Feeling Out Of Step

Yeah, I understand your concerns. Surprisingly, I also worry about the same thing as you, whether playful tickling can be considered as potentially sexual harassment or not. Even I sometimes tickle my friends as a small joke. In my opinion, once or twice as a joke is okay, but as soon as it gets to the point that you are continuing to tickle to the point it is torturous for your chosen lee when they've been asking you to stop, that's the line we must draw.

Another huge factor to me to differentiate sexual harassment and engaging within a kink is obviously consent. If your lee or your ler has both consented to either be tickled or to participate in the action of tickling, then I suppose almost all situations of tickling are abolished as sexual harassment. But for comfortability and safety's sake, do have a safeword. Whether it is needed or not, it is better to be safe than sorry.

But please, try not to worry too much about legalities, but rather, the actions you can take to prevent your situation from reaching that point of turmoil.

Thank you for reading, and I wish only the best for you

No, I didn't take it in the "cranky jerk" way! I think you're just expressing your feelings about your experiences, and the disparity between how you feel and how you wish to feel. Very open, honest, valid feelings about the whole thing while maintaining respect and fairness to how the majority, let's say, of the community engages with one another. While I don't completely have the same experience, there are elements of what you said that I can resonate with. Each of us are individually feeling out this whole thing for ourselves in our own way, with our own set of values, backgrounds, and baggage. One thing I'd encourage you to think about how this is kind of an iceberg fallacy (in terms of the part about you feeling jealous and left out). It is easy to make a lot of assumptions and build your understanding around how most people in a group (like ticklephiles) are and behave. But that's only based upon the ones you can observe (the tip of the iceberg). How many never even make an account or use the platforms you do? How many have trauma that has affected their perception of engagement similarly to you, but maybe even to the point where they won't even post something like you just did? You're not alone. There is a whole spectrum of engagement in all different groups or categorizations of people. Some are just more visible and appear to represent the majority.

On the one hand, there's nothing wrong with feeling like you don't like that form of engagement and not wishing to participate in it. On the other, if you value that kind of engagement, but merely feel impeded by trauma-induced or other unwanted feelings and reflexes, consider working with a professional to help you overcome specific behavioral roadblocks to the elevated experience you want for yourself. If you still want that, but do not wish to pursue professional guidance, I'd suggest focused journaling: map out those things that you want out of this fetish, those things you don't want, and those things that keep you from getting to some of the things you do want. Sometimes when you have committed your feelings, which can be quite grey and difficult to wrestle with, into written or spoken words, they become much more able to be grasped and processed. From there, you can slowly work through those feelings and change your perception of those that affect your thoughts and behaviors in ways you find undesirable.

Whatever the case, I'm sorry you're feeling this way and I wish you the best!

I will not discount your feelings. I can only tell you a little bit of how I see you.

I will only say that there are people who value you, find you extremely interesting, who want to meet with you just on the strength of you being exactly who you are.

How could you ever think that YOU are unremarkable and uninteresting! You?! I'm sure there are people who wish they could be free to do some of the things that you get to do. Positive of it!

You are much more special, normal, wonderful than you think. We are always harder on ourselves. I wish you could see yourself how others see you.

I'm really glad you put this out there. I know exactly what you're talking about especially with the discord tickle servers. I'm a member of several as well, although I haven't been on in quite a while due to a number of reasons. While I completely understand where you're coming from, maybe my perspective will shed some light for you since it's coming from the other side of the coin.

As a lee-leaning switch, I have definitely been in those situations (mostly in discord tickle servers) where it feels more like a pack of wolves hunting a gazelle than a playful exchange between ticklephiles. And some of those have made me uncomfortable even if they weren't directed at me. But more often than not, if I'm not the target, those situations have made me feel jealous and isolated. "Why aren't I getting teases or attention?" "What's wrong with me?" Those thoughts may sound silly and selfish, but that's what was running through my head a lot of the time. On the other hand, if I was the target, they made me feel great--wanted, pursued and seen. Now does that mean there were never times that lines were crossed with teasing? Absolutely not. There were times when I had to message a person privately and ask them to tone it down. But a lot of the time, teasing is happening with people who have previously established relationships. Maybe boundaries haven't been discussed at length, but it's not just some stranger teasing another stranger (usually...).

But a lot of the time people are hanging around these discord servers because they're in a mood. They want to tease or be teased. And it can feel uncomfortable at times because like you said, as a bystander you don't know what everyone's relationships are like. Are they friends with this person they're teasing? Have they known them for years, or maybe they've never spoken before. There's also a lot of energy flowing--dominant, hungry, mischievous ler energy; submissive, playful, bratty lee energy--all coming from several people. It can be a lot to take in, and it's even more intense if you don't have the complete context of all the relationships in the room. So I definitely wouldn't say you're coming off as a cranky jerk. You're just concerned for others and maybe feeling like I sometimes am--jealous and isolated.

I also know I'm not the only one who has gotten a sour taste from engaging in or even just witnessing those exchanges. I know some people have gotten uncomfortable, and a lot of people have gotten jealous--whether it be a lee getting jealous cause they're not getting attention, or a ler because they're watching another ler give someone they've played with teases. A lot of jealousy, and frankly it makes sense to me because these can be sort of weird dynamics on these servers.

For what it's worth, I've spoken to a few who like you have had trauma or bad experiences in this realm, so they are hyper vigilant when it comes to teasing and checking in with comfort and boundaries. Frankly, I really appreciate the care those people took to make sure I felt comfortable and safe. I never expected to receive public teases from them in the servers but that was completely fine with me--I'm more of a private/DM teasing kind of girl anyway.

Hopefully my rambling was at least somewhat helpful. Feel free to send me a pm if you want to discuss things further.