#2500 comes out ... a tickle freak's confession

[stacyshippen]

OK, time to delurk 🙂

Actually, I've been a 'lurking' member of the tickling community for almost ten years...and an avid "hardcore" fetishist all my life.

I can remember as a young child, maybe five or six, constructing elaborate 'tickling fantasies' about characters from TV, etc., mostly involving me being tickled after long, torturous analysis of my ticklish spots and best tickling materials and implements 🙂

I can't say that I had many 'ticklish situations' as a young child...my dad used to tickle me a bit but not excessively, and none of my other family members did either. Nor did we have much in the neighborhood. However, I did love tickling my siblings and often got into a lot of trouble for it (yes, I'm probably the one the people write to Dear Abby about <g>). The funny thing was, I'd tickle people only in the hope they'd tickle back...didn't always work out that way though, so most tickling experience was relegated to child fantasy 🙂

I can remember being literally frozen, breathless, as a seven year old watching the Raggedy Ann and Andy cartoon when they are tickled by the Tickle Monster. It was a memory I carried with me for almost a quarter century, until I was lucky enough to download the cartoon from AMT.

To show how intense this was, I remember watching an episode of 'Emergency 51' where a firefighter fell into the chemicals used to put out the flames...the intense scene that followed had him pulling off his shirt frantically. Of course, I in my weird little mind would fantasize that it was 'tickle water' that he fell in and he was desperately trying to stop the intense tickly feeling that seized his body.

Yep, I was only maybe nine at the time 🙂

Does anyone remember Dick Clark's 'Bloopers and Practical Jokes' series? I remember clear as day, they were showing clips of Times Square (back in its seedier days) and were making an issue of a shop with a sign called 'Swedish Tickling'. I was maybe 10 or 11...on a class field trip to NYC I found a phone book and tried to look it up (no luck, 'Tickling' isn't exactly a category in the Yellow Pages!), and promised myself a trip to see the place when I turned 18 (but never found it...sigh).

Growing up, I spent lots of time in the library...it was in my early teens that I began serious research into tickling...even seeing the word would send shivers down my spine! I read encyclopedias, dictionaries, history books, psychology books, anything I could get my hands on to learn anything possible about tickling. You can imagine that the pickings at the local junior high school weren't too diverse 🙂

I dated quite a bit in high school, but was always terribly, horribly embarassed and mortified to reveal my interests...from my reading I knew that people with fetishes (and I'd figured out I had one hell of a case!) were considered mentally deviant so I was reluctant to express myself. I did try to get myself into 'situations' but the guys I dated just didn't 'get it'...if they only knew that the key to getting 'past second base' lay just within their 'reach' 😉

Off to college, and much, MUCH more research! 🙂 I think I've read every single piece of scholarly and historical work on tickling written in the last century, including large studies done on tickling in Italy and the UK (booooooring...but beggars can't be choosers). There are, however, two 'holy grails', that I saw abstracts of but could not get the actual articles. One, 'Sex and Tickling', was from the Journal of Human Sexuality, 1969. The other, whose article title now escapes me, was about a man with a pathological, insatiable interest in tickling other people, published in the late 1940's in the 'American Journal of Psychotherapy'. I even drove to a medical school library to try to find these articles but without success.

You have to remember...I really was isolated in thinking I was a freak...nobody I ever met was interested in tickling the way I was. Not only that, but being a girl I just felt there was something 'wrong' with the way I felt about it, especially because of how strongly I felt and how much a lifelong thing it was with me. Too much Catholic guilt I guess 🙂 Plus I was VERY VERY shy!

One night, I was in the library, almost at closing time. I was in the midst of my 'research', when I came across an index referring to 'tickling practices'. Bingo, I thought, and hurriedly turned to the page...and found it was RIPPED OUT BY SOMEONE ELSE. That was the first time, the really first time, that I thought that I might not be the only one who was as intensely interested in this as I was. I wrote myself stories about this 'mystery' person...what they'd be like, what would they have done if they found me looking for 'their' material?

It wasn't until I read the wonderful 'Sexual History of the Foot and the Shoe', which gave me the first inkling of other people using tickling in a sexual way, that I realized that my feelings about it weren't that strange.

So where the hell have I been for the last ten years? Truth is, when I first discovered BBSs (before the internet), for the first time I started chatting with people about my interests...and ran into the classic problems that many women have. First guy tried to lock me in his house and tickle/date rape me when I made it CRYSTAL CLEAR I wanted to get to know them first. Ugly, and I always tell myself it could have been worse. Second guy I chatted with anonymously, then he hunted down my personal information and started harassing me at home until I threatened him with legal action. I know from looking at the forums these last years that it's not representative of everyone, but I hope you appreciate why I've been a little "gun shy" and fiercely guarded my privacy!

