I'm not proclaiming that Asians or Caucasians

[Love2DayTrade]

or African Americans or Hispanics are more ticklish than other races however I would like to comment on this issue. I have read more than a few threads discussing the theory that certain races or ethnicities are more ticklish than others. I have also read replies by certain members of the community which state that the idea that members of a particular race are more ticklish than others is completely ludicrious. Like you, I've read threads which include dialouge detailing the extreme ticklishness of Asian girls while other members will chuckle and argue that it is silly to consider the possibilty that Asian females are more ticklish than their Caucasian counterparts.

As mentioned in the title of this post, I am not saying saying that one race is more ticklish than another however, I would like to comment on this issue and ask all of you for your input.

There are obvious differences between the races. I'll state a few of the obvious ones. Caucasians have lighter skin, Africans have longer appendages, Asian women generally have smaller breasts. Evolutionary biologists have developed theories to explain why some of these differences exist. I don't want to get into the explainations for why these differences are thought to exist but the point is that according to these scientists, some of these differences exist because these traits offered an advantage to the people that carried these traits. Of course, certain traits were an advantage only in certain areas due to differences in the environment.

My questions are:

1) It is clear that differences amongst the races exist. Why then, is it absurb to consider the possibility that members of certain races are, in general, more ticklish than others?

2) If you are a believer that members of a certain race (or races) are indeed more ticklish than others, please offer an explanation as to why this difference exists.

One final comment: Although I made reference to evolutionary biologists I am not claiming that I believe in the theory of evolution which states that molecules came together to form organelles, which formed cells, which yada yada yada developed into more advanced forms of life and then ultimately humans evolved from an species now known to be extinct.

 

[Mastertank1]

or African Americans or Hispanics are more ticklish than other races however I would like to comment on this issue. I have read more than a few threads discussing the theory that certain races or ethnicities are more ticklish than others. I have also read replies by certain members of the community which state that the idea that members of a particular race are more ticklish than others is completely ludicrious. Like you, I've read threads which include dialouge detailing the extreme ticklishness of Asian girls while other members will chuckle and argue that it is silly to consider the possibilty that Asian females are more ticklish than their Caucasian counterparts.

As mentioned in the title of this post, I am not saying saying that one race is more ticklish than another however, I would like to comment on this issue and ask all of you for your input.

There are obvious differences between the races. I'll state a few of the obvious ones. Caucasians have lighter skin, Africans have longer appendages, Asian women generally have smaller breasts. Evolutionary biologists have developed theories to explain why some of these differences exist. I don't want to get into the explainations for why these differences are thought to exist but the point is that according to these scientists, some of these differences exist because these traits offered an advantage to the people that carried these traits. Of course, certain traits were an advantage only in certain areas due to differences in the environment.

My questions are:

1) It is clear that differences amongst the races exist. Why then, is it absurb to consider the possibility that members of certain races are, in general, more ticklish than others?

2) If you are a believer that members of a certain race (or races) are indeed more ticklish than others, please offer an explanation as to why this difference exists.

One final comment: Although I made reference to evolutionary biologists I am not claiming that I believe in the theory of evolution which states that molecules came together to form organelles, which formed cells, which yada yada yada developed into more advanced forms of life and then ultimately humans evolved from an species now known to be extinct.

