The B Cause

[haha4]

the title makes sense in my head, but can obviously be ignored as most things in there ought to be.


Here's what i want to know:

What makes you/someone ticklish? Or decides just how ticklish you are? Is it all nerve endings and genetics or does your sensitivity factor in personality, mood, size, etc?

I know that, for example, making skin slick decreases friction and increases sensitivity. And so do orgasms (which make everything better, really). And the two most ticklish pairs of feet I have ever met, blowing on them caused squeals, were both flat feet. Which makes me wonder...


Do seemingly separate traits actually affect how ticklish you are?

Are happier people more ticklish? Super skinny people? Pigmy tribesmen in new guinea? Or is it all in the nerves?


You decide!

 

[rhiannon]

I say it's nerves mixed with your ability to contain yourself.

 

[maxamum_sumthin]

I would be inclined towards an explanation involving both a persons genetic structure - to define a 'base' ticklishness - and their upbringing, socialisation from a young age, psychology etc - which may have altered the persons 'base' ticklishness, making them more or less ticklish and/or altering their awareness of it and reactions to it.

Personally I cannot see much - if anything- that is NOT a mixture of BOTH nature and nurture.

 

[chicago]

Some of it is nerve endings and the fact that certain areas of the body are just naturally more sensitive than others, but it also has to do with how you perceive tickling mentally and how you were brought up, etc.

A lot of people who hate being tickled aren't even ticklish, they just get pissed off.