Tickling can be paired with a lot of different scenarios, personalities, and play styles, and given all the combinations of them, there’s an almost endless list of different types of tickling to play with. There’s sensual, playful, torturous, interrogation, tickle fights, gang tickling, extreme bondage tickling, abduction play tickling, tickling with sensory deprivation, role play, bratty tickling, CNC, tickling games, and so, so much more. I like most of them at one level or another. My biggest core kink interest is tickling, and so most of my other kink interests branch out from there. As I was thinking about the different types of tickling play today, in part because I had just recently posted my thoughts about “Brats and Tickling,” my mind became fixated on a type of tickling play I love–Punishment tickling!
Punishment as a type of BDSM play has been around for a very long time. I sometimes think of different types of power play as falling under one of two categories: Those where the activities are motivated by the core power roles themselves (such as with a pure Dom-sub or Top-bottom exchange), and those where the activities are motivated by additional dynamic forces like persona, scenarios, and story. I love both for different reasons, and my preference depends heavily on my mood, but I find it interesting how and why others tend to gravitate towards one or the other. For me, I often prefer the former when it more closely fits the play partner’s style, or when I feel like I need to express more raw and direct energy in the play. On the other hand, I’m more in the mood for things in the latter category when the chemistry is natural and primed for it, or if I’m in a more playful or creative mood. Punishment falls into the latter of the two categories, acting as an additional motivation for the activities and an anchor for the power exchange.
I’ve been reflecting on the reasons I’m drawn to things like punishment in kink. I grew up having fixations for tickling and bondage. I don’t remember a time when they weren’t a part of me. However, for several years I suppressed my urges, harboring a sense of intense guilt and embarrassment for my desires and becoming very shy around women. I’ve broken free from some of that now, but there are lasting impressions from those times that I’m sure will be with me forever. I think along the way, as my desires battled with my inhibitions, I unconsciously developed psychological workarounds to maintain my sanity and pursue those desires, the most prominent being that I’ve tended to lean on excuses or external motivations to justify my indulgences. Punishment is one of the concepts I latched onto during that turbulent journey, once acting as more of a coping mechanism, now being appreciated as its own special addition to my kinks.
I remember scrolling through webpages on the early internet where I got my first exposure to the ideas and themes of BDSM. The concept of punishment within that world was something I didn’t quite fully understand yet, though I’d come across mentions of it a few times and I was curious. How were they being punished? What were people doing to deserve punishments? Why did people want to punish others anyway? A lot of what I saw initially was various forms of impact play, which did spark its own line of curiosity within me, but also led me to assume that all punishment within the BDSM world was just another form of spanking or whipping fantasy. I remember when my understanding began to broaden and things started to click for me. I have a vague memory of coming across someone’s page with a few pictures of a cute girl, the first with her in a normal, unassuming position while fully dressed. An accompanying paragraph explained how she had been misbehaving and if she continued, she’d need to be punished. What did she do? I wondered. She looked like a nice girl to me. I scrolled down to another picture of her, this time with her sticking her tongue out at the camera in a mocking way and another paragraph with a quote that read something like, “What are you gonna do about it? I can get away with whatever I want!” Now hold on, I thought, What happened to that sweet girl I saw before? I scrolled down again to find a picture of her gagged, hogtied, in skimpy lingerie, and with big pleading eyes staring back at me. The final paragraph read something like, “See what I mean? She’s all yours. Punish away!” My immediate thought was, Yes, sir, Mr. narrator, sir! Something about the connect-the-dots approach to the fantasy and the hogtie arrangement being less associated with impact play let my mind immediately wander to my favorite activity: Tickling. What were all the details of why she needed punishment? Who cares–I wanted to punish her! From that point on, incorporating the idea of punishment into play made it so much easier for me to engage.
So is the excuse reasoning why we create all the personas, aesthetics, and all the other elements involved in setting a scene up for play? I don’t think so–Or at least not always. I do think that for a lot of us, some of what we like is rooted in that kind of awkward, early navigation of our natural desires. But for others, those things may just be the natural desires themselves with no discernible explanation. But however we got here, we like what we like! For me, the idea of punishment is now something that more compliments my kinks, as opposed to being a crutch that I rely on for justification. It’s exciting to play with power with an extra dimension to it. It brings a sense of righting a wrong and turning chaos into order. For some, it seems to even help create a very cathartic experience around trauma and unresolved feelings. It’s also very flexible, being compatible with so many different kinks and forms of play, my personal favorite of course, being tickling.