To begin with a minor digression; I do believe in exactly the process you described in that last paragraph, BUT I believe that all of this happened BECAUSE GOD COMMANDED IT TO HAPPEN in exactly that way, and that therefore there is NO conflict between creation and evolution. Just as a sculptor uses tools to shape their clay, I believe that God uses evolution as a tool to sculpt the clay of life into it's many forms.
That having been got outta the way, I think our species evolved ticklishness as a form of early warning of something touching a vulnerable part of our body; note that every major ticklish area is over a place where an injury could be very serious to a pretribal human which had to keep up with a constantly running hunting pack to survive.
Pretribal humans hunted in packs, by sight rather than scent, by running prey down in relays instead of by ambush, which is why our early pretribal societal structure and behavior were identical to the wolf pack, which is why the wolf was the first animal we domesticated and bred into the dog. To a dog, becoming domesticated just meant changing packs!
But enough of that digression; where wolves used growling, bristling, stalking stiff-legged and baring of teeth as short-of-actual-violence dominance tools, we humans used tickling. Where a wolf bared it's belly and throat to show submission or lightly touched those offered vulnerable spots with it's teeth to show dominance/acceptance of submission, we signified submission by offering up our ticklish places, and dominance by tickling those places.
Because humans are capable of sexual activity 24/7/365 while wolves are only in heat at wide intervals, for humans the dominance/submission behavior of tickling took on very sexually charged overtones.
hat being said, it makes sense that peoples who live in a more threat rich environment, in terms of subtle threats like snakes or insects or harmful pollens or such, as opposed to gross threats like getting shot or run over, might have a distinct survival advantage if they were more ticklish, and therefore might have retained a greater degree of ticklishness as a genetic trait.

In my limited experience, of about 90 women I've tickled in 53 years as a 'ler, there have been 6 Black women and 10 East Asian women, of whom 5 were Philipina, 1 Japanese, 1 Korean, 1 Vietnamese, 1 Thai and 1 Chinese. There have also been 2 Native Americans, who really are ethnically northeast Asian.

All of the above have been ticklish pretty much everywhere, but I did notice the following difference which appeared, based on these very limited samples, to be ethnically based;
The Black women were more ticklish on their feet than any other ethnic group.
They included 1 Lousiana Creole, 1 Haitian, 1 Jamaican, 1 Kenyan of the Kikuyu, and 2 New Yorkers.

The East Asian women were more ticklish on their sides than any other ethnic group, and the Philipinas and Native Americans (One was a Hunkpapa Lakota, the other an Onieda Iroquois) were a close second in foot sensitivity.

A very close third in foot sensitivity were the 2 Hindu-Indian women I have had the priviledge of tickling. Both strained with all their might to pull their feet away, but whever I gave either of them a break, as soon as she had her breath back she begged me to continue, and this time don't stop so soon. Okaaaay.

The only other thing that struck me as a seemingly ethnic characteristic was that the Jewish women (there were 15 of them) tried the hardest to keep their self control, and when self control failed they laughed and squirmed more helplessly than anyone else. I surmise that the trying to keep in control is cultural, but I think the extreme helplessness when self control fails may be genetic; exaggerated displays of overtly submissive behavior as a defense mechanism to defuse aggression, the way baring the throat defuses aggression in wolves.

Let add this explicit disclaimer; I have no scintilla of scientific evidence for the ethnic differences mentioned above. These are merely my personal obdservations of a stated VERY limited sample, and absolutely CANNOT be used to draw any general conclusion about any ethnic group.

I will conclude with this general statement; women who permit men to place them in restraints and then tickle them are the most wonderful beings in all of creation, and I enthusiastically ask God to bless every one of them, no matter what ethnic group they belong to.
Brothers, can I get an AMEN?

 

[LindyHopper]

The major problem with assertions about racial differences in human traits is that the concept of "race" is a a social construction that corresponds poorly with genetic reality. The most genetically "different" human beings on Earth include the Australian aborigines and the Basque people of southern Europe, which most people do not consider separate "races." Comparatively, whites, blacks, Asians, and Native Americans are genetically very similar to each other, and the genetic diversity within each group far exceeds the variation between groups. Our typical classification of them into different "races" is based on features that are salient to us: namely, skin color and facial appearance. These features, however, are poor indicators of overall genetic difference.

I've read threads which include dialouge detailing the extreme ticklishness of Asian girls while other members will chuckle and argue that it is silly to consider the possibilty that Asian females are more ticklish than their Caucasian counterparts.

The human mind likes to categorize - it's a way of organizing information about the world. People who claim that Asian girls are more ticklish are generally basing their claim on their experience with a few girls. However, the categories of "Asian" and "Caucasian" don't reflect genetic difference very well. If you actually sequenced the entire genomes of, say, three Asian women and three Caucasian women, the percentage differences in functional DNA would probably not be higher between the races than it would be among the individuals of each race.

