#knismesis tickling

[xxstr4wb3rry-m1lkxx]

Friendly reminder that I'm a short AND strong ler.

What? Is it embarrassing that you're being overpowered by someone smaller than you? Well...Maybe if you could've fought me off I wouldn't have tickled you. How pathetic. Oh well~

[thebest-medicine]

So I was thinking

if tickling is split in two, knismesis and gargalesis, where on the scale do the light tickles that induce laughter fall?

Like you don't apply pressure to feet like you would the stomach, youd do light tickling (ie tracing/scratching) but that induces gargelesis type of reaction

Idk these are the thinks I think about during 2am lee moods

I like the way you think. Good question!

[frimleyblogger]

Lost Word Of The Day (58)

Gargalesthesia - the sensation caused by #tickling #lostwords #obscurewords #logophilia

Are you ticklish? Are you lost for a word to describe the sensation of being tickled? The answer to your prayers is gargalesthesia, a compound derived from the Greek word gargalos meaning itching and esthesia is the scientific term for the sensation caused by tickling. In 1897 psychologists, Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin, found it necessary to differentiate between knismesis, a light,…

[mwahmimi]

“Wait! Wait! I didn’t have enough time to prepare!”

You beg him to stop and squeal at the first touch. Giggles falling from your lips before you even realise you’re doing it. You thrash your chest into Spencer’s, writhing under his fingers.

He chuckles in response, holding your wrists together and above your head with one hand. Squeezing up and down your exposed side with the other, his touch is firm but playful, taking extra special care in not pressing too hard onto your ribs. His smile beams a spotlight down on you as he watches you wriggle around, almost dancing to escape the sensation.

“You can’t prepare to not be ticklish! It’s a natural bodily reaction. Did you know there’s actually two types of tickling? There’s knismesis which is essentially the lighter touch, like a bug landing on you and the reaction being the itchy feeling you just have to scratch but it doesn’t make you laugh. And there’s also this, what’s happening to you right now. It’s called gargalesis, it’s a harder form of touch which causes that pretty laughter that I can hear right now, and that quite frankly, glass shattering squeal noise when I get too close to your underarm.”

Spencer exclaims. He chuckles at the same squeal he was talking about escaping your lips as his fingers spider-walk from your hipbone all the way up to your armpit, swirling a single finger around in gentle circles in the hollow of your arm.

You manage to knock your wrists out of his grip, pulling your arms down and wrapping them around yourself in a self-hug to protect your sensitive spots. Still letting out residual giggles from the brutal onslaught.

“Wow. You are super ticklish.”

He speaks with a smirk, swiping the hair that has managed to wrap itself into your mouth from your squirming away from your tongue and behind your ear. Spencer’s hands find the small of your back and his open palm rubs against your spine softly.

“You are the absolute worst Spencer Reid.”

You babble, unable to wipe the smile off of your flushed face. He smiles back down at you, pressing his chin to the top of your head shyly. Holding you in an awkward hug he sways you in his hold from side to side, rocking you gently. Your heartbeat slows and syncs in time with his, your fingers interlocking before he speaks.

“The worst at giving you a thorough, hands on education on bodily reactions that I think you should be grateful for.”

You loved this nerd.

[supermarvel-fics]

Tickletober Day 29: Ghost Tickles

fandom: criminal minds

word count: 840

pairing: spencer reid x reader (established relationship)

summary: spencer experiments when he finds out you've never been tickled before

“You’ve seriously never been tickled before?” Spencer asked you, surprise apparent in his tone of voice. You shook your head.

“No. I mean, not that I can remember. Maybe when I was little, but I haven’t been in the past 25 years. I don’t even know if I’m ticklish,” You shrugged, sighing a bit. Spencer pondered this information around in his head. He’d been with you for almost a year and he’d known you for 6 years before that. He knew that tickling was something couples normally did in relationships, but had never thought to do it himself.

But Spencer couldn’t ignore the faint pitch of disappointment your voice had when you said that you’d never been tickled like the girl in the movie you two had been snuggled up to watch together. So, he smiled and turned on his side to face you more directly, a smile gracing his features.

“Well… do you want to know if you are?”

You blushed a bit under his gaze, but nodded. “Yeah, I kinda do. But go easy on me! I know it can be torture for some people.”

