Over the centuries, tickle torture has been used by everyone from the Romans to the Nazis to punish or interrogate prisoners.
Public DomainWhile a person being tickled may appear to be enjoying himself, tickle torture can be extremely painful.
Tickling may seem like a harmless and playful act, but it actually has a long and complex history that stretches across different cultures and eras. Its ability to immobilize and cause discomfort has fascinated people for centuries — and some cultures have even used “tickle torture” as a form of punishment.
Powerful regimes like the Han dynasty and the Nazis have used tickling as a torture method to interrogate, abuse, humiliate, or dominate their victims. The Roman Empire also utilized tickling as a punishment method, sometimes even having goats lick salt off the prisoner’s feet to intensify the victim’s suffering.
And for those who experienced it, tickle torture was no laughing matter.
Tickling’s Relationship With Pleasure And Pain
Anyone, especially those who grew up with siblings, can understand the misery of being tickled. The act, involving a person repeatedly scratching or prodding at another’s sensitive areas, stimulates a reflex that usually involves uncontrollable laughter and squirming.
In ancient times, Aristotle posited that ticklishness was unique to mankind. He claimed this was because of our sensitive skin and supposedly singular ability to laugh. However, later experiments with animals, including chimpanzees, rats, and even trout, would debunk this theory.
Regardless of whether ticklishness is a uniquely human quality, tickle torture’s effectiveness at rendering a victim immobilized and uncomfortable would continue to fascinate people for centuries.
Public DomainPietro Longhi, The Tickle. C. 1755.
During the Early Modern Period, tickling presented philosophers with a fascinating case study into the nature of pleasure and pain.
According to Cabinet magazine, the philosopher Descartes claimed that the act of tickling caused the body to excite in a way that closely resembles pain. One experiences pleasure, he said, “when the objects of the senses produce some movement in the nerves which would be capable of harming them if they did not have enough strength to resist it” — as happens when one is tickled.
He further explained this curious relationship between pleasure and pain in his Letter to Voetius:
“We naturally take pleasure in feeling ourselves aroused to all sorts of passions — even to sadness and hatred — when these passions are caused merely by the strange happenings we see presented on the stage, or by other such things which, being incapable of harming us in any way, seem to affect our soul by titillating it.”
It’s because tickling elicits this pain response that it became part of history’s rotation of trusty torture methods.
The Use Of The Bizarre Method Throughout World History
Tickling as a form of punishment and torture has its roots in many parts of the world.
During the Han dynasty, the Chinese reportedly used tickle torture because it had a quick recovery time and left no permanent marks on the victim. In Japan, a form of tickle torture called kusuguri-zeme, or “merciless tickling,” was part of shikei, a system of inventive and cruel “private punishments” used against an offender.
And while many tormentors favored tickle torture because it rarely inflicted lasting damage, in extreme cases, it can reportedly cause asphyxiation, aneurysms, and other stress-related injuries.
To punish criminals, the Romans used a particularly brutal form of tickle torture involving goats.
Wikimedia CommonsA painting depicting goat’s tongue tickle torture.
The victim’s tormentors would tie him up and dip his feet in saltwater. Then, a goat would lick the immobilized offender’s feet, keeping the victim in a state of physical agitation and eventually pain as its rough tongue wore through his skin.
Dutch physiologist Joost Meerloo described this bizarre form of punishment in his 1966 The Biology of Laughter:
“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.”
During the Victorian Age, tickle torture appeared in a number of accounts of domestic violence. In 1869, a story published in the Illustrated Police News told of a woman and her husband, Michael Puckridge. Puckridge told his wife that he had discovered a cure for her varicose veins — and after tying her to a plank, he proceeded to tickle her feet until she purportedly went mad.
Another famous story, also between spouses, involved Pierrot the Clown, a famous pantomime character.
The fictional 19th-century play titled Pierrot, Assassin De Sa Femme by Paul Margueritte describes Pierrot tickling his wife, Columbine, to death. Margueritte was reportedly inspired by a couplet by writer Théophile Gautier:
The tale of a husband who tickled his wife,
And thus made her laughingly give up her life.
While many of these accounts are entirely fictional or impossible to authenticate, their contents still hold value for historians and academics. Why was tickle torture a recurring theme in art and media? What does it say about the human psyche — or perhaps, human sexuality?
Tickle Torture As Sexual Gratification
Public DomainTickling has been compared to erotic pleasure.
Some historians have reanalyzed historical accounts of tickle torture through the lens of erotic fantasy.
According to Meerlo, accounts like those of Michael Puckridge and Pierrot are not simply tales of spousal abuse but rather metaphorical stand-ins for sexual gratification.
“In a deeper sense, being tickled to death means taking part in sexual orgasm and experiencing the sterbe und werde feelings (to die and to be resurrected) provoked by deep ecstatic sexual satisfaction,” Meerlo explained.
Indeed, throughout history, tickling has been used in sexual play. Figures like Catherine the Great, who also may have owned a collection of erotic furniture, were rumored to take part in sexual tickle play.
One Russian regent, Anna Leopoldovna, is said to have had at least six attendants who would tickle her feet while singing obscene songs.
However, it is clear that tickle torture is not solely a sexual act.
Modern Uses Of Tickle Torture
Public DomainMan Tickling a Woman’s Nose with a Feather by Thomas Wade, c. 1860.
Unfortunately, there is evidence that political powers have used tickle torture to punish and humiliate prisoners as recently as the 20th century.
During World War II, a prisoner named Josef Kohout claimed he witnessed Nazis tickle a fellow prisoner as a form of torture.
“The first ‘game’ that the SS sergeant and his men played was to tickle their victim with goose feathers, on the soles of his feet, between his legs, in the armpits, and on other parts of his naked body,” Kohout wrote in his 1972 book The Men with the Pink Triangle. “He broke out in a high-pitched laughter that very soon turned into a cry of pain, while the tears ran down his face, and his body twisted against his chains. After this tickling torture, they let the lad hang there for a little, while a flood of tears ran down his cheeks and he cried and sobbed uncontrollably.”
Today, tickle torture is most commonly used in the domestic sphere, usually between siblings. Even in this case, however, it can be a form of abuse.
In a study published by family violence scholar Vernon Wiehe in his book Sibling Abuse: Hidden Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Trauma, a survey of 150 adults found that tickle torture in childhood produced extreme physiological responses, including vomiting, asphyxiation, and even urination.
In all of these cases, the person being tickled may be laughing through the pain. But as we’ve seen, there’s nothing funny about tickle torture.
After reading about tickle torture, dive into the story of Chinese water torture. Then, read about 11 medieval torture devices that go beyond cruel and unusual.
