Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (48 page)

The same dynamics played out in bed. Colleen felt like she lost control of herself during sex. It seemed like Anthony expected her to turn herself over to him. It felt like Anthony was going to touch her wherever and whenever he wanted, whether she liked it or not. Her job was to get over her ticklishness and like it.

Deliberately co-constructing ticklishness reveals how you do it spontaneously. To do that you and your partner need to play “I’m going to tickle you!”

The central dynamics of tickling are control and powerlessness. It breaks down to two essential roles: The tickler tries to touch the ticklee in ways the ticklee can’t avoid or control. And the ticklee tries to regain control over what will be done to him or her. Even if you know you’re doing this to learn, you’ll probably trigger someone’s tickle reflex if you really go at it.

Couples unknowingly create this dynamic—and struggle with ticklishness—when they have sex using what I call the “giver-in-control” mind-set. The “giver” (usually the man in heterosexual couples) is responsible for knowing how to please the “receiver.” The receiver is responsible for reassuring the giver that his sexual performance is superlative. The receiver
feels obligated to “oooh” and “aaaaah” and express no dissatisfaction. The giver’s reflected sense of self monitors the receiver like a hawk. If you have any predisposition to ticklishness, the “giver-in-control” approach will trigger it, because it maximizes the likelihood you’ll feel like you’re losing control of yourself.

Charles Darwin thought ticklishness occurs when you can’t predict or control the precise point of touch. Scientists have proven he was right: When using a remote-control robot to administer the touch, if the robot doesn’t do exactly what you tell it to do, you
can
tickle yourself. This happens neurologically on a level that bypasses the thinking part of your brain. But couples don’t need a robot to learn this is true, because they have each other.

Ticklishness involves a perceived attack combined with a perceived
lack
of real bodily threat. You’re being physically attacked; it’s a fake attack, but it’s an attack nonetheless. If you don’t experience the touch as a violation or attack, you’ll be much less ticklish. At the other extreme, you can easily become ticklish before your partner even touches you. All that you need to do is perceive an attack is imminent.

Mind-mapping plays a huge role in co-constructing ticklishness. The “tickle game” involves your partner thinking,
I’m going to get you and you can’t stop me
. The more your sense of self-control hinges on your partner’s state of mind, and the more your partner’s attitude is
You must let me do to you whatever I want if you love me
, the greater your tendency to feel ticklish.

Ticklish people are not control freaks. (Ticklish people
and
their partners often make this mistake.) Ticklish people don’t necessarily want to control everything. They just want to control what is done to
them
. There’s nothing freakish about that. My clients do better when they think of themselves this way. It falls under the theorem stated earlier:
People who cannot control themselves (regulate their own anxiety) will control everyone and everything around them
.

“Good” tickling and “bad” tickling probably involve similar receptors in your brain. One difference is how the thinking parts of your brain interpret the signal. Likewise, positive and negative tickling involve the same basic “out of control” dynamic. The significance of “being out of control” at the time determines whether it’s fun or not.

Here’s where personal experience and family history come into play. Remember, Anthony’s family often ganged up and tickled someone until he lost bladder control. This kind of tickling involves something darker than our “tickle game.” In this case the attack is real. You can cause enormous amounts of anguish by repeatedly tickling someone until he loses physical control and soils himself. This is normal family sadism in some households.

People drawn to tickling as stylized torture often refer to “the bond” between the tickler and the ticklee. Perhaps they have an alliance, but in my experience it’s not collaborative: Erotic stories written by and for people who engage in tickling emphasize revenge, finding and exploiting weak spots, and tickling someone “until they can’t take it anymore.”

Some families enjoy inflicting pain and watching each other suffer. You owe it to yourself and your partner to confront yourself: Is this is what you’re doing?

Another impact of Anthony’s childhood was that he was hard to read. He developed this in his home growing up. Unfortunately, it was one more thing encouraging Colleen’s ticklishness and low desire. She mapped his attempts to ward her off, and it set off her deception detector.

Emotionally abusive families produce people with several characteristics: They have well-developed radar and constantly scan other people for signs of trouble. They also constantly mask their mind to keep from being mapped. And they are so constantly anxious, they often have no idea how anxious they are. Their radar is on high all the time—even (and especially) when they look as though they are oblivious to their
surroundings. But they’re also blind to themselves because their incredible radar is all turned outward.

Anthony offered little information about himself and batted away my probing questions. This made it difficult for me to develop a collaborative alliance with him, although he kept insisting we had one. At least he had one with me, he assured me, implying he wasn’t sure of my motivations. When I pursued this, Anthony said he trusted me.

Anthony said he couldn’t remember much about his childhood. When I asked him to tell me what little he remembered, Anthony changed the subject. When I brought him back to it, he said he couldn’t remember anything. I pointed out a moment ago he said he didn’t remember
much
, which meant he
could
remember some things.

Before he answered, I backed off this point. I already had some information I needed: Anthony had remarkable ability to avoid being pinned down. And the only way he could do that was by tracking where I was headed. If I plunged ahead anyway and cornered him, we’d replicate the same “Trust me” out-of-control dynamics he had with Colleen.

I shifted our focus to the fencing happening between us. I said, “You know, a person can’t develop the level of ability you have to mask your mind without lots of practice fending off emotional or physical attacks.” Anthony looked at me warily. “You are remarkably skilled.”

Anthony’s face went blank and impassive, like a mask. I pointed to it. “That’s what I mean.” He kept it up for several seconds. Then he nodded ruefully, and began to talk about a childhood spent fending off his mother.