Spencer chuckled. “There are two different forms of tickling: Knismesis and Gargalesis. We’ll focus on Knismesis which is just the light touches that give you goosebumps just to see where you’re sensitive.”

“Okay… yeah,” You breathed out, a bit nervous.

“Lay down flat,” Spencer ordered. You did as you were told, sliding down so that your head was pressed onto your pillow and your body laid flat on top of your mattress, hands resting comfortably at your sides. “Good. Now, we’ll try the most common places and if at any point you feel like it’s too much, just tell me to stop.”

You grinned and relaxed deeper into the bed. “I will.”

Slowly and cautiously, Spencer brought his fingers up to the soft skin just below your ear and gently ran them down until he reached the crook of your neck. A smile broke out on your face immediately and your shoulder scrunched up a bit. As he had described, goosebumps arose all over your body and a shiver ran down your spine.

“Woah. That felt like a ghost was tickling me or something,” You said, resetting your body back into the previous position. “It was weird.”

Spencer didn’t respond. Instead, he put more weight in his touch and used his blunt nails to scratch lightly down your neck again. You giggled this time and shrugged your shoulders up out of pure instinct.

“Okay, your neck is definitely ticklish. Give me your arm,” Spencer stated, holding out his hand. You eagerly held your arm out for him, watching every movement of his hand. He placed the pads of his finger onto your wrist and dragged them up to your shoulder, smiling with satisfaction when he felt the goosebumps return.

Then, without announcing what he was doing, he wiggled his index finger into the pit of your arm. You pulled your arm away from him and slammed your elbow into your side with another giggle. Your eyes widened as you made eye contact with him.

“That’s a pretty common reaction. Most people are really ticklish there, even to the lighter touch,” Spencer answered your question without you needing to ask. “Try and keep your arm up.”

You huffed and gave him your arm again. Spencer gently pinned it to the bed with his own and fluttered his finger in the hollowed space for a second or two more. You genuinely laughed this time, your body arching away from his fingers.

“Okahay! That’s bahad,” You laughed, pulling your arm out from under him. Spencer smiled at your reaction and nodded.

“It’s a place not many people can handle,” He replied. He rested his hand on your stomach, looking to you for permission. You bit the inside of your cheek and hummed a small yes.

Teasingly, Spencer lifted his palm so only his fingers were touching the skin through your shirt and he slowly dragged them across every inch of your belly, sides, and up to your ribs. Every once in a while, you’d giggle and shift away out of self-preservation, but tried your best to keep still.

Spencer found a wildly sensitive spot just below your navel and slipped his hand under the hem of the shirt just to flit his fingers across it, laughing himself when you let out a giggly whine and pushed his hands away.

“I think it’s safe to say that you are very ticklish,” He uttered, playfully digging into your side for a second. You yelped in surprise and shifted away from his hand. Spencer laughed again. “There will be another time to explore the other kind of tickling if you’re up for it. For now, how about we finish the movie.”

Smiling, you nodded and snuggled back into him, letting a breathy laugh shoot through your nose when he pressed a ticklish kiss to the back of your neck.

Now that Spencer knew better, he’d be doing that more often.

[feathergail]

NEW OCS ALERT!!!!!!!

my knismesis (jax, they/them) and gargalesis (ziggy, he/him) tickle monster ocs that I am now obsessed with :) I'll probably post shit about them a lot so feel free to ask questions abt them LOL

THANK YOU TO @TICKLISH-TOUCH FOR GIVING ME PERMISSION TO USE THEIR IDEA OF KNIS/GARG TK MONSTERS <3

[sickletadist]

Notes from Tickling Academic Paper

So, I thought I would do a summary post about this academic paper on tickle fetishism that was published in a journal called Frontiers in Psychology. The paper was done by 2 German scholars out of the Institute of Pathophysiology in Mainz, Germany.

These are just scribbles from the article, which I will link at the bottom.

The study got its data from polling on Twitter! The poll was shared by 5 influencers (I wasn't able to find who, but I will keep digging), who shared the poll with over 27,000 collective followers. Basically, a poll of tickle fetishists.

-The study was really looking at the connection between tickling and sexual desire, which unfortunately excludes people in the community who enjoy tickling from a non-sexual place.

-From the abstract, some of the data that caught my eye:

a quarter of the respondents reported experiencing orgasms only from tickling.

