Possible links between fear and tickling....

[Maria_Rose]

Yes, I think if someone broke in and tickled me, I would respond. Not in the same pleasurable way that I would to consentual tickling, but in the painful way that I have come to associate with violations of any sort. When I feel my life is in danger, I go into fight or flight mode, and everything is sensitized. I remember one occasion there was a guy who was threatening to assault me, and every time he touched me (not even in sensitive places) it tickled intensely. It wasn't the kind of ticklishness that induces laughter...it was more inclined to make me scream or jerk away. But the sensation was there, the only difference was that I did not want it there and it was more frightening to me that he would find that weakness and exploit it than it was to think of him raping me. It's the strangest thing..I pay a massage therapist $60 an hour because it's the closest I can get to having someone tickle me (my partner lives across the ocean from me). Yet when I'm afraid it is the worst thing anyone could possibly do to me, and it gets more reaction out of me than any degree of pain would. I wish I was not so unique, although in a way I'm glad that there aren't many who have to know that kind of terror. It can make you forget the beautiful aspects of tickling..and there are so many...the most beautiful of which, in my eyes, is trust.