There are obvious differences between the races. I'll state a few of the obvious ones. Caucasians have lighter skin, Africans have longer appendages, Asian women generally have smaller breasts.

Among the differences you list:

Caucasians having lighter skin is definitional to the category "Caucasian," just as "black" people are "black" because their skin is darker. That's like saying that tall people are taller than short people. It speaks of the categorization, but proves nothing but the fact that the category exists.

Africans have longer appendages? I'm not certain that that one is even true. It might just be a generalization based on African-American basketball players, who are not representative of all Africans.

Asian women in Asia generally have smaller breasts because of medical and nutritional differences between Eastern and Western nations. Look at Asian and Caucasian women born and raised in the same location, and the difference tends to evaporate. Group variation in breast size is more environmental than genetic.

I think it's also worth noting that differences in ticklishness that appear to be "racial" may be more accurately described as "cultural." Various cultures have very different attitudes towards physical contact, emotional control, and other factors that have a bearing on the response to tickling. Again, the difference is not genetic, it is environmental.

Evolutionary biologists have developed theories to explain why some of these differences exist. I don't want to get into the explainations for why these differences are thought to exist but the point is that according to these scientists, some of these differences exist because these traits offered an advantage to the people that carried these traits. Of course, certain traits were an advantage only in certain areas due to differences in the environment.

Yes. For example, on the average, people of African descent are more likely to carry the gene that causes sickle cell anemia, because a single copy of this gene confers resistance to malaria. However, this is only the case for people whose ancestors came from malaria-infested areas of Africa, and not from other places. It doesn't directly have to do with being black. In this case, race is a proxy for what is actually an environmental condition based on geography.

1) It is clear that differences amongst the races exist. Why then, is it absurb to consider the possibility that members of certain races are, in general, more ticklish than others?

My assertion is that racial differences among human beings are overblown, 1) because of the human mind's tendency to categorize and exaggerate experienced differences between categories, and 2) because genetically, human races are less different than human individuals are from each other.

One final comment: Although I made reference to evolutionary biologists I am not claiming that I believe in the theory of evolution which states that molecules came together to form organelles, which formed cells, which yada yada yada developed into more advanced forms of life and then ultimately humans evolved from an species now known to be extinct.

Well, if you don't claim to believe in evolution, then why are you basing your whole argument on it?

 

[ShadowTklr]

Hey Lindy: Man did you save me a lot of writing, AND you covered more ground than I was going to include. Great thesis.

I have nothing to add, except..."Yeah, what she said." lol 😎

 

[BikerBadBoy]

or African Americans or Hispanics are more ticklish than other races however I would like to comment on this issue. I have read more than a few threads discussing the theory that certain races or ethnicities are more ticklish than others. I have also read replies by certain members of the community which state that the idea that members of a particular race are more ticklish than others is completely ludicrious. Like you, I've read threads which include dialouge detailing the extreme ticklishness of Asian girls while other members will chuckle and argue that it is silly to consider the possibilty that Asian females are more ticklish than their Caucasian counterparts.

As mentioned in the title of this post, I am not saying saying that one race is more ticklish than another however, I would like to comment on this issue and ask all of you for your input.

There are obvious differences between the races. I'll state a few of the obvious ones. Caucasians have lighter skin, Africans have longer appendages, Asian women generally have smaller breasts. Evolutionary biologists have developed theories to explain why some of these differences exist. I don't want to get into the explainations for why these differences are thought to exist but the point is that according to these scientists, some of these differences exist because these traits offered an advantage to the people that carried these traits. Of course, certain traits were an advantage only in certain areas due to differences in the environment.

My questions are:

1) It is clear that differences amongst the races exist. Why then, is it absurb to consider the possibility that members of certain races are, in general, more ticklish than others?

2) If you are a believer that members of a certain race (or races) are indeed more ticklish than others, please offer an explanation as to why this difference exists.

One final comment: Although I made reference to evolutionary biologists I am not claiming that I believe in the theory of evolution which states that molecules came together to form organelles, which formed cells, which yada yada yada developed into more advanced forms of life and then ultimately humans evolved from an species now known to be extinct.