88% reported experiencing sexual satisfaction through tickling by itself

For most of the respondents, tickling desire decreased after orgasm

This next point was very interesting to me:

The degree of ticklishness in someone had a trend in dictating preference for being tickled rather than tickling someone. Basically, academia is coming for all of you ticklish Lees lol

Two types of ticklish responses are mentioned:

Gargalesis - This is more vigorous than playful tickling, with roaring laughter and uncontrollable reactions in the ticklee.

Knismesis - This is softer tickling, where the Lee is tickled by more gentle touches on the skin.

We all know these two types of ticklees. I feel bad for the Lees who fall into both camps...Not 🤣

It should be noted that a significant amount of respondents noted that they enjoyed both!

There was even a footnote about how back in the 60's and 70's tickling was used as an intervention treatment in certain forms of therapy. Unfortunately, upon further research of that point, it seems that the individuals who were often subjected to tickling were individuals who were living with mental health problems. It sucks that there is a moment in history where tickling served to enforce the ableism that existed (and still does) in society.

That said, that same footnote linked to a paper where computer scientists constructed a novel foot tickling device and tested it on willing participants (I think a bunch of Lees were just triggered with that last statement lol).

One thing tickling in the BDSM world has in common with the acedemic world is that it is hardly known or seen! A meta-analysis of over 200 studies on the particular topic of "touch studies" found ZERO instances of tickling mentioned. The authors note how odd this is given the prevalence of tickling in society as a form of playful behavior.

Now let's go to data from the results:

In terms of gender (unfortunately, the authors only polled for Male and Female, excluding quite a bit of our community who are non-binary, agender, etc), 74.3% were males, while 20.7% were females (it looks like there was a % that didn't identify as either that were excluded from the paper.

73.3% identified as East Asian, while Americans were 13.8% and Europeans were 8.3%.

79.7% identified as heterosexual.

The majority (56.3%) identified within the 20-29 age range while the 30-39 age group (my people) were only 22.5% of the sample.

Gender based analysis revealed (according to this study) that females tend to be more ticklish, and prefer lighter tickling (this surprised me, considering how many ticklish guys we know who are whiney and ticklish lol)

There is a pretty good balance of ticklers and ticklees, with Lers being 29.8% and Lees being 35.8%. 34.4% were switches (again, my people lol)

This next note is kind of endearing. More than two thirds of participants noted that exposure to tickling scenes in television influenced their tickle fetish. They even name dropped all the classics like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Popeye, Kikis Delivery Service, and even Lupin the Third!

Some more notable data points on sexual preferences and tickling:

25.8% of respondents reported never having sex (I am assuming that they mean penetrative sex of some sort)

55.8% of respondents noted experiencing arousal from BDSM acts other than tickling

37.6% of respondents report experiencing distress from tickling.

33.8% of respondents (the most of any group) reports engaging in 10-29 minutes of tickle activity on average during play.

70.1% of Lees reported enjoying childhood tickling, while ticklers at 20.6% enjoyed it much less.

This next data point hit home for me, because at one point I was convinced that tickling arousal was monopolizing my ability to be sexually aroused by othermeans.

-Sexual satisfaction by tickling alone shows a negative correlation with sexual satisfaction without tickling.

Basically, if you enjoy tickling, but unsure if you can enjoy anything else, there is a likelihood you do! That said, there are also people in our community who only experience arousal through tickling.

There was a section at the end who talked about how the higher number of Japanese respondents was likely due to the engagement of the tweet from the 2 Japanese influencers who polled their audiences. This could be due to the visibility and acceptance of tickle fetishism in Japan compared to America and Europe.

Overall, I found this paper to be important! Despite the few shortcomings, this could prove to be a great resource for understanding our community, and perhaps lead to a greater understanding of our fetish, for those who are interested.

What this paper doesn't do is get into the why questions of tickle fetishism, like why do we enjoy it in the first place?

It does mention briefly that tickling has been studied as an intellectual curiosity since the times of Aristotle, although there are histories of tickle fetishism that go back even earlier in non-western societies.

I hope this summary was helpful, enjoyable, accessible, and provided a positive experience through learning more about our community.

