h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On the whole, why should this be true? Anyone know?

I would love to know!! Perhaps it is due to some sensitive area of the body (like the funny bone that is not funny)..?
But then how come some people are more ticklish than others, and different people are more ticklish in some places - feet, armpits, sides - than others?

I would love to know!! Perhaps it is due to some sensitive area of the body (like the funny bone that is not funny)..?
But then how come some people are more ticklish than others, and different people are more ticklish in some places - feet, armpits, sides - than others?
I have an urge to go to google and check it out! (despite the urgency of a 10 page essay to finish in 4 hours, how I love to procrastinate)

Good old google!! Apparently scientists believe it is a natural reaction as defence against creepy-crawlies. That explains the panic side of it, but not so much the insane and uncontrollable laughter when someone tickles you.

I understand that ticklishness is related to trust. You can not tickle yourself. You trust yourself not to harm you.

Hmmm. How does that square with a potential suicide? Could you tickle yourself to death?

PP

So I trust no-one?

There is also a gender difference - men perceive touch differently to women so that a light pressure applied to a man's skin will elicit a smaller touch resonse than that same pressure applied to a womans skin. This means he is more likely to feel a touch as a tickle and she is more likely to feel a tickle as a touch, if you get my drift...

k

nerves causes ticklish, made worse by stress (ie not trusting the tickler) and dry skin

interestingly with the sound turned down, laughing and crying look very similar. Often one turns into the other, via the nervous laughter which means I don't to be threatened but I am so please get off.

Often people tickle as a supposed non-threatened way to gain dominance and the pecking order.

Don't know the answer but I do know that someone in London received a research grant to investigate this! Apparently the 'can't tickle yourself' also modifies tickling by proxy, ie you use some remote machine, which you control, to tickle yourself and the effect will be much more muted than if someone else does it.

Don't know if the lady concerned has finished her research but I tell ya, when you see someone doing that for a job, you realise you took the wrong path somewhere!

'scuse me Mr/Ms do you mind if I tickle you? It's for scientific research' - academics - easy life!

Kelli, I think you are contradicting yourself. You say that "a light pressure applied to a man's skin will elicit a smaller touch resonse than that same pressure applied to a womans skin". You then say something that sounds like you're suggesting that men are more ticklish than women. If the same touch gets a smaller response from an man than from a woman, this suggests to me that men are *less* ticklish than women. This would match my experience. All the men that I have known well enough to tickle haven't been very ticklish. I believe it's also a 'known fact' that women are more sensitive to touch than men, which would also mean that women are more ticklish.

I saw that I started this conversation once upon a time, and thought I'd bring it back to life and ask if anyone had any more input.

Its because tis one of the last thing to make them laugh about themself and other if they where tickeld .
Somebody do that to make some body happy but they aren't ticklish . If you've hoped to read something like biolocical stupid stuff sounds like some gen there or our forfathers used it to make their foes dizzy ,its nothing to me to say so because I don't know something about . Sorry don't want to burry your time but take it as it is : its one of the last things people can laugh about .

sweet dreams Marcel - Pierre