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The Tickling Community Before the Internet

renny

TMF Regular
Joined
Dec 28, 2001
Messages
196
Points
18
This is for the older members of the TMF who would remember the time (I'm saying early 90's, the 80's, maybe even the late 70's) when the ticking community existed before the internet sprang up huge and allowed all of us to come together in forums like this and share media, advice, and experiences. I'm in my early twenties, so I've only known there were others out there who shared my quirk since 1997 or so, when I first logged on to AOL and found my first tickling site - I forget now what it was, but, like so many others, I was blown back by the fact that there were others like me out there.

What I'm asking the older people is, what was the tickling community like before the internet. Who were the famous (or infamous) people in the community? How did you guys contact each other and get together? What tickling media was available? I know about those old magazines like Tickling Digest and the Cal-Star videos, of course. But was there anything before that? Were there any independent video or movie producers making stuff like they do now?

Basically I'm fishing for interesting stories. I was born in '82 and missed a whole lot of stuff, and I'm genuinely interested in how the people who shared the tickling fetish interacted with each other.

-Renny
 
There was a small community that communicated through snail mail! Names that come to mind are Tobias H., Elmer Batters, Maybird Vids, LTD, Solefully Yours, K.J....and TJ productions.

I am sure some other will chime in and give details. I have tons of old mail stuff from around the mid 80's...maybe I will scan and post some of it one day.

peace out,
daddy

(Hoteltickle 1997-2000)
 
My Tickle History Before The Internet

Tobias Hackner was my first communication with ANYONE into tickling. This was the early to mid 1980s. I found his Ad in The Fetish Times. I was told that he had since passed away.
I would see Elmer Batters' pictorials in Leg Show magazine in the late 1980s, early 1990s.
Then came 'Sheila'. I found her Ad in Latent Image magazine.
We sent each other a couple of letters & she sent me a few pictures of her & her girl friends being tied & tickled. (For a price, of course)
She lived Beaverton Oregon, then Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Then came A.N.A. (Ana & Andre) I found her Ad in Leg Show.
She lived not too far from me when I lived in Da Bronx, Noo Yawk, so i was shocked to see her address in Da Bronx. She was, by far the best of them. She was REAL. At first we just sent each other copies of tickle tapes & a letter would accompany it.
I really cannot remember when this was. Late 1980s? Early 1990s possibly.
During the mid to late 1980s I discovered California Star & the Tied & Tickled videos.
During the early 1990s I found a nice little Fetish Videos store that carried
Maybird Videos, California Star & a few others that I cannot recall at this time. They also carried a nice selection of Tickling & Foot Fetish magazines. That store is still there & I go there every time I visit NYC.
I did not discover Solefully Yours & TJ productions until the mid 1990s.
My internet life started about 1993 or so.
Prodigy & CompuServe were my ISPs at the time. That's where I found K.J.
Then I found AOL.
Then came Yahoo!
& my life has never been the same since. . . . .
& my life had never been the same since
 
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Leg Show magazine.......I bought tons of 'em back in the 80s. My first inkling that other people were into this as well. The actual first mention I remember was a pictoral spread called "French Foot Tickling", and it was just a bunch of gals toe-sucking. But the word "tickling" was mentioned, so that was enough for me. Eventually Leg Show would feature actual tickling.

And good ol' Cal Star videos.....they were cool, too.


Drew
 
Basically I was in the same boat as some of the others. Leg Show, Leg Action, Leg * (fill in your own adverb)....all of those mags. The Cal Star mags were bought back then as well. I got online around '97 or '96.
 
I always toyed with the idea of creating an editorial of the Tickling Community and its development. Don't know if a book is warranted.

PDD is often overlooked. He is Pete, my co-founder of NEST, who also created artwork under the name Dee (Dr. Phibes and others). He was the first to actually sell videos. He had them made on 8mm film and transfered them to video when it was possible. They sold for about $200 each. No one, I mean NO One was producing videos. There were a few HOM 8mm films you could buy (which I did). I used to have to actually rent an 8mm movie projector and shine it on my wall. I have a collection of PDD videos which I hold on to as if they were a 1960's baseball card.

