Tickle torture

File:Tickle torture.jpg

A woman with nice breasts is tied down and tickled on her bare feet.

Tickle torture is the use of tickling to abuse, dominate, humiliate or even "prank" someone. The victim laughs even if he or she finds the experience unpleasant because the laughter is an innate reflex rather than social conditioning. The term is often used to describe the act of tickling when prolonged for a long period of time in a sensitive area of the body.

In history

Chinese tickle torture is a term used in Western Society to describe an ancient form of torture practiced by the Chinese, in particular the courts of the Han Dynasty. Chinese tickle torture was a punishment for nobility since it left no marks and a victim could recover relatively easily and quickly.

Another example of tickle torture was used in Ancient Rome, where a person’s feet were dipped in a salt solution, and a goat was brought in to lick the solution off. This type of tickle torture would only start as tickling, eventually becoming extremely painful.

Consensual tickle torture

In the world of sexual fetishism, tickle torture is an activity between consenting partners. A torture session usually begins with one partner allowing the other to rope them up in a position that lays bare parts of the body particularly that are sensitive to tickling. Though many parts of the human body are deemed ticklish, tickle torture is commonly associated with the tickling of the bare feet or armpits.

The bondage methods of the tickling usually follows the same basic methods. The object of the bondage is to render the victim unable to remove themselves from the tickling, as well as rendering the tickling areas of the victim vulnerable.

The restraint of the arms above the head will leave the upper body and underarms susceptible to the tickling.

Foot

Foot tickling remains the most torturous part of the body. A threat to tickle one's foot is considered the most disliked by the victim, yet can yield the loudest fits of laughter. This is due, in part, to the fact other parts of the body are often protected by a layer of clothing when tickled, while the feet are often bare when being tickled. Women are usually the victim of such torture, though men can be the victims just as much, depending on the various ideals and opinions of the scenario.

There are several methods of tickling a victim's foot.

File:Solletico sotto i piedi.jpg

Woman tickled with a feather between the toes

• the wrapping of the body in a "mummy wrap" will leave the feet bare and vulnerable.
• Toe ties may also be used to restrain the toes of the victim, as it is widely regarded that the skin between and under the toes is far more ticklish, and the restraining of the toes would inhibit the curling of the toes that would protect these areas.

Tickle torture can also be used as a form of hazing.

Evidence of tickle torture

There are a small number of documented instances of tickle torture. They happened in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in these instances restrained victims were tickled upon the bare soles of their feet, apparently against their will and for the pleasure of their tormentors.

There is currently no evidence that tickle torture was ever widespread or was practiced by governments. The very small amount of related documentation discovered thus far is all from England and America.

A Sunday, September 6, 1903, special to the New York Times included a small item on its first page (page 1, no byline), "Treated Patient Brutally." At the Hudson River State Hospital, one suicidal patient, John Hayes, was immobilized on a bed for his own safety. While he lay helpless, the patient's toes were multiplied by one of the hospital attendants, Frank A Sanders. "Sanders is said to have confessed that while intoxicated he amused himself by tickling the feet and ribs of Hayes and pulling his nose." (page 1) Sanders also gave his restrained victim a black eye. Another hospital employee came upon Sanders while he was entertaining himself at his patient's expense, and the criminal was brought before a grand jury.

Another instance of documentation is found in David Ker's New York Times article, "England in Old Times" (page 11 of New York Times, November 13, 1887), where Ker writes, "Gone, too, are the parish stocks, in which offenders against public morality formerly sat imprisoned, with their legs held fast beneath a heavy wooden yoke, while sundry small but fiendish boys improved the occasion by deliberately pulling off their shoes and tickling the soles of their defenseless feet."

Additionally of interest, the April 14, 1872 New York Times article (page 11), "Terrible Punishments: The Russian Knout and Turkish Bastinado--How the Punishments are inflicted," the author (byline of L.G.C., no name is given, only initials) refers to foot tickling in an effort to explain the intense pain caused by the bastinado. "I have heard men cry out in agony . . . but I never heard such heart-rending sounds as those from the poor bastinadoed wretch before me," the author remarks. Three paragraphs later he writes "Such is the bastinado. And of the intenseness of the agony which its infliction produces, one has only to think of the congeries or plexus of delicate nerves which have their terminus in the feet. Even 'tickling the soles of the feet has often produced death; what then must be the excruciating pain when cruel violence is done to those most sensitive members?"

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Woman tickled with the feather pen under the sole of the foot

See also

• Tickling fetishism
• Spastic
• Massage
• Death from laughter