When I discovered ASFT and the other Usenet forums, I knew I wasn't that abnormal after all 🙂 I feasted on stories and watched the many dramas play out and have desperately DESPERATELY wished I had the guts to go to a NEST gathering...

OK, so I'm a big chicken...once bitten, twice shy, and I have a career and somewhat exposed presence that would be harmed if I were more open about this. And I'm married now to someone who thinks my feelings about tickling are a little abnormal...he participates sometimes for my sake, but it clearly doesn't do anything for him so I pretty much keep it to myself. But it's a part of me and I'm OK with it.

Anyways, since I apparently am #2500, I thought it was time to come out 🙂 To the rest of you lurkers...if I can do it, you can too!

I wanted to thank everyone who works to build this forum and make it a true "community"...since the ancient days of ASFF/ASFT I've been a silent witness, and it's time I start giving back to the community after all it has done for me these last several years!

Peace to all,

SS

P.S. If any of you ripped out tickling-related pages from a Philly-area library book, you owe me one! 🙂

P.P.S. Has anyone else out there experienced their "fetish" at such a young age?

 

[SmileyTkls]

I'd have to admit that I, indeed, realized that I loved seeing and participating in tickling, esp. on girls' feet. I can so go along with the cartoon sightings, initiating ticklings for retribution, or even just letting myself get set up for a smart remark so I'd have an "excuse" to tickle someone. As I got older, I discovered that it seemed "odd" and "weird" to others, so I downplayed it a lot. Still, I'd check the library and mags for references, and when the Internet hit, that's when I went wild! LOL. I've since met lots of great people, and enjoy tickling more, too. This place is a terrific proving ground to see whether or not it's really a part of you, and to share with people who might just understand. Anyhow, that's my little story, thanks!

Smiley

 

[tklr5150]

Hi Stacy. Welcome to our demented but merry flock. 😀

I can remember being into tickling at a very early age as well. Even back in grade school I often asked to be tickled. I took every chance to tickle girls in my class, and especially the counselors at day camp. The great thing about that was I got to tickle 13 and 14 year old girls (which is damn cool when you're 7 or 8 at the time) and they just figured I was being a goofy little kid - which honestly I was, and still am. I can also remember becoming very interested when I saw a tickling scene on TV, though I didn't understand why for a few more years. I think seeing Christine Taylor getting tickled on Hey Dude when I was about 10 (still an all-time personal favorite scene) kickstarted puberty for me.

And I too remember some excursions into the junior high library in search of any and all tickle-related materials, also with pretty slim findings.

 

[qjakal]

Yup...young

There was a thread regarding this (I'm too lazy to find it..lol), and most of us agreed that we discovered the fascination VERY early! If you're interested you can hunt it up..wasn't too long ago. Sorry I didn't "find" you about 30 years ago...lol..we could have eased each others high school probs greatly! Trust me, it's even harder being the 'ler and a guy! Double trouble at an age that's difficult enough! Anyway, welcome, and I hope you stay "de-lurked" and post up on our "Guilt" thread sometime...p.s.--many of us have similar probs in the marriage setups, also in a thread around here somewhere..*rustle rustle*...darn, lost it! Q

 

[JAT]

very young

My sister and I played a game from when I was 6-10 years old and my sister was 12-16 years old. We would lay on the couch on our backs across from each other and she would bend her legs so her knees were the highest point. I would place my feet on her knees and rest them there. Then she would move her legs so my foot would fall inbetween them. She would squeeze her legs so tight I couldn't pull my foot away. She would then tickle my foot so intensly I could barely take it. I would scream out with laughter... it tickled so much!!! She would then release my foot after about a minute of intense tickling. Then we would start over again. We played this game all the time. That was a big part of the beginning of my tickling fetish...

 

[laughter_n_love]

Welcome to the Forum, Stacey. Glad to have you aboard.

Laughter

 

[Myriads]

Hello Stacy, Glad to have you join us here on the forum. Thank you for a wonderful first post.

Myriads

 

[MN Tikl]

Thanks for Sharing, Stacy!

I really enjoyed your post, Stacy. I can relate to many of the things you mention. I too "have a career and somewhat exposed presence that would be harmed if I were more open about this."

Back in April of this year I posted the following, titled "The evolution of a fetish and other ideas to consider" It may be what Qjakal is referring to in his post, above. [I don't know how to insert a link to the entire thread, but the responses are also worth reading] It speaks to some of the issues raised by you.

