I gotta agree with DVNC. Personally, as a switch, I do not get insensitive to touch after 30 minutes, and as a dom, I have also met women whodon't de-sensitize, either....
And as far as the woman's skin being tough and harder to tickle, well, she may have had tough feet, but that just means the tickling would have to be that much rougher ( were feathers ALONE used?); besides, if she were a highly placed wife of a shiek, she was probably bathed, massaged, pampered and oiled up on a daily basis. Probably didn't walk much, either. Sut sat around the house (Life in a haram was incredibly boring, actaully). If she did travel, she was probably carried or rode a beast of burden.. I'll bet she was pretty sensitive.
However, two things bother me about the story. 1.)The woman died, but didn't lose consciousness, apparently. I'm suprised loss of consciousness didn't happen in some point. 2). I have searched the Internet and the local library, and -except for other sitings on tickling web pages - I cannot find Vie Sahara, "Life in the Sahara", de Beaunay, or anything about tickling shieks anywhere. It's as if this book doesn't exsist or something.....
I don't doubt it could have happened. I spoek with a woman from Shang-hi, China, who confirmed that tickling was used "a long time ago, in the old days" as a method of execution when the king was displeased. By king, I think she ment the regional king or emperor, specifically, the last Han Emperor... he was the one that took the separate areas of China and brought them together into the one huge modern China that exsists. He was also the one who came up with the worst, cruelest punishments.
According to this woman a person (usually always male) was hung up (occasionally hung upside down) and tickled by two or three people for a long time - hours. And they dies similar to how the Saharan woman died, by convulsions or stroke. I assume hanging someone upside down was marginally merciful because it quickened the process. It was not used often and was not an "offical" punishment, it was more of a private thing that the king did when someone had personally offended him or gone against him (like Freddo going against the family) as the king would watch it happen in front of him for his entertainment.
"It took a long time." This woman told me.... "It was actually very mean!"