Marni Rose (or Marty Rose, depending on who was saying it) out of Oregon was producing photos.
I remember Sheila very well. I liked her pix (lost them all in a 'purge').

Oddjob, TickleChicago, Mr. Hyde (Pete) and I were the first to put together that mainstream video that circulated for years before it became clips.

I did the first Mainstream list. It was sold (not by me, I never got one red cent) as 50 pages of hardcopy, itemized as Movies, TV, Literature, and a cross-reference of the star and what she appeared in.

I traded tons of stories and stuff to Tobias Hackner and got shit back. Many stories that have been around for years were done by me under other names. I don't remember or own most of them.

I had an ad going in Fetish times for a year. And, sorry to burst your bubbles, a major amount of letters written to Human Digest, Variations, Penthouse and others were penned by moi (names and genders were changed). My first Penthouse letter appeared in 1977 and I wrote lots until about 1980.

As far as video companies, many were named but there was also: Superlive Productions which became Nu-Vue (still have some of those), SOA, TAO, EE Ltd. Remember Nina Alexander? Diane Peerless?

There were titles such as, "Ticklish Senorita", "More than She Bargained For" (a custom made), "Tickle Bitch". "Tormenting Warrior" still stands as one of the sexiest tk vids ever made. It was dumb but she made it incredible. Who was this starlet? June Bauer in, most likely, her first tk vid.

We need to get together at the Carnegie deli in NYC sometime and sit around and talk about old times like the opening scene from BROADWAY DANNY ROSE.

Max :firedevil
 
Bravo Max!

Your recollections really bring back memories. I am sure I read many of your letters in Penthouse and Variations, and I owned several videos from the producer of "Ticklish Senorita."

Ah, the early days...

Raul
 
renny said:
What I'm asking the older people is, what was the tickling community like before the internet.
Before the internet??? There are times when I’m soooooooooo glad I’m 19

(Okay by times I mean always but still! 😀 )
 
I still have all of my videos except for 'More Than She Bargained For'. I have no idea what happened to it.
I still have Ticklish Senorita.
I should make a list of every video I have, but it would take a LOOOONG time.
Ahhh the memories . .
 
I've always liked tickling but I didn't really get into it until a decade or so ago, when I started to surf the web, and I came across some tickling websites and newsgroups. It's great to see how much of a tickling community there was long before the Internet became a mainstream phenomenon. And old material, like Drew70's Scan Archive, should be preserved so that present and future generations of ticklephiles like my own will be able to view them. May the tickling community continue to grow for all of eternity. 😀
 
Great stuff, you guys. This is all stuf I had no idea existed, too bad old tickling movies aren't refurbished and re-released like mainstream ones.
 
I did the first Mainstream list. It was sold (not by me, I never got one red cent) as 50 pages of hardcopy, itemized as Movies, TV, Literature, and a cross-reference of the star and what she appeared in.

Correct me if Im wrong here, Max, but didnt that end up being published along side a bunch of foot scenes in an issue of Leg Show (maybe not completely, but lots a few pages of it)? I remember being about 19 or 20, going to movie places with a list of those movies, hoping I would luck out and find some of those movies....never happened.

I believe yours was one of the first lists I found online (alongside Ironic Tickler's and another one on a different website that borrowed liberally from yours, wording and all).
 
MaxSpeer said:
We need to get together at the Carnegie deli in NYC sometime and sit around and talk about old times like the opening scene from BROADWAY DANNY ROSE.

