There is an apparently successful book called Here Come the Tickle Bugs! by Uncle Sillyhead III. Its audience is among three-and-a-half-year-olds. ‘When children are silly, no kisses or hugs. Only tickles from the Tickle Bugs!’ At this point the adult reading the story is meant to tickle the child. I can see the attraction, from the child’s point of view. Veronica loved being tickled, for a bit. Sometimes, though, it made her feel sick. My husband says that in 1897 a couple of American psychologists called G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin came up with a distinction between two kinds of tickling, knismesis and gargalesis. Knismesis is the light tickling of the skin by insects and the like, so it is odd that gargalesis, the heavier kind of tickling that provokes laughter, should be attributed by Uncle Sillyhead III to the Tickle Bugs. I wonder if his findings have been peer-reviewed.
Perhaps tickling is akin to the startle reflex.
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