I love how something so seemingly benign as tickling can be used to great effect as a punishment. Superficially, it’s so playful and light-hearted, but it has the potential to be so devastatingly unbearable and cruel. If you’ve never witnessed it and don’t believe me, you’re either not that ticklish, or you’ve never been bound with your body stretched out tight, becoming so sensitive that just the slight movement of the cool open air crawling across your bare skin is enough to make you nervous. While being bound and tickled, minutes can feel like hours, emotions go out of control, and every fiber of the body struggles to get away. It plays with the mind with its confusing contrasts of giggle-inducing gentle touch that send torturous jolts of overwhelming feedback directly to the brain’s sensory hot spots. There is a total sense of helplessness as breathlessness grows more frequent from the hard silent laughter. Desperate pleas for mercy reverberate throughout the space, but are only met with reminders that this is what happens to those who misbehave. Will it last for a specific duration, or will it go on until the tickler is convinced that the ticklee has learned their lesson? What parts of the body are tickled and how intensely? What position is used in the bondage? Of course, all of the details and limits of the consequences for disobedience are known in advance. These are consensual arrangements after all. But consensual as the consequences are, they are still punishment!
To be clear, I don’t often make punishment a big part of my play, but I do really enjoy it from time to time. I primarily decided to write this because it’s been on my mind lately and I just wanted to better process some thoughts around it. I’d love to hear others’ perspectives on this topic. For both ticklephiles and non-ticklephiles alike, do you like incorporating punishment into your play, and if so, why? Do you like the idea of a more playful punishment, or do you like a more serious vibe to it? If you’re a Dom, what is it about punishing a sub that you enjoy that other forms of play don’t quite satisfy for you? If you’re a sub, what do you get out of punishment play and how do you mentally and emotionally process the ideas surrounding punishment? If you’re ticklish, is the idea of being tickled as punishment exciting, terrifying, or both? Do you have any stories of you being tickled or tickling someone else as punishment? Hopefully you got something out of reading this and have something of your own to share. Take care and thank you so much for reading!
Punishment as a type of BDSM play has been around for a very long time. I sometimes think of different types of power play as falling under one of two categories: Those where the activities are motivated by the core power roles themselves (such as with a pure Dom-sub or Top-bottom exchange), and those where the activities are motivated by additional dynamic forces like persona, scenarios, and story. I love both for different reasons, and my preference depends heavily on my mood, but I find it interesting how and why others tend to gravitate towards one or the other. For me, I often prefer the former when it more closely fits the play partner’s style, or when I feel like I need to express more raw and direct energy in the play. On the other hand, I’m more in the mood for things in the latter category when the chemistry is natural and primed for it, or if I’m in a more playful or creative mood. Punishment falls into the latter of the two categories, acting as an additional motivation for the activities and an anchor for the power exchange.
I’ve been reflecting on the reasons I’m drawn to things like punishment in kink. I grew up having fixations for tickling and bondage. I don’t remember a time when they weren’t a part of me. However, for several years I suppressed my urges, harboring a sense of intense guilt and embarrassment for my desires and becoming very shy around women. I’ve broken free from some of that now, but there are lasting impressions from those times that I’m sure will be with me forever. I think along the way, as my desires battled with my inhibitions, I unconsciously developed psychological workarounds to maintain my sanity and pursue those desires, the most prominent being that I’ve tended to lean on excuses or external motivations to justify my indulgences. Punishment is one of the concepts I latched onto during that turbulent journey, once acting as more of a coping mechanism, now being appreciated as its own special addition to my kinks.
