Welcome to the Podiatry Arena forums, for communication between foot health professionals about podiatry and related topics.
You are currently viewing our podiatry forum as a guest which gives you limited access to view all podiatry discussions and access our other features. By joining our free global community of Podiatrists and other interested foot health care professionals you will have access to post podiatry topics (answer and ask questions), communicate privately with other members (PM), upload content, view attachments, receive a weekly email update of new discussions, earn CPD points and access many other special features. Registered users do not get displayed the advertisments in posted messages. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our global Podiatry community today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
Only a matter of time Mark. Foot frolics as we know have boomed in the last twenty years and now there are well over one million websites dealing with sensual foot antics. The exponential rise has been associated with the discovery of blood borne viruses and many experts believe naughty foot games are a genuine attempt at safe sex. So it has a serious side too. I am often called upon to give advice to fetish practitioners on infection control. Indeed when I attended a sexology conference earlier this year in San Francisco I was delighted to see how seriously the S&M industry took duty of care in the protection of their members (no rude innuendo intended) and their clients. Before anyone scoffs the S&M industry is worth billions. To illustrate the interest in just one peccadillo, foot tickling, take a visit to the Tickling Media Forum (TMF) at:<http://www.ticklingforum.com/index.php> This is a site similar to the Podiatry Arena but compare the hit lists in the dicussion forums.
"No one knows where the toes goes, when the lights go out."
Any back to rap and hip hop, a few years back the Wu-Tang Clan and their company released a new line in nail paints through Wu Nails. In their New York salon you could choose from over a hundred colours as well as have the band's logo and members faces embossed on your own nails. The band cleverly included reference to their painted nail products in their songs thereby ensuring sales. The group all had their nails varnished but according to official sources preferred clear polish, top and tail.
Makes you wonder just how many patients (and/or podiatrists) cultivate secret fantasies in the private confines of the foot clinic. If only we could read minds, huh?
I remember playing some gigs in New Orleans (in another lifetime), and I had acrylic nail extensions bonded to my right hand as the originals were cut too short. When I asked the girl in the nail salon whether it was unusual for men to have nail extensions, she replied she had well over a dozen regulars, including a couple of rednecks, who had various colours and shapes.
Tickling is not a laughing matter. Exactly why we have this mysterious response has baffled scientists until now. But research to be published next week indicates that although tickling may trigger smiling and giggling, it has as much to do with amusement as crying while cutting onions has with sadness. For the first time, psychologists have compared emotional reactions to tickling and to humour and found big differences. Tickling, it seems, is no joke; and may be an involuntary way of toughening up vulnerable parts of the body, or a way of encouraging rough-and –tumble play in developing children.
Tickling has long been a source of fascination: Socrates, Aristotle, Bacon and Darwin have all had views on its purpose and effects. “Darwin claimed that in order for laughter to be elicited, there must be an element of surprise, a pleasant hedonic state. In essence he argued that the tickle is a physical joke,” says Dr Christine Harris, an authority on tickling from the University of California and the lead author of new research being published in the Journal of Cognition and Emotion.
Much of the fascination with tickling lies in its inherent contradictions and riddles. Why do we smile at something we often don’t like and which can be painful? Why can we be tickled but not tickled ourselves? Is the reaction to tickling a reflex or a social behaviour? Why are some people more ticklish than others? Why are some parts of the body sensitive to tickling and others not? Can a machine tickle?
Tickling theorists have established there are two types of tickle, and whether it makes you laugh or not depends on the type of tickle.
“Knismesis tickling is a light or feather touch, an annoying sensation or movement across the skin. Gargalesis is the heavy or laughter-associated tickling,” says Dr Samuel Seldon, a dermatologist at Eastern Virginia Medical School. One of the areas of investigation is whether garagalesis tickling is a reaction or reflex or a behaviour. To shed light on this mystery, Dr Harris set out to compare emotional reactions to tickling, to jokes and to pain, to see whether there were any differences or similarities. “No work has tested for negative aspects of tickling or tried to determine what internal states drive ticklish laughter and smiling. Our work provides the first microanalysis of the facial movements that occur during tickling and is the first to examine the emotional states during tickling,” she says.
The idea that reactions to tickling are a sign of amusement is based on the assumption that the smiling that occurs during tickling is the same as that during humour. But, until now, no one has closely compared tickle-induced smiling to see whether it differs from that of humour. In the research, volunteers were filmed while they were tickled from behind by a researcher for ten seconds. They were also filmed reacting to jokes recorded by comedians and while they put their hand in icy water for as long as they could.
At the end of the experiment they answered questions about how they felt in the different conditions. The researchers then looked at the films to assess negative and positive facial expressions. In particular they looked for the so-called “Duchenne smile” which involves both the smile and a creasing of the skin around the eyes, and which is a response to humour. If volunteers were enjoying the tickle, they would show signs of a Duchenne smile.
The results indicate, that when tickled, people did show some Duchenne smiles but they also showed facial expressions associated with pain, including wrinkling of the nose and raising the upper lip. While they were being tickled, they also showed more emotions – pain and smiling – compared to when they were listening to the comedian.
That, say the researchers, implies that smiling is an automatic response to a stimulus rather than a sign of emotion. “This suggests that ticklish smiling need have no closer a connection to mirth and merriment than crying when cutting onions has to sorrow and sadness. We suggest that ticklish smiling can arise without any positive emotional state being present,” they say.
