AffectionateDan said:
Tickling's such a simple, innocent thing, yet it provokes such intense reactions. And it ranges the spectrum from innocent horseplay to erotic foreplay. How many other kinks can you say that about?
Well, there's whipping....
I can remember when I was a kid being held and gang whipped. It was all innocent fun. Sure, I was scared at first, especially when I'd burst out in unconrollable yelling. (OMG, I'm so whiplish!) All the other kids around me just smiled and kept crackin' their whips. It seemed like every week we'd end up whippin someone to tears. Whew! That was sooo fun! I never thought of it as turn-on then, but eventually I did...of course, that's when I started thinking I was the only one. Alas, then I found the Whipping Media Forum....
(I'm being silly of course
😛, but I couldn't think of another "kink" akin to tickling. Hey, YOU do better! LOL)
Well, to keep this on-topic, I'm only out to those I've played with. It's really for many of the same reasons others have already mentioned, so no need to rehash.
I will add one point of note: Sometimes I think it's not the "taste" for tickling that is potentially embarassing, but the lengths to which I've already gone to satisfy it (e.g., videos, stories, TMF, yahoo groups, chats, meeting strangers under various circumstances, etc. etc.) And although I can keep perspective, for many who don't "get it" and/or who don't know me very well, that just doesn't look "balanced" at all when it's laid out like that.
For example, if I let my "vanilla" friends know I had a tickling fetish that wouldn't seem nearly as bad to me as if they stumbled upon my picture in the TMF Members Pics page or tripped over a stack of tickling videos on my living room floor....but hey, maybe that's just me.