All I can say is that this is very interesting. I've often wondered the same although I must say that the way a woman cares for her feet has more to do with it than anything else. However, if you have all races of women and was able to limit the variables and say they all cared for their feet the same, I wonder which would be more ticklish. I suppose there is something in DNA that might cause a certain race to be more ticklish. Would be a good study. Would love to head up the team and gather subjects. I wondered about something similar when I was a teenager. I often had the impression that redheads always had bigger boobs than blondes or brunettes. Not counting plastic surgery of course.

 

[Love2DayTrade]

Mastertank,

I enjoyed reading your post. I particularly found the following interesting:

"it makes sense that peoples who live in a more threat rich environment, in terms of subtle threats like snakes or insects or harmful pollens or such, as opposed to gross threats like getting shot or run over, might have a distinct survival advantage if they were more ticklish, and therefore might have retained a greater degree of ticklishness as a genetic trait."

"I surmise that the trying to keep in control is cultural, but I think the extreme helplessness when self control fails may be genetic; exaggerated displays of overtly submissive behavior as a defense mechanism to defuse aggression, the way baring the throat defuses aggression in wolves."

Thank you very much for your input,

DayTrader

 

[simulated]

LindyHopper hit pretty much everything, but here's my two cents on a couple of your statements.

1) It is clear that differences amongst the races exist. Why then, is it absurb to consider the possibility that members of certain races are, in general, more ticklish than others?

I challenge you to drive from South Africa through to Finland and draw a line, saying that everyone from south of here is black and everyone from north of this line is white.

I'll save you some time and let you know that it can't be done.

Furthermore, there is very little genetic diversity in the human race. A couple of key points.

The genetic differences that divide races appear to be new, geologically speaking, and tend to result from harmless mutations (differences in blood type) and adaptations to recent environments (skin color).

Traits that people consider important, like certain forms of intelligence and self-control, are most likely going to be important in mate selection, so alleles that enhance these traits will spread to spread throughout the human gene pool in all habitats and increase in frequency to a greater degree than alleles that don't. Consequently, alleles that favor useful traits will be overwhelmingly common in all populations.

One final comment: Although I made reference to evolutionary biologists I am not claiming that I believe in the theory of evolution which states that molecules came together to form organelles, which formed cells, which yada yada yada developed into more advanced forms of life and then ultimately humans evolved from an species now known to be extinct.

You have a very flawed understanding of evolutionary theory. I suggest doing some reading before making such broad claims.

 

[Mastertank1]

A statement which is quite true....

I challenge you to drive from South Africa through to Finland and draw a line, saying that everyone from south of here is black and everyone from north of this line is white.

I'll save you some time and let you know that it can't be done.

and perfectly irrelevant as well, because of three not so little words.
Those words are; migration, emigration, and immigration.
Because of those three words, there is a population of ethnic Sengalese who are now native to France. There are populations of ethnic Sudanese and Chadians now native to Egypt and Libya respectively. In South Africa there is a now native population of ethnic Dutch known as Boers, who are quite white, just as the Senegalese are quite black.
THAT's why no one can draw the line you speak of, not because there are such small genetic differences.

While the PERCENTAGE of genetic variation among humans may be small, the sheer amount of material in the human genome as a whole leaves plenty of room for that small percentage to incude a lot of highly significant differences.

In terms of percentages, there is less than 2% difference between the genome of a human and that of a chimpanzee. You gonna tell me those 1 point something percent of differences are irrelevant? You gonna tell me you can't tell at a glance who is human and who is a chimp?

Let me get more specific; within the same so-called race, there are ethnic differences that are clearly identifiable on sight, and some that are not.
I've been to Africa. Any long term resident of Kenya can tell at a glance who is a member of the Masai tribe and who is a Kikuyu due to clear ethnic differences. Similarly, farther south, in South Africa, anyone knows at a glance who is a Zulu and who is a Basuto.

On another level, in international running competition, most of the top finishers in any straight footrace are Africans, but in the really long distances they are all Masai from Kenya, while in the middle distance races they are Yoruba from Nigeria. This has happened far too consistently for far too long to be just coincidence.

