Posted by Rip on November 29, 2003 at 20:58:25:
Usenet is a huge resource that is full of useless, yet interesting information, but of course the price can be rather steep as it can take hours and hours of sifting through useless junk to find something worthwhile. That is where I come in! I do all of this for you and you STILL won't let me pork Date your Daughter. I mean when does the fucking Respect come into play here?
Hi.
I am mostly a lurker, but I have a reasonably good cartoon tickling page up whose URL is:
http://www.rit.edu/~wwl2461/art.html
(Ripper Note: The webpage this link refers to was a dead link. Clicking it will now take you to the Yahoo group: ticklingtoons2.)
On that page is a comic strip of a woman being tickled to death. In the comic, it takes up to four days before the woman is about to die from all the tickle torture.
But what I was wondering is if it were possible to literally tickle a woman to death, and if so, how long would it take?
Please treat the inquiry in the upmost seriousness, because I'd really like to know for my next tickle torture comic strip.
I once wrote a paper on the history of torture a very long time ago back in college. The limited info I found on tickle torture was this: the Chinese would completely immobilize a person and suspend them upside down. Tickling would be done by the opposite sex, and the ticklers would be specially trained in all the right spots and methods for tickling. The victim's muscles would spasm very shortly after the tickling began, and after an hour at the most, pain would set in replacing the laughter. The victim would then be continuously tickled until their diaphragm and sometimes, even their heart collapsed due to the continuous motion of the muscles. A variation of this torture was to just suspend the victim from the arms or immobilize the feet. The victim would then have free movement of the rest of their body and avoid the muscle spasms resulting in total immobilization. The first type of tickle torture was used as a form of execution, while the second was a sexual past-time of Chinese nobility who would watch peasants giggle and squirm as they had their feet tickled.
But what I was wondering is if it were possible to literally tickle a woman to death, and if so, how long would it take?
Yes it is possible, there are to ways it can happen
One is if the brain is consistently not getting enough oxygen, your tickle victim will suffocate. Care taken with breaks, and watching closely will allow the tickler to avoid this problem.
The second is harder to predict. A person being tickled for too long can have a heart attack. If they are restrained in such a way as to prevent CPR, well, that would be a foul ending to a scene . . . You tied them up and you killed them, you go to jail.
LOL but not too many
Kujman did research on this for his group and posted some historical material as compared to the ticklers-fantasy beliefs a year or so ago. Posting actual accountings, and the university books they came from. So maybe he could help you in your search if he is still available. He sent several of us actual copied pages at that time.
But from what I recall there was only few real accounts of a Chinese nature — not quite like described in an earlier post here — also an English or French method that included tightening a metal corset about the chest so as to constrict the breathing thus causing death, and/or pouring of water down ones throat during the tickling, and things to the effect of how tickling was truly used and also just how scarcely it was used. I would like to think maybe it just skipped being written down in history books. I know I would have been too busy having a good time doing it to record it. :)
My apologies if I have mixed up the details, but I am searching for the posts.
-Bob
Here is a repost of some tickled to death stories I posted a long, long time ago (that may have been my first ever post!):
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TICKLED TO DEATH
In the 1884 book, Vie Sahara, Jacques de Beaunay wrote of the treatment sheiks accorded unfaithful wives: "Sheep were slaughtered and a great feast was laid. . . . The wretched creature [the unfaithful wife], who was surprisingly pretty, had been stripped well nigh naked. The attendants seated her in a high place, bound her, and then proceeded to tickle the soles of her feet with feathers. At first she laughed, a fearful, frightened laugh tinged with hysteria.
"The sheik and his guests gorging themselves the while on rich foods, laid wagers on how long the doomed woman should survive the inhuman ordeal.
"As hour after hour passed, the tickling of the woman's feet continued unabated. Gradually her uncontrollable laughter changed. It was a demoniacal thing! She writhed and squirmed in attempts to free herself, but her bonds held her fast. She screamed through her laughter, until, toward the end, she was seized with convulsions, and died shortly after. It was almost dawn."