Here is the link to the paper

Frontiers | Tickle fetishism: pleasure beyond playfulness (frontiersin.org)

[katchleeifyoucan]

And, sorry to blow up your asks a second time, but what are “painful tickles”? I’ve never heard of that before…

haha no worries i love receiving asks so long as they’re respectful!

so “painful tickles” can mean different things to different people, but to me it means

i prefer gargalesis to knismesis. i prefer the pokes and prods to the feathers and light scratches. i prefer the hair brushes to the paint brushes lol.

i prefer tickle torture to the light and playful. i want to be restrained and pushed to my breaking point. i want tears streaming down my face and silent laughter. i want to feel completely humiliated and helpless. i want to safeword.

hope this helps 😅

[al-911]

What’s a knismopath?

A contraction of knismesis and psychopath, designed to show how intense my tickle kink is :) (or how much I overthink on tickle torture...)

[xxstr4wb3rry-m1lkxx]

I can't believe some people have ticklish belly buttons? I don't understand? I think...I'm sorry, I think I'm a visual learner. Care to show me what you mean, little lee?

|-Ler Peachy|

[ticklish-touch]

I decided to make one final redraw of my banner of Kenni and Rags for the epilogue of my Backrooms story.

I figured it would be fitting for it to be the last illustration I upload to this Tumblr.

These two have meant so much to me over the past ten years. Although I have many, many other stories, ideas and concepts brewing for all of my other OCs, these two - especially Ragaeli - have always been huge go-to comfort characters for me.

And I'm so, so incredibly happy that they've also been able to bring joy to all of my fans & watchers over the years. Seriously, it means so much to me to see how many people have been impacted by my art and writing in some way; it flatters me that so many people have wanted to know more about them or interact with them. It still blows my mind that my blorbos are one of the very first results that show up when looking up Gargalesis or Knismesis.

Going forward, I might not end up drawing them as much anymore. I really want to give Kama, and my other Dream entities, their time to shine. But these two tickle fiends will always be two of my main Muses. They're a reminder of values, kink-related or not, that I hold very near and dear:

Embracing one's love of adrenaline, spooky fun, chaotic intensity, and madness... And learning how to find comfort, serenity, and simple joys in life.

[laughterliberator]

2,10, and 17 please ☺️

Morning, Essie! Thanks for asking!

2. Gentle! All the way. Much prefer the reactions knismesis causes than gargalesis. (Though that depends on what gets the lee the best)

10. I’m gentle in a mean way, if that makes sense. My goal is that once I have you laughing, to keep you laughing. Which is evil, even with soft tickles.

17. My automatic, unprepared, natural teases tend to be teasy commentary on someone’s ticklishness. “Wow, I cannot believe how ticklish you are there!” “Are you sure your sides are that ticklish? Let’s check again.” “I don’t think we’ve found all your spots yet… let’s do another sweep.”

[tklpilled]

daily genshin hcs, day sixteen:

sucrose!

she knows everything there is to know about tickling

if the knowledge exists then she knows it

even if she doesn't, she has theories. ask her anything about tickling and you'll get an answer

she uses the scientific terms whenever she's talking about it, including whenever she's actively tickling someone

"i wonder if knismesis or gargalesis works better on you" girlie what are you saying

she probably uses like. actual scientific reasoning to figure out where someone is ticklish it's scary. she knows your worst spots instantly

she doesn't usually partake in tickling though because she herself is super super ticklish and she knows they'll just get her back lol

her ears are def really ticklish (who would have guessed)

honestly more of a lee!! she's super shy about it though

[jamiesgotchu]

Your free space to rant about whatever is here :D

it can be ocs or special interests or whatever even a vent because THIS IS YOUR CALLING TO TALK ENDLESSLY ABOUT ANYHING

:]

HIII!! EEK THANK YOU FOR SENDING THIS IN

I know this ask is a little old ,, it's because I couldn't think of anything to rant about kskjdjf

BUT! NOW I CAN!

Now this is gonna be pretty on par with my other content and my blog as a whole,, buuuut I'm gonna rant about it anyway, because GRAH!! It is a huge interest of mine!!

OOOOKAY. Tickles. YES we all know what those are (obviously) BUT did you know there's two kinds!?

The first type is called "Knismesis"!

Knismesis is the type of tickle that doesn't USUALLY induce laughter, but rather an itchy feeling, like a bug crawling across your arm!