And, of course, WELCOME!

"Rather than bury this within a response to another post, I'll take Mia's kind suggestion and start a new thread. [by the way, Mia, I e-mailed you previously about your New York 'experience' but was unable to follow up, due to a shortened business trip -- thank you for your quick response to me, though]

"I think that all of us, in one way or another, had a tickling experience as children -- during our 'formative years' so to speak -- which started us down the road to ticklephile-dom.

"Mine had to do with a babysitter that used to pin me and my brothers down and tickle torture us endlessly! [I was ~6-7 at the time] She was a tickle-sadist if there ever was one, and we truly feared her. Her favorite position was to force us down on our backs, then straddle us pinning one of our arms to our side between her legs, and holding the other wrist up high above our heads, exposing our armpit, ribs, waist and hips to merciless tickling by her free hand. After several minutes, she would switch sides and lift our other arm up -- and tickle away to her heart's content. She would tickle us as punishment; and when we were careful to do nothing wrong, she'd tickle us purely for sport. She'd make up games, and if we lost (and she made sure we always lost), the result would be -- you guessed it -- more tickle torture. She definitely enjoyed these sessions as much as we dreaded them, and I've often wondered whether she had once been the victim of similar treatment as a little girl.

"After repeated tickle torture sessions, I began to daydream in vivid detail about gaining revenge on her (I was never able to, though, as she was much stronger than me). I became intrigued with the general idea of forcing others -- particularly women -- to feel certain sensations against their will. I tickled everybody I could, and found that I got an incredible exhilaration from it. I even got in trouble for tickling my brothers, which led to certain feelings of shame about my interest in tickling [I absolutely loved doing it, yet it was somehow socially taboo; it began to feel like a 'dirty' thing to do - a guilty pleasure, so to speak]. As I got older, my thoughts of tickling (and more generally the dynamic of 'power exchange') mixed in some psychological way and morphed into the formation of my sexuality. The result: tickling is now 'hard-wired' into my sexuality. Tickling others and being tickled and watching tickling arouses me to no end!

"How about the rest of you? Similar experiences?

"[note: after re-reading this, I am struck by the clinical, sterile aspect of my description. I wonder whether the 'magic' of tickling -- that certain je ne sais quoi -- is jeopardized by such an analysis; I suppose this is a topic for a future thread. Another topic alluded to above, which should be explored in a future thread, is the idea of 'tickling as taboo' -- i.e., is tickling intrisically a guilty pleasure? Would tickling lose its thrill if there wasn't an element of societal taboo associated with it? And finally, on a further level, *should* one feel a twinge of guilt about the desire to tickle another person? After all, tickling is a violation of another persons's space -- not to mention the 'taunting' aspect of tickling, which is overtly sadistic]

"Ok -- how's that for throwing out some ideas?! Comments anybody?"

 

[tickle1]

welcome aboard stacy

Nice to have you aboard stacy. Welcome to the forum.

 

[harvey]

Welcome

Stacy, welcome to our 'happy home', and rest assured, you are now among friends.

You express rather eloquently many of the trials and emotions many of us have faced along the way. If you want to read my thread entitled 'How long before your tickling interest fades?' (now way back on page 7) and my reply to the thread entitled 'Is tickling pornography?', these will give you an idea of where I stand.

Hope we hear from you again.

 

[Dave2112]

Welcome Stacy, and let me give you some advice.

Watch out for the guy with the lightsaber, the guy with the parrot and don't step on a duck....😎

 

[Darkknight]

The 'Sexual History of the Foot and the Shoe' was the NAME OF THE BOOK!!!!!!! Sorry... in another post a bit back I was trying to remember the name of the book!

Hiya Stacey and welcome to the TMF though you aren't a stranger to this world. 🙂

The book you mentioned was my first research success when I was 12 or thirteen! I drew in the book (don't nobody say anything! The fines with interest would kill me by now!) a foot being tickled by a feather hoping someone would rent the book and know one of us were around.

Not to bore anyone with my same repeated story but I first knew in 3rd grade when I trapped a blonde cutie behind a chair and tickled her
foot. It didn't hit me till she went nuts but was frozen, she couldn't pull her leg away. Never met another girl like that again.
In the 3rd grade was my first ticklee victim but I grew up to be shy and lost many opportunities in high school.
If it wasn't for the community of ticklephiles on the internet sharing stories, I would had blown more chances.