An article entitled "Ticklishness is No Laughing Matter", Popular Science, April, 1961, states that a Dr. Sandor S. Feldman of the University of Rochester Medical Center, NY, "speaks of people being tortured by tickling during religious persecutions in Cevennes, in Southern France, in 1760. Some of these may have been tickled to death— by being thrown into fatal convulsions or suffering a heart attack from the strain of the ordeal." It states that another authority "notes that many Roman gladiators died laughing—a reflex action from wounds in the abdomen, a touchy part of the body."
An article in Esquire entitled "All Right What is a Laugh, Anyway" by Richard Selzer (July, 19??) states: "If he does not stop [tickling], you may die of it. In medieval Germany, in Rotenburg an der Fulda, people did. There, in that place, prisoners were trussed in metal or leather to restrict expansion of the chest. Salt was rubbed on feet; goats were invited to lick it off."
In an article entitled "The Biology of Laughter" printed in Psychoanalytic Review (Summer, 1966), Joost A. M. Meerloo states: "The Romans used tickling as a cruel punishment. On the scaffold the soles of a victim's feet were covered with a salt solution so that a goat, attracted by the salt, would lick it off with his rough tongue and continually tickle the skin. By so doing, the salty skin was gradually rasped away. Then, the wounded skin would again be covered with the biting salt solution—ad infinitum, till the victim died from the torture." This article also provides further details on the physiological reasons why some people can die from prolonged fits of laughter.
In "Psychology of Sex," Havelock Ellis quotes Prof. A. Allin "On Laughter," Psychology Review (May, 1903): "A number of instances have been recorded of death resulting from tickling, and there is no reason to doubt the truth of the statement that Simon de Montfort, during the persecution of the Albigenses, put some of them to death by tickling the soles of their feet with a feather."
"The Little Book of Horrors," edited by Sebastian Wolfe and still published by Barricade Books, contains a supposed reprint of an old newspaper article, the headline of which is "A WIFE DRIVEN INSANE BY HUSBAND TICKLING HER FEET." The text is as follows: "On Thursday, last week, a very serious charge was preferred against a man named Michael Puckridge . . . The circumstances . . . are of a harrowing nature. It appears that Puckridge who has lived very unhappily with his wife, whose life he has threatened on more than one occasion . . . Mrs Puckridge, who is an interesting looking young woman, has for a long time suffered from varicose veins in the legs, her husband told her that he possessed an infallible remedy for this ailment. She was induced by her tormentor to allow herself to be tied to a plank, which he placed across two chairs. When the poor woman was bound and helpless, Puckridge deliberately and persistently tickled the soles of her feet with a feather. For a long time he continued to operate upon his unhappy victim, who was rendered frantic by the process. Eventually she swooned, whereupon her husband released her. It soon became too manifest that her light of reason has fled. Mrs Puckridge was taken to the workhouse where she was placed with the other insane persons. . . . An inquiry was instituted and there is every reason to believe that Mrs Puckridge had been driven out of her mind in the way described, but the result of the investigation is not yet known." The article is accompanied by a Victorian style drawing illustrating this scene!
Thats how i wanna die.Tickled to death.
Having actually endured goats licking my own soles at Renaissance faires many, many times– I can personally attest to the ticklish nature of the subject. The goats just don't stop, and after a few minutes you believe that your sides will actually split as you scream in laughter that you can't hold in.
Of course this is done in a historical setting and with authenticity. What has been recreated here are closer to the German version, though ours is actually French from the French courts; from our studies and teachings of it to fellow performers– While these tortures did take place, the 'tickling to death' is just a phrase as you actually died from suffocation. Either by a metal corset slowly tightened until you could not breathe, or by the pouring of water down one's throat via a funnel strapped to the face, as one was tickled.
I am happy to say we eliminate those parts. :)
Wow . . . the first gal I read a posting from that had her feet licked by goats. One of my tickling fantasies, have a gal's feet tickled by licking! :)
Anyway, that Renaissance faire wouldn't be in any mid-west States, would it? The ones that I've gone to, here have stocks, but they're for visuals, or for the head and hands . . . nothing for feet torture! /sigh/
Hey what good is tickling someone to death anyway? You'll never get to tickle them again! ;)
What does not kill you, makes you stronger....
Can someone really be Tickled to Death?
How much Tickling can one really take?
How would it feel to be restrained and Tickled by someone who is a genuinely Sadistic Tickler?