This type is relatively easy to scientifically understand, with the example I gave already: if there were a spider crawling on you, your brain would alert you, in case it was venomous.

Pretty normal and regular stuff, right? Makes evolutionary sense!

WELL.

The SECOND kind of tickle is called "Gargalesis".

Gargalesis is the type of tickle that is usually harder, quicker, socially induced (like another person tickling you on purpose!), and generates laughter from the person being tickled!

So why does this silly little evolutionary mechanism exist?

THIS is a VERY interesting type,, because scientists can't figure out an exact reason WHY it exists.

Some people theorize it might be another version of instinctual defense- and some say it's a bonding technique, as observed in other primates like monkeys and gorillas!

(The example gif below is taken from GRACE Center's GoPro video on baby gorillas!)

The interesting thing about Gargalesis is that it's more vulnerable to anticipation tickles (like someone wiggling their fingers over a ticklish spot, and the subject laughing before the ler even touches them)

And! it's also observed in other animals as being a fun experience!

Animals SUCH AAAAAS: RATS!

Yup, rats are ticklish!! (Which is SO adorable)

And (even cuter!) They have been proven to ENJOY it!

There's a really awesome video I've seen a few times that explains this really well, and even provides some example videos!

The rats would emit small chirps and "giggle" noises upon being tickled on their bellies or under their chins, and if the hand would move to another place, they would run after it to be tickled more!

(Which btw. Working as a scientist tickling rats all day sounds like the best job ever, I'm jealous)

Dogs are also ticklish!! Yknow when you find that spot on a dog's belly that makes thier leg do that kicky thing? That's a form of Gargalesis! Even though it doesn't produce noises like rats, chimps or humans, dogs have also been proven to enjoy it!

(As long as they're not attempting to get away from you, of course. If that's the case- don't tickle the animal!)

OOOKAY! Thank you for sending this in, anon!! I SUPER appreciate it, I've been looking for an excuse to talk about this for a BIT EHBFJDFN🫶🫶 I hope you enjoyed reading!!

(TLDR: ticklishness is super scientific and SUPER silly)

[sophieinwonderland]

"And the weirdest thing of all is just… people can’t tickle themselves. Like, the bodies. For whatever reason, you can’t physically take your fingers and tickle your body." Not true for everybody. I can tickle my own feet for some reason but not anywhere else. No idea why lol.

Oh! We can kind of do that too! But only with the feet. And the effect is also dampened a lot compared to if someone else was doing it. Well, maybe a little bit in other places in very specific ways, but I don't know how much that counts as real tickling. (Like, if we slowly rake a finger across the skin.)

Huh... let me just step out a minute and Google something...

I was right! There are two different types of tickling!

The light touch tickling involving nerves on the outer skin is referred to as knismesis while the harder touch tickling is gargalesis. And let me just say that I love the mental image of a couple psychologists sitting around debating scientific names for different types of tickling! 🤣😁

Anyway, to be totally clear, it's the second form of tickling, the gargalesis, that we can't cause ourselves.

I should also mention that the body isn't very ticklish in general. That seems to have worn off, for whatever reason. (I know my host was ticklish as a child but the body isn't anymore.) This might be another reason for this not being effective.

Actually, I think the body might have gotten more ticklish to other people since I came into existence and we were doing the inner world tickling.

I've mentioned before that my host has a kid brother. Anyway, he occasionally tries to tickle my host. It seems in the past couple years that this is more effective than it used to be, and we've been wondering if me with my inner world ticklishness has had something to with the change in the body. (But an alternative hypothesis is just that the kid has gotten better at tickling in the last few years, so who knows. 🤷‍♀️)

[marvin-wtf]

Just an old fanfic I did back in the day, about Wednesday lol

I had uploaded it to Ao3 but I said to myself, why not upload it here too? There are two parts, it is possible that I will upload the second part later or tomorrow, enjoy :D OH YES SORRY FOR THE BAD ENGLISH OK-

The day had passed normally at Nevermore School. the students did what they wanted, after all, they were teenagers, and we all know how they can be. Meanwhile, Wednesday and Enid were in one of the rooms, the roomies who had little or nothing in common, but who managed to take their strange friendship one step further. Wednesday would never admit that she is Enid's girlfriend, yet everyone knows it because that wolf cub would not stop yelling it right in the face of anyone who was interested in hearing it.