“My mother lost an arm operating a machine in the factory where she worked. After that, things went to hell. Not being able to physically do things made her control us kids like we were her missing hand. We had to do what she needed. She kept us in line with her switch. My father stayed out of her way, and left us to deal with her. She bad-mouthed our girlfriends, she feared losing her extra hands. It was the same when my brothers and I got old enough to leave home.”

“Do I have this right?” I said, leaning forward toward Anthony. “You have a one-armed mother who liked to tickle you until you were immobilized. As you got older, she tried to play
I’ve got you
in other ways?”
Anthony nodded. “And at best your father left you to her and didn’t intervene, and at worst, he joined in?” Another nod. “Then I’d guess your notion of love doesn’t involve a collaborative alliance.”

Anthony winced and swallowed. He had a large lump in his throat.

Studies show abused children have smaller brains overall and an impaired ability to transfer information between the right and left halves of their brain.
¹⁸⁸
Traumatic experiences interfere with integrating your mind into a coherent whole, due in part to altered synaptic connections and breakdown between right and left hemispheres. Trauma impedes your mind’s need for internal and interpersonal integration.

It’s important to have your right and left brains working together if you’re interested in resolving trauma. Your goal is to activate each hemisphere’s dominant processes, and remove all constraints on what your brain has to process. This strengthens connections among neural circuits in different parts of your brain, especially those involved in processing emotions.

You also need to focus your attention on many important levels at the same time, including images, emotions, body sensations, perceptions, and autobiographical memories. A collaborative alliance with your partner and
hugging till relaxed, heads on pillows
or
feeling while touching
really help. This multilayered focus usually yields new memories and new ways of seeing events, which helps resolve trauma by reintegrating things you’ve previously missed, mislabeled, or misunderstood. This multilayered focus produces new associations in your mind and, presumably, new configurations in your brain.

If you’re interested in resolving ticklishness, you need a collaborative alliance with your partner. You have to interact physically and emotionally so that the ticklish person feels in control of herself. The partner provides
predictable methodical touch while acting in a calm, soothing way. The ticklish person calms herself down and focuses on her partner’s touch instead of pulling away. Start with body parts that tend to be the least ticklish, which are your back, arms, neck, and head (excluding your face).

This isn’t borrowed functioning. It doesn’t suppress one’s functioning while enhancing the other’s. Both people have to function at their best. The giver has to hold on to himself, and participate voluntarily and generously without being passive-aggressive, petulant, or reluctant. There’s no room for jokes, gestures, or teasing, no
I’m going to get you, and you can’t stop me!
The giver follows the ticklish person’s wishes, not as a robot or servant, but as a collaborator co-creating a “receiver in control” mind-set.
Feeling with touching
works great.

Once Colleen could relax while Anthony touched her arms, she asked him to touch her breasts. Anthony placed his whole hand over her breast and pressed firmly but gently, instead of playing with her nipples as he usually did. Colleen leaned into his touch and calmed herself down. She didn’t pull away from Anthony as she usually did. As Colleen relaxed, Anthony was able to touch her breast without triggering ticklishness.

Next, Colleen asked Anthony to touch her on her ribs, where she was usually more ticklish. She relaxed before he touched her there, and she made sure she kept breathing. Anthony moved his hand slowly but firmly across her ribcage, so his touch was predictable and easy to track. He only used one hand so Colleen could focus her attention on just one place and lean into his touch, physically and emotionally. All of this gave Colleen the sense she could control what happened to her. To their surprise and pleasure, her ticklishness disappeared within minutes.

I suggest starting with the receiver lying faceup in bed, facing the giver. Highly ticklish people try to get around their problem by lying facedown. The meaning of a “back rub” doesn’t trigger them, and they don’t feel vulnerable because their chest is guarded. But there’s a limit to how much progress they can make in that position.

Don’t start facedown unless you’re
extremely
ticklish and find it impossible
to calm down. If you need to, keep your arms by your sides so your ribs aren’t exposed. Once you relax and your ticklishness passes, turn over to be faceup. Do this sooner rather than later (but not too soon) to reduce defensiveness between you and your partner. By the time you reach more sensitive areas, like your legs, chest, ribs, and abdomen, you’ll be better at relaxing and leaning into your partner’s touch.

If your partner increases the predictability and firmness of touch, this decreases your sense of losing control of yourself and reduces ticklishness. You know where his hands are and where they are going. By firm I don’t mean “massage.” I mean firmer than the touch that usually triggers ticklishness. Back or foot massages, or back-scratches, don’t provide the stimulus needed to master ticklishness.

Work as a team. Ask your partner to use a methodical pattern you can follow in your mind. Lean into your partner’s touch. Pulling away makes his touch less definite and predictable, and triggers your own ticklishness.

If you have incapacitating ticklishness, put your hand on his to guide his pressure and movement. Your goal is to increase pleasure from his touch, rather than to stop him from doing things you don’t like. If you have a collaborative alliance while you do this, several repetitions are usually sufficient to make your hand on his unnecessary.

You’re much better off keeping your eyes open. Watch where you’re being touched. Closing your eyes decreases your mind-mapping ability and lets your negative anticipations take over. Don’t do things that increase your anticipatory nervousness and physical tension because this fuels ticklishness.

What do you do when this doesn’t work and you
really
can’t control your ticklishness? Stop trying to master yourself while leaning into your partner’s touch. This is easier to do if you’re not fighting against yourself or your mate. Have your partner stop touching you while you get yourself under control. Have a clear agreement that you won’t be touched until you’re ready: No jokes or “pretend” attacks from the giver, and all touching
stops. When you’re quiet (usually in a minute or two), ask your partner to resume touching you. Shifting from “giver-in-control” to “receiver-in-control” is critical: The neurological basis of ticklishness is a signal that your physical integrity or your body’s natural order has been violated.