On yet another level, scientists have isolated a specific gene complex which is found ONLY in descendants in an unbroken direct male line of the ancient Hebrew tribe of the Levites. Men posessing this gene complex are called Cohanes in the Jewish community, and they have a certain degree of added prestige even today, because they were the priestly class in ancient days.
In the modern world, the presence of this gene complex has proven that the claims made by certain visually black tribes in the African nations of Ethiopia and Niger, claims that they are Jewish by blood, were quite true. That complex showed up in exactly the same percentage of their men as it would in any European Jewish population.

My point is that while it is quite incorrect to claim that the classic view of 'race' has any major value in predicting the abilities and personality of an individual, it is equally erroneous to state broadly that there are no significant genetic characteristics which are ethnically distributed. The genome is too large and diverse for ANY sweeping generalization, positive or negative, to have any validity. As study proceeds, they'll probably find something that will even invalidate the sweeping generalization I just made!

That's all.

 

[LindyHopper]

My point is that while it is quite incorrect to claim that the classic view of 'race' has any major value in predicting the abilities and personality of an individual, it is equally erroneous to state broadly that there are no significant genetic characteristics which are ethnically distributed.

That's quite fair, Mastertank. Nicely done.

I think the thing I want to combat more than anything else is the notion that group differences can be used to predict the traits of an individual. If we ever did discover that, say, Asian women are more ticklish than Caucasian women (which I think is highly unlikely, for all the reasons I gave earlier), then inevitably, people would assume upon meeting an Asian woman that she must be more ticklish than the Caucasian woman sitting next to her. That would be folly, because variation within each ethnic group would far exceed the average difference between the groups. Imagine two bell curves with 99% overlap to visualize my point. Knowing that a woman is Asian would give only a miniscule amount of predictive power in guessing whether or not she is more ticklish than average. Yet people would assume it to be true, just as people assume that if a kid is Asian, he must be good at math.

This also seems like a good time to mention the difference between "statistically significant" and "of practical importance." If you get a large enough sample size, many things become statistically significant, meaning the difference between the two groups is unlikely to have occurred by chance. But even so, if the actual difference is very small, we can't honestly claim that the difference is "important," even if it is "signficant" in the statistical sense. This is even more true if the within-group variance is large. In other words, if we did figure out that Asians are "significantly" more ticklish than Caucasians, by like 1 point out of 100, that would tell you very nearly jack-sh*t about any particular Asian woman you might meet.

Thanks Tank, for helping me get to my real point. I appreciate it.

 

[simulated]

My point is that while it is quite incorrect to claim that the classic view of 'race' has any major value in predicting the abilities and personality of an individual, it is equally erroneous to state broadly that there are no significant genetic characteristics which are ethnically distributed. The genome is too large and diverse for ANY sweeping generalization, positive or negative, to have any validity. As study proceeds, they'll probably find something that will even invalidate the sweeping generalization I just made!

That's all.

I concede the point 😛

 

[ShadowTklr]

I concede nothing....NOTHING I tell ya! You'll never take me alive. AHAHAHAAAAAA!!
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Okay. Good point.

I have to say, MasterTank, I always enjoy reading your treatises regarding the historical human condition. You appear to be quite well traveled. Oh, and before I forget....you lucky bastard! Where did you get to tickle all these women? Only 90 women? - Well "EXCUUUUUUUUUSE MEEEEEE!"

 

[Love2DayTrade]

Lindy and Simulated,

Thank you for your posts.

I found the following interesting:

"The most genetically "different" human beings on Earth include the Australian aborigines and the Basque people of southern Europe, which most people do not consider separate "races." Comparatively, whites, blacks, Asians, and Native Americans are genetically very similar to each other, and the genetic diversity within each group far exceeds the variation between groups. Our typical classification of them into different "races" is based on features that are salient to us: namely, skin color and facial appearance. These features, however, are poor indicators of overall genetic difference."

This is an area in which I will do more reading on.

I mentioned that Africans have longer appendages because I have heard that having long thin appendages will increase one's surface area to volume ratio and therefore allow the body to release more heat. The ability to release more heat would certainly be an advantage in hot areas of the world such as Africa. Now I do realize that other parts of the world are very hot and we don't think of those people as having long appendages. I am not saying that it is a proven fact that Africans have longer appendages because this was an advantageous trait in Africa, it is just something that I have read.