How would it feel to be taken far beyond ones' limits?
What would it feel like TO Tickle someone to that point?
I would like to know.
Hi everyone. I am a 40 yr old male in the NY/NJ area.
Over the years, I've heard of a few cases of this which may or may not have an element of truth. There was a book that came out in the 1980s with answers to commonly asked questions, and one of them was about this very subject. The answer that was given for it was mainly in the form of an anecdote from medieval Europe, about some cult that didn't believe in the shedding of blood. Therefore, their method of capital punishment was to tie people down and spread salt on their feet and then bring in goats who would lick it off and in the process drive the poor wretches to their deaths, which sometimes took days on end as reported in this source. A more merciful variant of this story I've heard is that the victim would be also bound tightly around the chest, and when the tongue-tickling started, the victim would of course laugh hysterically but the tight chest-binding had very much the effect of being constricted by a python, i.e. it interfered with the victims' hysterical gasping for air and thus hastened death.
Another time, and I think it was reported on the precursor to this newsgroup, I read about some guy in 19th century France who went on trial for murdering his girlfriend by tickling her relentlessly until she died. Also, and again it might have been on this same early newsgroup, I remember some mention of a sultan in the Arab world who had a habit of tickling his wives' feet until they died.
And the latest I've seen was a letter in Dear Abby from a few years ago on the (unfortunately relatively common topic in her column) of men tickling young girls to excess. A lady had written in to comment on one such letter, and she reported that her grandmother used to tell her a story from her early life in late 19th and early 20th century Ireland about a man in her village who was discovered to have been murdering a succession of wives by tying them to the bed and tickling the soles of their feet with a feather until they died.
I know I could be perpetuating a bunch of urban legends here, but I just thought I'd shed what little light I could on the subject. And I just want to say also that even though I admit that occasionally I have brief, rage-induced fantasies of tickling to death certain women who have been mean to me (and as I write this I have a particular fresh target in mind), this stuff isn't my bag; In my opinion, nothing compares to the joy of consensual B&D and tickle-torture just for fun and love, with clearly set limits.
To me, this is an interesting set of questions. Who of the tickle people haven't fantasized about pushing the tickling envelope? In my own case, I always want the wife to take up tickling with more goal setting as a tickler. She is a ticklee over 99% of the time. The questions fascinate me, but I hope I don't get overlong-winded in my responses.
Can someone really be Tickled To Death?
I don't believe it is possible to tickle someone to death, that is by tickling alone. You would have to add something else to the mix, such as a heart attack on an aneurysm or some such, which can happen any time. Also there can be an artificial way to restrict breathing as explained by NedStacy2. "Tickle to death" in our context presumes the end by lack of oxygen due to forced laughing, even when there is no air left in the lungs. Back in my first aid classes we were told it required at least two minutes (give or take) before someone could possibly even pass out from lack of air. After four minutes (give or take), brain damage would set in. That gives about a two minute margin for error to the tickler. It takes six minutes (give or take) for death to ensue.
Now, first of all, my wife is overwhelmingly ticklish on her upper ribs and armpits. I usually save these areas for last. A large percent of our ticklings result in silent laughter which means she has zero air left. When silent laughter starts, I tickle with pure enthusiasm until she goes through two or three laugh cycles, then we pause a few seconds, then we start again. In our younger days, I occasionally timed the silent part of her laughs because that is a part I really enjoy. Usually she goes through five to eight seconds of head shaking, eyes begging, no sound, laughing before a desperate gasp. The longest silent laughing I ever timed was seventeen seconds. These days that's too clinical, so I just tickle as long as necessary. Assuming someone is much more ticklish than my wife, I still think you can't get to even a minute, before they will manage to take in some air.
The heart attack is something else. I've chased her until she was begging for a rest before any tickling ever started. She is quite slender these days, but for about ten years (from her mid thirties to mid forties) she was a very full-figured lass. I used to threaten to "tickle her to death" to make her run. Then I would chase, deliberately not catching her sometimes for several minutes, chasing up and down stairs and around furniture before she would quite literally collapse into the fetal position in a futile effort to protect herself. She's about five-one. At her peak she weighed around two-thirty. I sometimes feel a little guilty about that in that I never stopped to think about the possible strain on her heart. I just know we both seemed to have such fun with this that I didn't give it a second thought in those days. Maybe if there are any full-figured ladies reading this, you might provide some input as to whether this fear (or guilt) makes any sense. In retrospect, I hope if there were a real problem she would have brought it to my attention. The point is it would have required more than just tickling to be really dangerous.