Max :firedevil

Living withing walking distance of the Carnegie Deli, I second that motion. 😀

I can remember never finding any tickling material in adult bookstores until one day in the mid-1970's when one of the House of Milan magazines (I've forgotten whether it was Hogtie or Bound to Please) had an article with photos entitled "Ticklish, Eh???" Ah, the joy of such rare find, I can still remember how pleased I was.
 
it was a lonely walk on the frontier before ol services!

just really scraps of info--comix. men's mags in the 60's where i saw only two references to tickling through out a VERY intense weekly earch. One was a desription of the torture of a woman after the bastinado "the torture master then stroked her soles with a stiff quill while she was still in the stocks--she would know what it was like to laugh---laugh in shrieking hysteria till she thought her heart would explode from her breasts...and then laugh some more!" A GREAT drawing of the bastinado but none of the tickling. That was a big deal back then to show you how little there was! Also there was were some pics of wife swapping in one mag where attractive women in hose and heels and short skirts were getting their feet tickled while on couches. In the manner of the times, they had their eyes crossed/blacked out so you couldnt identify them. Early pioneers i remember--The Project with Leil Lowndes who had fantacy tickling skits in New York off Broadway theater with her biggest fan Mitch "tank" Geller. Two other did audio but i dont remember their names--a lady out of Michigan who had wonderful audio of women being tickled and a former dj who must have had full twenty one hour sound cassettes, each with a different woman howling themselves silly as their feet were tickled. Those were the "black and white, 13 in screen" days of tickling i recall plus a clip in the sunday paper from Dick Tracy with a woman being tortured by having her feet tickled, a bunch of still fotos from the brothers karamazov tickling scene in Life Mag. Pretty bleak by today's standards. and let us NEVER forget "the BOF" Brotherhood of the feather where guys tried to get together with married guys to let others tickle their wives!
 
Penthouse magazine in the mid to late '70s would occasionally have a letter in their "Forum" from someone who had a tickling session with someone...
Those were especially hot, although they were probably somebodies fantasy.
It was generally the only place where you were most likely to find anything to do with tickling...In the early days of Variations Magazine, like the early '80s, there were several articles on the topic, one being from above mentioned Leil Lowndes.....These were all very earth shaking considering it was like finding a puddle in the Sahara Desert..Thats why we should all stop and think for a minute when we start getting jaded with the material on the internet...
 
Re: editorial

"I always toyed with the idea of creating an editorial of the Tickling Community and its development. Don't know if a book is warranted." Maxspeer.

Max, maybe a 'book' isn't warranted just yet. But maybe a separate forum posted here on the TMF with a history of the tickling community would be very interesting. For old timers like me as well as the younger generation of ticklephiles that have no idea how the tickling community has evolved into what is it today. It would be great to be able to 'read' about our history.
I remember meeting Max in the 1980's from a advertisement he posted in Fetishtimes (this was pre internet for me) We first communicated by snail mail and then later the internet. I finally got to meet him in person in the mid 90's and luckily have been good friends since. I consider Max one of the many 'pioneers' of what the tickling community has evolved into today. I also remember excitedly reading the tickling stories over and over in publications like Variations. At that time I had no idea Max had written a lot of that stuff.
Just like everyone else here I was shocked and so relieved to find someone that was into tickling too. Before that I had spent my life feeling I was all alone with this intense interest in tickling. I had no idea that there was not just hundreds but thousands of other out there like me.
I think it would great and very appropiate to have something like that right here on the TMF. People that have discovered the tickling community in say the last 5 to10 years have no idea how sparse and how hard it was to find tickling information or even how far it has come since then. (and its came a LONG way)
So a forum dedicated to the history (our history) with a written history and maybe some old video clips and photos or even hand drawings would be cool. Kind of a history museum of the tickling community.
So Max if you ever decide to go ahead with your editorial of the tickling communities history I would be willing to help in anyway I can. I'm sure other oldtimers (sorry but what should we call ourselves?) would be willing to contribute any knowledge they have.
 
UnderArmTickler said:
...People that have discovered the tickling community in say the last 5 to10 years have no idea how sparse and how hard it was to find tickling information or even how far it has come since then. (and its came a LONG way)...
I can't even fathom how anyone with a tickling fetish sated their interests before the 'net. My first realization that I wasn't alone in my love of tickling was when I stumbled across the Ticklemaster and Tickling Holly websites. It was (and still is) a boost to my self-esteem to discover that an entire community exists that shares in my passion for tickling.
 
