don't like at your mercy, you just waterboard the crap out of them these days. Or hit 'em, which is much cleaner all around.