How much tickling can one really take, and how would it feel to be restrained and tickled by someone who is a genuinely Sadistic Tickler?
This completely depends on the individual. I had an aunt that loved anything connected with tickling so much that I never saw her "give up." Every tickler ALWAYS tired long before she reached her "limit," whatever that means. I believe there are some "ticklees" here that have a greater capacity than did my aunt.
How would it feel to be taken far beyond ones' limits?
If it really happened, I suspect it would feel like torture.
What would it feel like TO Tickle someone to that point?
This is a tough one. In my opinion, most people are at least somewhat ticklish. Furthermore, I think most ticklish people like getting tickled at least a little, sometimes. I think we are taught early in life that we are SUPPOSED to HATE getting tickled. I think it is part of the tease to ACT like our limit is reached in the first second. There has to be a way for the ticklee to let you know that the real limit is now.
In our house that happens by a slightly different flexing of her muscles throughout her body, and a slightly different pitch in the screaming. It has always been my job to stop at that line of the "limit." We don't use safe words. Early in our marriage I became carried away on a number of occasions. It was a mistake, and I knew it when it was happening, and it was reinforced for a day or so afterwards. IMO, tickling is something that is supposed to be fun for both parties. The ticklee can ACT like it's some horrible experience, which can give you that "sense" of the fantasy of torture. I now can honestly say that when I crossed that line, it was no longer fun for her, and it killed the fun for me. Tickling is intense fun only when the ticklee is enjoying it as much as the tickler. That's how I feel about it, anyway.
Tickle fun is an attitude. There have been countless times that one of our "complete ticklings" has consisted of me giving the tiniest hint of a pinch on the waist, say while she is walking up steps ahead of me. She then spins around, and walks up the steps backward, palms out in defense as I threaten her with two menacing index fingers. She is usually giggling all the way and ordering me to leave her alone. We haven't come close to any "limits," yet we are both having real fun. The entire actual tickling lasts about a hundredth of a second.
You can have frequent ticklings that go from threat (only) sometimes to the "limit" other times. If you use it that way, it becomes just one of those special things two people share with each other, and both can have fun with it for life.
Anyway, these are some of my thoughts on prolonged tickling.
As always, WT, you post so well that I struggle to do more than merely agree. Folks dying are going to be due to an existing weakness, like apnea, a heart condition (esp. if they have high blood pressure), stroke potential (weak blood vessels in the head), or intense phobias relating to tickling. As Toni points out in another post, folks normally will pass out long before. Even fatigue will not likely kill them, as the nervous system will respond with shock long before death is possible, save for the aforementioned additional conditions.
-DVNC
I dont believe that someone can be tickled to death simply because if the brain doesn't get enough oxygen the person will pass out and start to breath normally
The medieval Germans had a method, where they put the victim in a very tight leather corset. Then they proceeded to tickle the person till they asphyxiated. It did work, also the tickling can lead to heart failure, stroke, aneurism bursting, and if prolonged enough, central nervous system shut down. So there is another cause in the death, but the cause of the cause was/is tickling.
Can someone really be Tickled To Death?
How much Tickling can one really take?
How would it feel to be restrained and Tickled by someone who is a genuinely Sadistic Tickler?
How would it feel to be taken far beyond ones' limits?
What would it feel like TO Tickle someone to that point?
I would like to know.
I don't think someone could be tickled to death, at least not from laughing to death. (No air) . . . I mean, in my experiences, when someone was tickled up to their limits, they passed out. The body is nice that way; It protects you! I do think, however, that after repeated faintings, a person would probably die from exhaustion. Just my two cents.
-Toni aka TickleGal
I am dying to find out the answers to these same questions myself!
-Nici
LOL! Tickle people have the best puns. It's axiomatic.
All other things being equal, it's not possible to "tickle to death" someone. However, there sure is a lot of fun in the effort!
Can you hold out until July Nici?
Sources: alt.multimedia.tk and alt.torture