Peace,
DK

 

[mge99]

Tickling first became a "conscious" interest to me also around the age of 5 or 6. While I am sure I was tickled sporadically by the parents, I don't really have much memory of that. But the phenomenon struck me, and stayed with me when at that young age I was playing with a couple of other kids, one my age and the other a couple of years older. For some reason the older kid was chasing us and I fell face down in a small drainage ditch, that was dry at the time. The older boy jumped on my back, straddling me, and started tickling my sides. Because of the slope of the sides of the ditch I could not get my arms free to defend myself, which left me vulnerable. There were no adults around to stop him, and he pretty much tickled me beyond hysterics. I'm in my forties now, but have a vivid memory of that experience. From then on, I was truly fascinated with tickling, and made a major effort to avoid being tickled. At the age of about 13, just prior to starting to date girls, I was subjected to some very relentless ticklings by a college age kid that lived just a few houses down. I had known him for years, and growing up I had always liked to go down to his house when he wasn't busy with friends and if I didn't have any friends around. Since he was quite a bit older, we didn't really pal around, but I would watch him work on his car when he was a junior and senior in high school, and do things like that. But when he came home for the summer after his second year at college, for some reason he would find any excuse to get me down and tickle the living daylights out of me. It was pure torture for me and after several times of that happening I made a point to stay away from his house. I would see him going down the street and he would ask where I had been, but I would just make up something. He was on the wrestling team in high school, and then college. Although I never asked him why he developed the sudden interest in tickling me almost to death, as I researched the topic when I was in college, and beyond, I have to wonder if maybe he was tickle tortured by someone when he went to college, maybe some wrestling teammates, who knows. He had never tickled me before that summer. Perhaps it is because of the intense and prolonged tickling when 5 or 6, coupled with the additional excessive ticklings at about age 13, that my view has always had this confused, sado-masochistic element to it.

 

[QBWeaver]

Hi Stacy,

Your story sounds so much like mine except my first memory of being hypnotized by tickling was a Popeye Cartoon where they are on a Ghost ship and Olive Oyl is tied down and kittens lick milk off her feet. That drove me absolutely nuts. And it all went uphill from there.

I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to de-lurk now. I can certainly understand why you didn't for so long. But this group is absolutely wonderful. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Hugs and Tickles,
Jan

 

[dvnc]

skirts rule? *blink*

😉

Welcome Stacy. Sorry to read that you had extra helpings of the creepy side of the community. I'd say you were more than once bitten, and I'm REALLY glad you found us, and as everyone keeps saying, welcome! It's much nicer here.

Was I young? I can recall it in my earliest memories, before kindergarten. Must've been around 3 or 4. By kindergarten, we used to sneak into a storage room to play tickling games. I believe that stories in the back pages of this section. There's some great stuff in the old areas. Hope you get a chance to peruse.

dvnc

 

[babinsky]

The Book

The name of the book was called, "The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe"
by Dr.William Rossie. There was alot of information about Catherine
The Great and her professional foot ticklers. A good book that came out in the mid '70's...

 

[bftlvr]

#2500 comes out...a tickle freak's confession

In my local library the copy of The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe has 2 or 3 drawings in it done in pencil. DK, have you been to Erie, PA??LOL. The drawings show lovely girls getting their barefeet tickled by feathers and includes text of them begging for mercy. I've gone back to that book more than once, maybe updates? I don't know, just fascinated me. I remember being into tickling from age 5 or so, family and school were targets for me, not the school building, lots of smart alecks in here, gotta be careful. My uncle on my dad's side shares our interest, he's even braver than I am, I've seen him in action, and joined in when possible. Good thread, and welcome aboard Stacy!!!! Peace..B.

 

[Deleted member 2452]

hi stacy. i'm also fairly new to the tmf, but not to tickling.
my first recolection of being unusually interested in tickling, was at the age of 4. we had tickling in my house as a child, everyone got tickled, but the girls more than us guys. both my folks were ticklish, and attacked eachother regularly.
my first tickle object was my cousin susy. she was so much fun to tickle, and she would gladdly tickle me back, when she could.
during my dating years, starting in high school, i was up-front, and honest with the girls i dated, i tickled them all the time, and told them i liked doing it. i can't really recall any girlfriend that was put off, or objected to it. thats why i don't understand, when anyone says their partner doesn't know about their love of tickling. how could you be with a loved one, and not be tickling, or be tickled by them 😕
i am glad you have come forward, and look forward to chatting with you, and reading your posts. if you're not busy, we're having a munch/gathering here in chicago on nov.30, come if you can!
yours in tickling fun, steve