“There are pretty girls who will go ‘hee-hee-hee’ and are cute, but the majority of fans want really intense tickling,” Master Jay said.
Tickling Media Forum also has a strict “no minors” policy. No one under the age of 18 may visit the forum and the administrators have had to remove media that appeared to feature minors, no matter how benign. Last year, someone posted images on Tickling Media Forum of Adrian Pasdar of NBC’s “Heroes” tickling his then 17-year-old co-star Hayden Panettiere at a red carpet event. The forum’s administrators immediately removed the images.
Despite its growing popularity, tickling hasn’t receive the mainstream acceptance of other fetishes, like foot fetishes, bondage, submission, S&M or other whips and chains stuff that has crept into the mainstream through portrayals in film, television and music videos.
“Now you see S&M culture in everything,” Master Jay said. “It’s on ‘Family Guy.’ There’s a generation of people that have grown up with this stuff and it’s no big deal.”
A spokesperson for the Dungeon of Mistress Elizabeth, a professional dominatrix club located in Manhattan, said that only 85 of 8,100 guests in the club’s database listed tickling as a preference.
“Most people aren’t going to think of tickling as a weird or hideous thing,” Kastile said. “But neither are they going to be like ‘Oh, its normal, like kissing.’ We are as accepted as we are going to be.”
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Audio: Adrian Taylor talks about the role tickling plays
in his life today. (5:20)