Yeah, really makes you appreciate what you have. I can't imagine watching silent tickling movies projected onto a wall, or searching desperately for the smallest shred of attention paid to tickling in BSDM material. Tickling back then was like hardcore porn in the 1950's, forties, and thirties: it was out there, but it was so underground and hard to find compared to today's instant-gratification world.
 
Interesting Question...

Q) What was the Tickling Community Like before the Internet?

A) About as relevant & exciting as the Indianapolis 500 before the Wheel.

Next question.
Bug :cool2:
 
Daredevil comic cover 1942--is there more like that out there?

One of the GREAT finds of the dark ages was the full color cover of DAREDEVIL comix from 1942 where an elegantly dressed lady was in a dungeon in stocks with her dressed heels removed and displayed nearby with a hunchback type monster torturing her by tickling her feet with a feather as other prisoners in cages watched. VERY impressive stuff! Well done art with beautiful feet and reactions of them to the feather and the woman obviously going nuts! Which leads me to ask are there other "premodern" things out there? If you have them lets us hear about them or even see them. Weve seen in scientific articles that there are ancient woodcuts and drawings of tickling used as a torture, in china and with many midevil examples we are told of the infamous "torture of the goats tongue" but ive never seen such but would LOVE to! Also a serious piece in a psychology journal talks about a ticklephile of old who seemed to be a sick puppy--had his servants tie and foot tickle all female visitors to his house to include his wife's friends so that eventually no ladies would visit his house. But it also mentioned how he had commissioned for a handsome sum over the years artists to draw and paint his mania. Whatever happened to that and perhaps other collections of precious art? Was it saved and is it available? lets flesh out this premodernity part of our shared interest here! thanks!
 
The Sex Life of the Foot & Shoe

"The Sex Life of the Foot & Shoe"
by William A. Rossi. Copyright 1976.

Foot-Tickled To Passion.
Page 29

Another graphic example of the foot’s ‘sexual nerves’is found in the foot’s sensory-rich sole & its response, often erotic & sensual, to tickling. The noted psychologist Albert Moll states that the sole of the foot has a sensory quility “whose stimulation gives rise, directly or indirectly, to voluptuous sensations.”
As everyone knows, foot-tickling can drive some into flights of ecstasy & others to madness.
Essentially, however, the response to foot-tickling is sexual. Says Aigremont, “The tickling of the soles of the feet has been used by many preparatory to coitus. It serves as a foreplay center so it might prolong the sexual enjoyment as much as possible.”
Foot-tickling as an erotic stimulus is age-old & universal. “The sophisticated lover”, says Renbourn, “knows that many women get intense erotic pleasure when the feet are gently stroked - like having the ear lobes nibbled.” Paintings of foot-tickling can be seen in the Louvre as well as in the Museum of Pius Clementia in Rome. They’re also commonly found in China, Japan, India, & Southeast Asia. Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut (1600 b.c.) used to prepare for her lovers with exquisite podocosmetic care. First the skin of her feet were rubbed & scented with oil of ani until it glowed as though coated with gold. Then as she reclined on a luxurious lounge, palace eunuchs tickled the bottoms of her feet with peacock feathers “to bring her to a pitch of sexual readiness.’
A short while ago a wealthy New York socialite visited her psychiatrist & asked whether she should “Break the habit”. “What habit?” he asked.
She explained the 2 or 3 times a week she thoroughly rubbed the soles & toes of her feet with dog food. Then she summoned her 2 Pomeranians & they eagerly licked the scent of the food from her feet.
“It drives me to a sexual frenzy - the tickling sensation on my feet,” she confessed. “It brings me to orgasm almost every time. Or sometimes I masterbate while the dogs are licking my feet. Doctor, is there,
well, something wrong with that? With me?”
“Why not go the straight route with a man?” he asked.
“Oh, I enjoy sex with men, all right. But this foot-tickling & foot-licking thing is something special, something extra. If I asked a man to do that - well, wouldn’t he think me mad or something?”
The doctor pondered the matter a moment, then said, “Why not ask the man? It might work, especially if you make it mutual.”
She called a month later. “Doctor,” she said excitedly, “please excuse the pun, but we’re tickled to death. My lover & I , we’re doing it to each other, & following it with real sex. It’s given sex a whole new feeling for me.”
The Russians, especially among the nobility & aristicracy, were devotees of sexual foot-tickling. They had learned it from the Tartar tribes. Foot-tickling for sexual arousal was used in the Muscovite palaces & courts for centuries.
Many of the Czarinas (Catherine the Great, Anna Ivanovna, Elizabeth, Anna Leopoldovna, & others) were ardent participants.
In fact, the practice was so popular that eunuchs & women were
employed as full time foot-ticklers. They developed this unique skill so well that their occupations brought prestige & good pay.
Anna Leopoldovna had no fewer than 6 ticklers at her feet, though more were employed to serve the other ladies of the court.
The foot-tickling was usually done on the private boudoirs. While the ticklers performed their task they also told baudy stories & sang obcene ballads, thus creating a sort of orgiastic atmosphere. All this, of course, was to work the ladies up to an erotic pitch so that they could meet their husbands or lovers in a sex-impassioned mood. It wasn't uncommon for these women to experience orgasms while being foot-tickled.
A few years ago, while I was visiting Russia & studying their foot wear industry there, the director of a large shoe plant employing some 7000 showed me a private collection of historical shoes from different parts of the world. In a corner was a vase containing several long, brilliantly covered feathers, & also slender artist's brushes with exquisitely soft bristles. As I touched them I recognized that they were ladies' foot ticklers.
The director smiled & said, "Ah, you seem to know what they are. Well, as old as they are, they are not out of date. They are prized by some of our Russian women today. Perhaps you would be surprised to know that the wife of one of our highest party officials & some of her friends of equal standing, are known to . . ." His voice faded & the subject was abruptly changed. Later, in Hungary, & Czechoslovakia, I saw similar foot ticklers.'
Yes, the foot is rich with its own”sexual nerves”. It is no mere coincidence, as cited earlier, that the foot possesses such an abundance of sensory spots. This clearly evident by the common erotic responses to such acts as foot-tickling, foot-massaging, foot-biting, toe-sucking, foot-kissing, etc. Sensual response to such actions is inevitable because first, we are dealing with a naturally erogenous part, & second, because all such actions involve touch, the most sexual of all the senses.
 
