Dear Dr. Milrod:

My husband confessed to me that he gets off on tickling me! What to make of it and why is this a fetish? How could we make this a part of our sexual repertoire? I don’t care, as much as I just find it funny!

Laughing Lolly

Dear Laughing Lolly:

A tickling fetish is like any other fetish – a specific behavior that becomes associated with a sexual feeling in the tickler/ticklee. As to why fetishes are fetishes, you’ll have to read John Money’s book “Lovemaps” for an in-depth investigation of the topic.

Anything – a person’s attributes, an object or a situation can be fetishized. In my own clinical experience, all my fetishist clients have been male; hence I believe that you need a hefty dose of testosterone to be able to associate an otherwise non-sexual phenomenon or item with something that can bring you to orgasm. Please note that I am conceptualizing tickling as a non-BDSM phenomenon, and also an activity that is not viewed as foreplay or a component of intercourse. For some, BDSM includes tickling and in that case, plenty of females do enjoy it. But they don’t necessarily orgasm from it or lubricate from it the same way that a man would. And again, there are outliers. I am speaking of the majority, not anyone in the extreme.

The correct word for a tickling fetish is knismolagnia. If you are the ticklee, establish a safeword so that you don’t pee in your panties or have an otherwise hysterical reaction. Some people can get seriously and/or adversely stimulated from tickling and what begins as laughter may end up in tears and anger. Many people have been tickled as children by cruel playmates and they do not enjoy it at all. Others have watched on the sidelines as some poor kid has been tortured and felt such excitement that it has become associated with a sexual stimulus (as stated, this happens to males, predominantly). And, since most things can be bought these days, a tickling partner shouldn’t be that hard to come by.

It sure beats some more extreme forms of fetishizing, although some of us would rather have root canals than get tickled under armpits or feet for an extended period of time!

Christine Milrod, Ph.D.