The connection which, through the phenomena of
tickling, laughter thus bears to the sexual sphere is well indicated, as
Groos has pointed out, by the fact that in sexually-minded people sexual
allusions tend to produce laughter, this being the method by which they
are diverted from the risks of more specifically sexual detumescence.[13]
Reference has been made to the view of Alrutz, according to which
tickling is a milder degree of itching. It is more convenient and
probably more correct to regard itching or pruritus, as it is
termed in its pathological forms, as a distinct sensation, for it
does not arise under precisely the same conditions as tickling
nor is it relieved in the same way. There is interest, however,
in pointing out in this connection that, like tickling, itching
has a real parallelism to the specialized sexual sensations.
Bronson, who has very ably interpreted the sensations of itching
(New York Neurological Society, October 7, 1890; _Medical News_,
February 14, 1903, and summarized in the _British Medical
Journal_, March 7, 1903; and elsewhere), regards it as a
perversion of the sense of touch, a dysaesthesia due to obstructed
nerve-excitation with imperfect conduction of the generated force
into correlated nervous energy.
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