What it's like to "be" tickled

[TMF Jeff]

There was a philosopher, Thomas Nagel, who asked "What is it like to be a bat?" in an attempt to scrutinize subjective experience vs objective. In other words, to be a bat isn't like being a human with wings. They have different senses and different bodies, their brains are structured differently than ours, and so on. The interior experience of being a bat is completely different from the interior experience of being a human being.

Reading about that made me wonder, and I put the question to you all - "What is it to 'be' ticklish?" and "What is it to 'be' tickled?"

 

[WickedTouch]

What serendipitous timing! I just wrote an article related to this:

What Does it Feel Like?

In the past year or so, I've come across an interesting question more than once in a few different online tickling communities that has really prompted me to think deeper on the whole experience of being tickled. It's a deceptively simple question with a heartwarming innocence around it. It's...

• WickedTouch
• May 7, 2025
• 7 min read
• 5.00 star(s) 1 ratings
• Comments: 3
• Reviews: 1
• Category: Tickling
• Blog: Deviant Outpost
• experience tickling ticklishness

 

[duderino84]

I think to "be" ticklish involves having a building sensation of neurological overload and to "be" tickled (at least on the giving end) is a frantic laughing reaction to the discovery of all potential regions that the person being tickled probably never anticipated would cause that overload while areas they are familiar with are being easily triggered.

 

[natscott6282]

1. vulnerable
2. agony

 

[sensitivesara02]

What is it to be ticklish: I think our owner has raised a fascinating question to us lees, thanks for that! To me, I view our bodies as a "minefield" of hyperaware nerves. Every brush of fabric, every breeze, every graze feels as a "spark". Ticklish people in particular, like myself, are never really "unconscious" to that. "To be ticklish" means there's not really an "off" switch for our nerves, its all just anticipations.


What is it to be tickled: Personally for me one aspect to this would be that tickling certainly is a kink, its a turn on to me, but going deeper I feel like I’m “dissolved” when tickled, my laughter/squirms become a beacon, my world narrows to the breath of my ler, their fingers/tools tracing every inch.


Nagels Bat: To me true tickling is an experience of total sensory colonization, where my body becomes a map for my lers, and a true ler can navigate that map effectively, they can understand every move, every laugh/squirm of the lee, perhaps beyond too!