THE FUSE

Are you ticklish? Not everyone is. Children tend to be more ticklish than adults, and factors like mood, thickness of the skin, or physical health can affect how likely you are to find a particular touch enjoyable or just plain annoying (Kilteni, 2025). However, despite the fact that philosophers from Socrates to Aristotle and scientists from Galileo to Darwin have studied ticklishness for centuries, there is still no clear consensus on what it means to be tickled.