Tickling

Tickling is the act of touching a part of the body, so as to cause involuntary twitching movement or laughter. Signals from nerve fibers associated with both pain and touch are associated with tickling sensations. An odd thing about the leather community is that those players who are into large amounts of pain are very anti-tickling.

I usually see tickling happening in conjunction with predicament bondage. The body’s response to tickling is to release endorphins just like it does when faced with pain. Because of the endorphins, the play high is the same and the boy drop is the same.

I use tickling when doing a long-term spanking session. It changes the stimuli and breaks up the routine. It is normally very unexpected.

In BDSM, the submissive is tied down and the ticklish areas are exposed. The Dominant starts off slow and tickles with a feather and builds up to intense tickling over the duration of the scene. The tickling starts off being pleasant, but then degenerates into severe pain. This appeals to the Dominant who likes to hurt his submissive but it also appeals because the victim is helpless and it is a well known fact that tickling is not in fact a pleasant experience. It is also easier to tickle someone than it is to use whip, so new Dominants frequently use this form of play to control another.

As with all other forms of play consent is critical. Limits and boundaries need to be set before the scene starts and the safe word of a submissive should never be ignored. The responsible Dominant needs to ensure that his submissive remains safe and the responsible submissive needs to ensure that the Dominant is informed of anything that might influence the level of play.

Boy Jake and I had to have a conversation about just this topic. I have used tickling on boy Jake off and on throughout our relationship. He gets to the pain quickly and reacts accordingly. During a session at Master’s house, Master yelled at me to stop tickling boy Jake. Honestly, I was offended that Master had stepped in to a situation between boy Jake and me. I immediately mentally recited my mantra and calmed down. Latter that evening, Master explained that boy Jake had told him that he was held down and tickled by his big brothers until it was painful. Boy Jake had explained that he despised tickling. I was dumbfounded. Boy Jake had never told me any of this. In his defense, he thought that he was following orders and letting me do what I desire. I do not think he will make that same mistake again.

Like all the things we do, we have perverted a childhood action into something that we derive sexual pleasure from. So the next time you have a boy tied down and he is looking at you, his eyes a saying “Come on Sir, make it hurt so good!”