I remember scrolling through webpages on the early internet where I got my first exposure to the ideas and themes of BDSM. The concept of punishment within that world was something I didn’t quite fully understand yet, though I’d come across mentions of it a few times and I was curious. How were they being punished? What were people doing to deserve punishments? Why did people want to punish others anyway? A lot of what I saw initially was various forms of impact play, which did spark its own line of curiosity within me, but also led me to assume that all punishment within the BDSM world was just another form of spanking or whipping fantasy. I remember when my understanding began to broaden and things started to click for me. I have a vague memory of coming across someone’s page with a few pictures of a cute girl, the first with her in a normal, unassuming position while fully dressed. An accompanying paragraph explained how she had been misbehaving and if she continued, she’d need to be punished. What did she do? I wondered. She looked like a nice girl to me. I scrolled down to another picture of her, this time with her sticking her tongue out at the camera in a mocking way and another paragraph with a quote that read something like, “What are you gonna do about it? I can get away with whatever I want!” Now hold on, I thought, What happened to that sweet girl I saw before? I scrolled down again to find a picture of her gagged, hogtied, in skimpy lingerie, and with big pleading eyes staring back at me. The final paragraph read something like, “See what I mean? She’s all yours. Punish away!” My immediate thought was, Yes, sir, Mr. narrator, sir! Something about the connect-the-dots approach to the fantasy and the hogtie arrangement being less associated with impact play let my mind immediately wander to my favorite activity: Tickling. What were all the details of why she needed punishment? Who cares–I wanted to punish her! From that point on, incorporating the idea of punishment into play made it so much easier for me to engage.
So is the excuse reasoning why we create all the personas, aesthetics, and all the other elements involved in setting a scene up for play? I don’t think so–Or at least not always. I do think that for a lot of us, some of what we like is rooted in that kind of awkward, early navigation of our natural desires. But for others, those things may just be the natural desires themselves with no discernible explanation. But however we got here, we like what we like! For me, the idea of punishment is now something that more compliments my kinks, as opposed to being a crutch that I rely on for justification. It’s exciting to play with power with an extra dimension to it. It brings a sense of righting a wrong and turning chaos into order. For some, it seems to even help create a very cathartic experience around trauma and unresolved feelings. It’s also very flexible, being compatible with so many different kinks and forms of play, my personal favorite of course, being tickling.
I love how something so seemingly benign as tickling can be used to great effect as a punishment. Superficially, it’s so playful and light-hearted, but it has the potential to be so devastatingly unbearable and cruel. If you’ve never witnessed it and don’t believe me, you’re either not that ticklish, or you’ve never been bound with your body stretched out tight, becoming so sensitive that just the slight movement of the cool open air crawling across your bare skin is enough to make you nervous. While being bound and tickled, minutes can feel like hours, emotions go out of control, and every fiber of the body struggles to get away. It plays with the mind with its confusing contrasts of giggle-inducing gentle touch that send torturous jolts of overwhelming feedback directly to the brain’s sensory hot spots. There is a total sense of helplessness as breathlessness grows more frequent from the hard silent laughter. Desperate pleas for mercy reverberate throughout the space, but are only met with reminders that this is what happens to those who misbehave. Will it last for a specific duration, or will it go on until the tickler is convinced that the ticklee has learned their lesson? What parts of the body are tickled and how intensely? What position is used in the bondage? Of course, all of the details and limits of the consequences for disobedience are known in advance. These are consensual arrangements after all. But consensual as the consequences are, they are still punishment!
To be clear, I don’t often make punishment a big part of my play, but I do really enjoy it from time to time. I primarily decided to write this because it’s been on my mind lately and I just wanted to better process some thoughts around it. I’d love to hear others’ perspectives on this topic. For both ticklephiles and non-ticklephiles alike, do you like incorporating punishment into your play, and if so, why? Do you like the idea of a more playful punishment, or do you like a more serious vibe to it? If you’re a Dom, what is it about punishing a sub that you enjoy that other forms of play don’t quite satisfy for you? If you’re a sub, what do you get out of punishment play and how do you mentally and emotionally process the ideas surrounding punishment? If you’re ticklish, is the idea of being tickled as punishment exciting, terrifying, or both? Do you have any stories of you being tickled or tickling someone else as punishment? Hopefully you got something out of reading this and have something of your own to share. Take care and thank you so much for reading!