They were both on the colorful side of the room, Wednesday just wanted to be free of all that black for a moment, change the scene to see if she could get some inspiration for her novel, which clearly didn't work out but she was comfortable since Enid was lying down on her lap looking at her phone.

Enid was begging for a long time for caresses from the brunette until she finally agreed, that could de-stress her a bit, she was thinking for a long time, she deserved it. She gave soft caresses to the werewolf's stomach, mostly to make her feel good. While she saw her reactions out of the corner of her eye, she had noticed that Enid at times moved her leg as if she were a dog, what made her curious.

“Your leg… doesn’t stop moving every time I scratch you” Wednesday said with a soft tone, although her face remained expressionless.

“Huh?” Enid looked away from her pone to see her girlfriend, the looked down at her belly “Oh, yeah. That happens haha! It’s like an involuntary reflex”

“a reflex?” She did not hesitate to scratch a little more to see her girlfriend’s leg moving again.

“Yep! It’s like dog. Weird, isn’t it?”

“More than weird is… curious, I guess. Apparently causes knismesis”

“...Kni what?” tilt her head like the confused puppy that she is.

“Knismesis, the kind of tickle that don’t make you laugh but causes you to move the leg, and there’s the other kind, Gargalesis” While scratching the blonde’s torso she had begun to fit her fingers a little. “Those are the ones that produce laughter, that everyone usually does”

“¡EEK!” She squealed due to the sudden tickling and reflexively slapped Wednesday’s hand. Realizing what she did, and that in fact, her girlfriend was staring at her with a shocked expression had scared Enid “Wednesday I’m sorry! I-I didn’t… I-I…”

“Hm… Do you know Enid? Tickling at some point in history was considered torture, not foy physical harm, it didn’t leave a single scar” She dug her fingers into Enid's stomach again, causing her body to tense. “All the damage was psychological, they spent hours and hours tickling the victims” Wednesday began to slowly move her fingers, slowly increasing the pace as she spoke.

“P-Pff O-Okay okay understood, do you want to sto-” and was interrupted by Wednesday's talk.

“They came to spend days in torture, even months just laughing non-stop while all those tickles tormented their bodies.” Despite talking about something as silly as tickling and, by the way, doing it, she looked serious and that intimidated the blonde, so she doesn't move from her place. Her fingers moved all over her torso, digging and scratching without stopping, when Enid wanted to stop her, Wednesday moved her hand to another side further away from her girlfriend's hand.

“H-Hahahahahaha!! W-Wednesday!” She looked up again to see her brunette girlfriend “I-I Gehehehehe it!! Cahahahahan you sto-pfff!!” At this rate she was laughing out loud, Enid was starting to kick as the tickles were too precise, it was like Wednesday knew where to attack.

“Something like that was how the victims begged, no matter how much they asked for mercy they never stopped, at least until they fainted from lack of air. I'd really like to try that method, but I can't find anyone ticklish enough to push them to that limit.” That last one seemed more like a joke, but no one knew that, she said it so seriously.

At this point, the blonde was laughing uncontrollably, twisting her body as she kicked, even cowering to try and cover herself, but nothing was working. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! W-WEHEHEHEHDNESDAHAHAHAY!!!”

“Tell me, Enid” She looks down to finally notice her girlfriend. A small smile forms on her lips from the way she laughs and twists, she thought her desperate laugh was so cute, but she wasn't going to say it out loud.

“STOHOHOHOHOHOP IT!!” The brunette nods her head removing her hand from the body of the little puppy who was still laughing while taking a breath, a couple of tears in her eyes. “Y-You… *chuckles* you're good…at this”

“Meh, I only read some of the techniques in the torture books”

Enid had risen from Wednesday's legs to sit on the bed beside her. Despite having laughed so much, she looks already recovered, a werewolf thing. "You know? When someone tickles you and stops, it's legal to tickle that other person”

“Yeah, you can see that I don’t have”

“Really? Is that an invitation to find some sensitive spot on your body, honey?” she had a mischievous grin on her face, she even raised her hands wiggling her fingers a little.

“If that’s what you prefer to do all night, go ahead” Her voice was firm. Wednesday was sure of herself… but was what she said it right? What if Enid could find some weak spot in her?

Stay tuned.