Analyzing a Tickle

I never liked getting tickled that much. When I was little, my eldest brother used to pin me down and tickle my armpits ’til I turned blue. He had this sadistic laugh that greatly annoyed me and he made me scream for our mother who was busy cooking in the kitchen. I fought back, of course, using my legs and feet to push him away. However, he was still ten years older than I was, therefore I was still very much under his mercy. I begged for him to stop.

A tickle is supposed to be funny and cheerful. Nobody said it could be joyously agonizing as well. Normally when we laugh, we do not want the laughter to end. But when we laugh because we are tickled, we ask for it to stop. Immediately. Usually, the tickled part of our body stiffens up, to “soften the blow” perhaps, but it’s never enough. We do a mind-over-body mantra in our heads, which rarely works. And so with our hands, feet, elbows, and knees, we fight to be left alone.

Why is it that when one is presented with a good joke, he accepts it? He laughs heartily until things come out of his nose or until he busts a gut. A tickle elicits laughter from him but somehow this same person rebukes it. A tickle offers mirth and amusement but it gets a menacing slap on the wrist. A tickle and a joke both offer laughter, but are received differently. What, then, is the difference?

Is it mere physiology or is it something else? Are our nerves merely excited, sending signals to the brain, which naturally wants to rid us of the excitement? Or is it the sudden contact to one’s body by something foreign and strange? Is it  because of the invasion of one’s personal space — an arm’s length all around you,  to be exact? Are we so guarded that laughter is surely welcomed… but only at a certain distance?