However the exact process that underlies the tickling phenomenon remains an open question. Why should such a reaction exist? One hypothesis put forward by other researchers is that it evolved to encourage us to instinctively protect soft body areas from attack, which would explain why we try to fend off the tickler, whilst appearing to enjoy it. Those who were ticklish had an evolutionary advantage because they were practised at defending vulnerable areas – and laughing gave them more advantage because it encouraged their tormentors to continue.
The tickling process starts simply enough, when receptors transmit the skin sensation along pathways to the brain. Just what the brain does with it is unclear, although research is helping to identify some of the brain areas involved.
Dr Marin Ingvar and researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden compared brain images of what happened during an actual tickle with those of an anticipated tickle. The results showed that an anticipated and a real tickle lit up the same areas of the brain – the primary and secondary somatosensory cortexes.
Work at University College London, where researchers scanned volunteers’ brains while they were tickling themselves or having their palms tickled by someone else, is also shedding light on why we cannot tickle ourselves. Their results suggest that it can’t happen because the brain is aware that it’s going to happen.
Researchers in California have designed an automated tickling machine and compared its success rate with that of a human tickler. The results of the tests on 35 volunteers, which support the reflex theory, indicate that the machine was just as good a tickler as a human being.
This new knowledge about tickling serves a purpose. Knowing which pathways are involved in tickling helps researchers to understand just how the brain works. Information about how the brain is able to separate tickle from self-tickle, for example, may be of use to schizophrenia researchers. Schizophrenics can have difficulty distinguishing external events from self-generated ones, believing, say, that they are being touched when they are not.
“People with schizophrenia can tickle themselves because the produce realistic hallucinations. They can experience self-tickling with the same intensity as if it were produced by someone else,” says Dr Mark Blagrove, of the University of Wales, Swansea.
As we know tickling and pain are close to emotions and the manner the brain deals with these is critical research. A small pilot project at Stirling University (Scotland) was reported in the Daily Telegraph (UK) June 1998. The findings showed there was a statistical significance supporting the right foot was more ticklish than the left. Men were more ticklish than women and same sex tickling was less likely to result in high levels of response.
Cameron
Hey, what do I know? -Perth Glory are rubbish!!
It's really quite an interesting subject Cameron and one which has received scant attention from podiatry researchers over the years. When one thinks of all the times we have that "sensitive" patient in front of us - you know the type, whose reflex is to pull the foot away at the slightest touch, and when you eventually get hold of the damn thing it perspires wherever and whenever you touch it - that there hasn't been more attention paid to this remarkable human trait.
One of the abiding memories of my childhood was being set upon in a public park by six girls - all much older than me (I was about seven years-old at the time) - and one hefty lass sat upon me whilst the others set about tickling various parts of my anatomy - including both soles of my feet. The sensation of utter helplessness was overwhelming and I lost control of all motor functions, embarrassingly wetting myself and almost losing consciousness at their ministrations. The effect of that two or three minute adventure remains with me today.
Strangely enough, my youngest son is extremely tickly - and appears to enjoy a good 'razzle' now and again - maybe less so as he gets older (he is now approaching eleven). But again one has to be careful as he too loses bladder control when the feeling becomes too intense. The favourite bits are just below the rib cages at the sides, which sends him into absolute paroxysms. Now I have to be real careful as he packs a mean punch and there's no inhibitory effect either.
But back to feet.
It is strange how some people abhor anyone touching their feet - indeed they seem to have some phobia, such are the overwhelming inhibitory sensations they experience, whilst others love their feet being stroked and tickled. Given all your research into the subject, you will be aware of the immense power of the foot in psycho-sexual sensations - it surely has to be one of the most erogenous zones for many people. One acquaintance I made some years ago even claimed to be able to reach orgasm when the soles of her feet were stroked by a spiked rotating wheel, although regrettably I was unable to check the veracity of her claims at the time.
Makes you wonder what some patients are going through when we carry out these simple clinical examinations, not to mention manipulations....
Yours hypertensively,
Mark
Never mind the Glory what about the Jambos??
Last edited by Mark Russell : 1st October 2005 at 04:37 PM.
>One of the abiding memories of my childhood was being set upon in a public park by six girls.
Tickling has been used as a torture for centuries and people are warned against heavy foot tickling when engaged in foreplay. Tickling assaults, such as you described are probably more common than you would imagine.
I have posted a piece on tickling and pain on my foot blog this morning and compare known neurophysiologies.
>Given all your research into the subject, you will be aware of the immense power of the foot in psycho-sexual sensations - it surely has to be one of the most erogenous zones for many people.
Anatomically the sensory supply to the foot and genitalia sit adjacent in the brain and the theory is neural print through might cause cross association in some people. Hence tickling the feet would be the equivalent to 'tickling their fancy.' Most certainly the nerve supply to the foot passes through the pelvic region and this again may have some peripheral association. Traumatic episodes, such as a ticking assault, could forge behavioural associations where tickling and micturation or sexual arousal including ejaculation, may be linked. Although there are other competing theories behaviouralists believe this is how foot fetishism and shoe restifism arise. It is the nature versus nurture debate.
>I was unable to check the veracity of her claims at the time.
Yes I acan relate to this and a girlfriend who was violently sick with the same stimulation. A short relationship ensued.
>Makes you wonder what some patients are going through when we carry out these simple clinical examinations, not to mention manipulations....
Pain and/or pleasure I would wager. Only we would probably never know.
(Never mind the Glory what about the Jambos??) Way to go.
Shakeet Lokh Em's foot fetish rap
Linear Mode
