This will tickle your pickle.
A quarter of respondents surveyed in a new study say they’ve orgasmed from being tickled.
The research, conducted by scientists at University Medical Center Mainz in Germany, aimed to analyze “how adults use tickling in connection with sexual activity.”
“Previous studies on ticklishness have mainly focused on the sensory consequences and playful aspects of tickling,” lead scientist, Dr. Shimpei Ishiyama, declared in a news release about the research. “In our study, we investigated the role of tickling in a sexual context for the first time.”
The scientists recruited 719 people who professed to having a tickling fetish to see whether they experienced arousal from the act.
The results revealed that a quarter could climax from being tickled — even without the stimulation of their genitals.
According to Ishiyama, “relevant childhood experiences, such as the depiction of tickling in cartoons, played a decisive role in some of the respondents developing a tickling fetish later on.”
The scientist and his team say the study results should reframe how we understand human sexuality because they prove that many people experience erotic pleasure through acts that are widely thought of as non-sexual.
“The range of experiences that lead to sexual pleasure is much wider than previously recognized,” Ishiyama declared.
“Tickling is an intimate activity that requires a certain level of mutual trust. It can bond individuals and serve as an outlet for sexual energy,” he continued. “Future studies should therefore investigate the mechanisms by which tickling triggers sexual pleasure. Our study results could pave the way for this further research into human sexuality.”
However, given that the participants had already expressed a fetish for tickling, known as knismolagnia, it’s known how many people in the general population can reach orgasm from the act alone.