Bart, it's funny that I read that passage almost two decades ago and I remember it word for word! 🙂

I'd always been an avid hunter of tickling lore from when I was a kid. But I first found any "community" to speak of on Usenet (the now spam-infested alt.sex.fetish.feet and alt.sex.fetish.tickling), back when the feeds went to certain "adults only" BBSs in the dark old days before the Internet was commonly available. Some adult boards had story areas. I remember one of the first I read, it was called "tickling at the ranch" or something like that, with southern dialogue as bad as the tickling was good 🙂

Anyway, what I always found kinda funny was how quickly people would descend into various feuds on one silly topic or another...and like families gather at Thanksgiving, they'd be renewed every year 🙂 I guess any community is like one's family...there are rivalries and ancient grudges and they get together at regular intervals and have it out. Of course, there's also deep friendship and love, and all of that is what binds a great community together.

I was a lurker and openly admit it....I sat in the bleachers for well over a decade and was content to do so. But even from this vantage point, it's nice to see how the community has grown and that it's easier to find friends with mutual tastes than it has ever been. I salute the brave ones who started our happy group and everyone who makes it what it is today.

peace
Stacy
 
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My first exposure was Elmer Batters, when he was still alive. I did not have a computer until a few years ago .... then I found you all .. 😀 and realised the same thing the original poster of this thread did ... we are not alone .. !!!
 
A few other things from the mid-late '70s:

Leil Lowndes (mentioned in a couple of other posts) wrote a regular column in the first issues of High Society under the nom de plume Lisabet Flannery. The very first of those columns was on tickling.

Mitch Geller (whom jaketickle mentioned) had a good article on tickling in a magazine called Brut.

Don Keefer's articles in Penthouse Variations.

Many articles in the tabloid Fetish Times.

But I must agree that there was no way for a "tickling community" to develop before the Internet, as we were too few and too scattered.
 
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