Is Frenchtickling dead?

[Tickle Lover 1]

I've been around a long time and I remember when FT was INCREDIBLE. I'd look forward to their preview clips every week that would get posted on here.

I remember Anna, a young Veronique, Marielle (my GOD those tits <3), and all the others

Then FT killed any semblance of creativity and got more robotic. Every clip was "50% feet, 50% upperbody" and no in between (which actually usually meant 30% upperbody then 70% feet). Even if there were 2 lers they'd both be doing feet or both ub, never both at the same time. There was no creativity, no fun, no genuine enjoyment anymore. What made the site great was the amateur feel - they were girls next door who had never done any modeling or anything even remotely related to our kink, and experiencing it for the first time - true amateurs. The best was when Veronique would demolish a cute young girl and she was clearly loving every second of it. Or if it was an amateur girl doing the tickling, he'd just let her explore and have her fun as she saw fit. Instead, it was clear that the guy was boringly directing the girls on what to do.

It was my favourite site. It still is tbh, due to the vast amount of good content.

Nowadays though, it seems like things are shutting down. Veronique shows up sometimes but she doesn't look like she's having any fun anymore.

Any new clips that come out these days fall into one or more of these categories:

1) Very obese model (sorry, it's not attractive)

2) Extremely tattoo'd

3) Not ticklish whatsoever

4) Pro model which usually means not ticklish

5) Archive footage remastered

Sure there are some gems in there sometimes lately such as Mia and Lisie but I as someone who's bought probably $1000 of content from them over the years, it's depressing.

I suppose all good things must come to an end. Still though, sad, sad days.

 

[Comfort Eagle]

I still see nothing but gold coming from them, so I disagree.

 

[Tickle Lover 1]

I still see nothing but gold coming from them, so I disagree.

Fair enough, and I'm not going to argue anyone's opinion.

 

[dahoochman]

I read something on here - forget by who or when - that implied that there were accusations against FT of abusive and/or misleading conduct with their models. For example, not telling them they were going to be tickle tortured. Does anyone recall seeing that?

 

[maniactickler]

One of my favorites. they always have great content.

 

[SoleMates]

I read something on here - forget by who or when - that implied that there were accusations against FT of abusive and/or misleading conduct with their models. For example, not telling them they were going to be tickle tortured. Does anyone recall seeing that?

Yes, if memory serves it was a he-said-she-said situation with one particular model who didn't have a lot of credibility in the community. Nobody else took her seriously and it eventually blew over. Anyone who remembers different, feel free to correct me.

Oh, and while I'm here:

4) Pro model which usually means not ticklish

It's possible the handful of pros FT used were acting, but in my personal experience? This is horseshit.

 

[Iggy]

Xavier has been one of the better producers for the past while. His earlier work is better in my opinion, but that's because it was easier to get amateurs to agree to get tickled on camera. If you think about it, that's a pretty good run; he even got some of them to return.
These days, I think every producer has to rely on professional models.

 

[U.N.Owen]

Yes, if memory serves it was a he-said-she-said situation with one particular model who didn't have a lot of credibility in the community. Nobody else took her seriously and it eventually blew over. Anyone who remembers different, feel free to correct me.

I find it basically impossible to believe that a hugely established producer would be so stupid as to lie to or trick a model. What would even be the point? It's not like he was struggling to find models. And such a move would not only be grossly unethical, it would also be business suicide. It could even open him to legal consequences. It makes zero sense he would do it.

 

[bluey1]

FT killed any semblance of creativity and got more robotic. Every clip was "50% feet, 50% upperbody" and no in between (which actually usually meant 30% upperbody then 70% feet). Even if there were 2 lers they'd both be doing feet or both ub, never both at the same time. There was no creativity, no fun, no genuine enjoyment anymore.

I agree with this.

They had alot of hot models with great, smooth, sexy feet. Indra, Anna, Veronique, Lolah, Sandrine, Adelie, Linafox and Lisabeth, to name some. The problem was, for me, that after a while, every video seemed very much the same. Long tickling's, with models always laughing hysterically for the entire video. This sounds good in theory, but I found with French Tickling that there was no variety. It felt like, outside of the model, you were watching the same video over and over again. At UK Tickling for example, it's not generic; there are different reactions, different tickling techniques, different tickler's, revenge tickling's, etc.

 

[Malgus]

Speaking as someone who knows Xavier a bit I can understand some of these perspectives.

Xavier has told me a few times that he has had a lot of trouble recruiting new models. In the old days he would send messages on university message boards and use word of mouth. There was apparently a beauty and makeup school that had a bunch of their girls model for him. However, he now gets literally no interest from those sites and he'd had to turn to other ways to get models.
He has delegated the hiring process to a friend of his and I believe they usually just cold query women through Instagram. Sometimes they are just regular French women's social media accounts (that's how they found Khloe) but that hasn't worked since 2021. Ever since it's pretty much exclusively been women who are already BDSM related and have some sort of fetish accounts. As of now I don't think we're going to see anymore girl next door type models from him again. He doesn't think so either.
Xavier had told me he blames covid for making people too wary of meeting new people. Maybe.