I added the bit about not claiming to believe in evolution because I didn't want this discussion to quickly turn into a Creation vs. evolution debate. I realize that many people are passionate on this issue (with good reason) and I simply didn't want to start debating Creation and evolution. This discussion would belong in the "General Discussion" form.

Simulated,

Please tell me what part of my statement on the theory of evolution was flawed. Of course what I wrote was a simple explaination of what is thought to have happened, but what about it was incorrect? I have read some good books on this topic...The First Chimpanzee, Oxygen (which has interesting sections on biochemical evolution), The Red Queen, ....evolution sections of biology textbooks, and other articles from various periodicals. Of course I am not proclaiming myself an expert in the field. I am just trying to say that I am somewhat knowledgeable on the topic. What books have you red and which would you recommend?

 

[tklcouple]

"race" and tickling

A very interesting question.

All in all I would agree that the whole idea of "race" has been blurred by modern travel and crossing over of genetic lines and in the grand scheme of reality there is only one race - the human race. Genetics probably do influence how ticklish you are without a doubt. That having been said, are people whose ancestors tend to have been recently indigenous to a certain part of the world tend to be more ticklish compared to others? I do not feel it is possible for us to answer this question: we simply do not have the data to tell for sure. Case by case experience can show the undeniable truth that despite any real or perceived trends that individual variation does and will continue to exist, but cannot be genrealized to whole populations. To really get an answer to this question in a valid scientific manner would require the systematic tickling of thousands of men and women with collection of a mammoth amount of data for comparison and then a leap of faith to think if that result can be generalized to the world population at that time. That population which is constantly changing anyway.

Bottom line, as much fun as it would be to study and speculate this is a question which will likely not ever be accurately answered. So let's just tickle a whole bunch of people of all types, shapes, sizes, "races", etc. and have fun doing it all.

My $0.02,

Professor Tkl​

 

[Mastertank1]

Like it says in the song;

I concede nothing....NOTHING I tell ya! You'll never take me alive. AHAHAHAAAAAA!!
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Okay. Good point.

I have to say, MasterTank, I always enjoy reading your treatises regarding the historical human condition. You appear to be quite well traveled. Oh, and before I forget....you lucky bastard! Where did you get to tickle all these women? Only 90 women? - Well "EXCUUUUUUUUUSE MEEEEEE!"

I been every where, man! 😉
For 9 years I was chief bodyguard to a real estate tycoon who spent 9 months of each year traveling around the world to inspect, buy and sell property. We went EVERY dam where. Once. when a journalists asked how he would sum up what he did for a living, he grinned and said; "I play Monopoly with real hotels." He did, too.

The reason I said 'only' 90 is because while 90 is a large number for an individual's personal life, it is far too few for a meaningful statistical sample (or should I say statistickle?).
Long after the fact, I realized that there was a reason, totally unrelated to any merits of my own, for my having had such successd during the 7 months I spent in the Phillipines; conditions were so unsettled, politically and economically, at that time (early 1970s) that they were being extra accomodating to Americans in hope of being taken to the USA.
Most of the others were encountered in the New York City area, where the ethnic diversity is simply astonishing, and people of virtually every ethnicity there is will be encountered. Hell, NYC has NEWSPAPERS in Gaelic, Ladino, Basque, Tagalog, Ainu and Lapp! That means there must be enough readers of those languages to support a newspaper. As a paralegal, just before moving to Pittsburgh I prepped some documents to establish a Kossovite University (Kossovo, on the border of Serbia/Macedonia/Bosnia) in Brooklyn!
I don't think any other place on earth matches the ethnic diversity of the NYC Metro area. FUN!

 

[Iggy pop]

I have met ticklish, very ticklish, and not so ticklish of every race. Honestly, I think race has very little to do with it.

I did find Matertank theory interesting, about ticklishness being related to vital body parts, but it makes me wonder why some people are really ticklish in certain areas and other are not. Sometimes in the same family.