There Is A History

In History Chinese tickle torture is a term used in Western Society to imply an ancient form of torture practiced by the Chinese, in particular the courts of the Han Dynasty. Chinese tickle torture was a punishment for nobility since it left no marks and a victim could recover relatively easily and quickly. Another example of tickle torture was used in Ancient Rome, where a person’s feet are dipped in a salt solution, and a goat is brought in to lick the solution off. This type of tickle torture would only start as tickling, eventually becoming extremely painful

Consensual tickle torture
In the world of fetishism, tickle torture may be found as an activity between two partners. A torture session usually begins with one partner allowing the other to rope them up in a position that leaves parts of the body particularly sensitive to tickling vulnerable. Though many parts of the human body are deemed ticklish, tickle torture is commonly associated with the tickling of one's bare feet.

Evidence Of Tickle Torture
There are a small number of documented instances of tickle torture. They happened in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in these instances restrained victims were tickled upon the bare soles of their feet, apparently against their will and for the pleasure of their tormentors. There is currently no evidence that tickle torture was ever widespread or was practiced by governments. The very small amount of related documentation discovered thus far is all from England and America.

First, 'Orrible Murder: An Anthology of Victorian Crime and Passion Compiled from the Illustrated Police News (by Leonard De Vries, published by Book Club Associates in London in 1974) (pp 73–4) reissued a news item first published in the Illustrated Police News on December 11, 1869: 'A Wife Driven Insane by Husband Tickling Her Feet.' The account states that Michael Puckridge had previously threatened the life of his wife, described as "an interesting looking young woman." Puckridge tricked his wife into allowing herself to be tied to a plank. Afterward, "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 the light of reason had fled. Mrs. Puckridge was taken to the workhouse where she was placed with the other insane inmates." (page 74) The husband was given away by Mrs. Puckridge's niece who was aware of the torture and spoke to neighbors about it. The article does not say if Puckridge confessed his crime to the niece after the deed was done, or if the niece actually watched the feather relentlessly scraping away at her aunt's soles, and ultimately, her sanity.

Second, a Sunday, September 6, 1903, special to the New York Times included a small item on its first page (page 1, no byline), "Treated Patient Brutally." At the Hudson River State Hospital, one suicidal patient, John Hayes, was immobilized on a bed for his own safety. While he lay helpless, the patient's woes were multiplied by one of the hospital attendants, Frank A Sanders. "Sanders is said to have confessed that while intoxicated he amused himself by tickling the feet and ribs of Hayes and pulling his nose." (page 1) Sander's also gave his restrained victim a black eye. Another hospital employee came upon Sanders while he was entertaining himself at his patient's expense, and the criminal was brought before a grand jury.

The third instance of documentation is found in David Ker's New York Times article, "England in Old Times" (page 11 of New York Times, November 13, 1887), where Ker writes, "Gone, too, are the parish stocks, in which offenders against public morality formerly sat imprisoned, with their legs held fast beneath a heavy wooden yoke, while sundry small but fiendish boys improved the occasion by deliberately pulling off their shoes and tickling the soles of their defenseless feet."

Tickle torture in popular culture
The Howard Stern Show has had several women on the show getting tickle tortured. A villain from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles named Don Turtelli uses tickling as a method of interrogation, such as tickling Zack's bare soles with a feather. Jake Redder is a popular fetish artist whose artwork often depicts women being tickled on the soles of their feet. Olive Oyl's feet are mercilessly tickled against her will in the 1934 cartoon Shiver Me Timbers.Olive Oyl, the girlfriend of popular cartoon character Popeye, was twice tickle tortured in 1930s-era Popeye the Sailor cartoons, evidently to amuse her captors:



Shiver Me Timbers - Olive is tied down, with two dripping milk bottles hoisted over her bare feet. Two cats are then set free and begin licking her milk-drenched feet.



Bridge Ahoy! - Olive dangles upside down from the edge of a girder, secured only by her shoe clinging to the girder. Knowing she is helpless, Bluto then peels back the sole of her shoe, revealing her bare foot, and tickles her incessantly.

Joshua Falken is an adult 3D artist whose computer generated artwork often features tickling scenes.

In The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior, Mathayus passes through a series of torture chambers, and passes by a cell (which he does not seem to notice) with four boys chained to a wall and being tickle tortured by goats.