As to criticisms of Xavier regarding his treatment of models, there are a couple I've heard.
1. There was indeed an accusation that he mistreated a model and lured her to a tickling shoot under false pretences. That has broadly been agreed by all parties to be the result of miscommunication. The model was brought along by her friend to a shoot and neither her friend nor Xavier properly went over what was going to happen in the shoot. She wasn't even aware it would be a video shoot until he started setting up the camera. After the shoot, she believed Xavier had lied to her and publicly outed him on twitter. Shortly after, her friend saw and communicated that they hadn't been lied to, the friend had just misunderstood. Nevertheless some damage was temporarily done.

2. There are a handful of broad accusations that Xavier does not explain to his models how widely his videos will be made available for sale or how popular they are. Allegedly several of the models who worked at the beauty studio were apparently very upset with him because they were not made aware that their videos would be widely sold and were instead only told that it was to a handful of people or for his private collection. There is also a line from his official recruitment page for the Objectifplume site which reads: 'Each of our videos (sold on our website) is a virtually unique item, sold in only a few dozen copies. Our videos are intended for an adult audience (due to a deliberate fetish aesthetic). However, there is never any question of erotic content.'
There is also the accusation that he doesn't pay wages that are equivalent to a full fetish shoot from a major fetish producer.

Now, the counterpoint to all this is firstly, I know for a fact that Xavier does remove models content if they ask him to. Secondly, the vast majority of his models use porn names (Khloe isn't really called Khloe, Stephy isn't really called Stephy.) This seems like an unnecessary step for someone who doesn't think their videos will be distributed much. Lisabeth even apparently had an official tickle fetish Instagram account for a while to communicate with fans. (I've only heard this since I don't have IG) The claim regarding the beauty school is unsubstantiated. And, while there is the Objectifplume recruitment page which doesn't look good, all but one of those models have gone on to work at FrenchTickling itself which I believe he is more open about it being a fetish site. Also, the claim of "no erotic content" may simply mean no nudity or sexual actions to be performed by the model.

Xavier has always told me that he believes that what he is making is first and foremost, art. He is capturing women's expressions to tickling in a real and authentic way. I believe that is his philosophy. That might be part of the reason some of his stuff is repetitive.

Happy to answer any other questions here or in PM.

 

[U.N.Owen]

Speaking as someone who knows Xavier a bit I can understand some of these perspectives.

Xavier has told me a few times that he has had a lot of trouble recruiting new models. In the old days he would send messages on university message boards and use word of mouth. There was apparently a beauty and makeup school that had a bunch of their girls model for him. However, he now gets literally no interest from those sites and he'd had to turn to other ways to get models.
He has delegated the hiring process to a friend of his and I believe they usually just cold query women through Instagram. Sometimes they are just regular French women's social media accounts (that's how they found Khloe) but that hasn't worked since 2021. Ever since it's pretty much exclusively been women who are already BDSM related and have some sort of fetish accounts. As of now I don't think we're going to see anymore girl next door type models from him again. He doesn't think so either.
Xavier had told me he blames covid for making people too wary of meeting new people. Maybe.

As to criticisms of Xavier regarding his treatment of models, there are a couple I've heard.
1. There was indeed an accusation that he mistreated a model and lured her to a tickling shoot under false pretences. That has broadly been agreed by all parties to be the result of miscommunication. The model was brought along by her friend to a shoot and neither her friend nor Xavier properly went over what was going to happen in the shoot. She wasn't even aware it would be a video shoot until he started setting up the camera. After the shoot, she believed Xavier had lied to her and publicly outed him on twitter. Shortly after, her friend saw and communicated that they hadn't been lied to, the friend had just misunderstood. Nevertheless some damage was temporarily done.

2. There are a handful of broad accusations that Xavier does not explain to his models how widely his videos will be made available for sale or how popular they are. Allegedly several of the models who worked at the beauty studio were apparently very upset with him because they were not made aware that their videos would be widely sold and were instead only told that it was to a handful of people or for his private collection. There is also a line from his official recruitment page for the Objectifplume site which reads: 'Each of our videos (sold on our website) is a virtually unique item, sold in only a few dozen copies. Our videos are intended for an adult audience (due to a deliberate fetish aesthetic). However, there is never any question of erotic content.'
There is also the accusation that he doesn't pay wages that are equivalent to a full fetish shoot from a major fetish producer.

Now, the counterpoint to all this is firstly, I know for a fact that Xavier does remove models content if they ask him to. Secondly, the vast majority of his models use porn names (Khloe isn't really called Khloe, Stephy isn't really called Stephy.) This seems like an unnecessary step for someone who doesn't think their videos will be distributed much. Lisabeth even apparently had an official tickle fetish Instagram account for a while to communicate with fans. (I've only heard this since I don't have IG) The claim regarding the beauty school is unsubstantiated. And, while there is the Objectifplume recruitment page which doesn't look good, all but one of those models have gone on to work at FrenchTickling itself which I believe he is more open about it being a fetish site. Also, the claim of "no erotic content" may simply mean no nudity or sexual actions to be performed by the model.

Xavier has always told me that he believes that what he is making is first and foremost, art. He is capturing women's expressions to tickling in a real and authentic way. I believe that is his philosophy. That might be part of the reason some of his stuff is repetitive.

Happy to answer any other questions here or in PM.

Interesting, balanced, thoughtful. Thank you.