Netflix R-Rated True Crime Documentary Takes Unreal Twist Into Dark Underworld

Posting videos of restrained young athletic men being tickled until they tap out essentially sums up the world of “competitive endurance tickling.”

One video featured in the Tickled documentary shows how these men are questionably presented, occasionally donning high school wrestling uniforms.

Backed by the US-based company, Jane O’Brien Media, these men are flown out to Los Angeles to shoot these competitions and leave with $1,500 in their pockets. 

When director David Farrier, a New Zealand broadcast journalist, stumbled upon one of these monthly hosted competitions online, the idea for the documentary was born.

Farrier quickly came into contact with Debbie J. Kuhn, a representative of Jane O’Brien Media. Kuhn declined the offer to speak with the filmmakers and instead responded with a homophobic rant to the bisexual director and explained that competitive tickling is strictly a heterosexual activity.

David Farrier then decided to pivot Tickled away from the actual tickling and instead wanted to focus on Jane O’Brien Media. The original comment from Kuhn perplexed him as there had been no previous interaction to warrant that response.

Farrier concluded that the company just assumed they saw it as a kink/fetish marketed toward the gay community and came out with their guns blazing.

As David Farrier and the team continue research for the Tickled documentary, more oddities and obstacles start popping up. Debbie J. Kuhn, who prefaces they are communicating on behalf of Jane O’Brien Media, continues to email Farrier after their initial call for weeks with homophobic messages.

Not much time would pass until the Tickled production team was threatened with legal action and issued general threats.

The continued bizarre defensive behavior only fueled Farrier’s curiosity. Who was Jane O’Brien Media, who was Debbie J. Kuhn, and where are the funds for legal teams, competitions, and $1,500 payouts coming from?

It was clear that this “competitive endurance tickling” was simply a front for something deeper and potentially darker.

The big twist comes when the Tickled team learns that Jane O’Brien Media and Debbie J. Kuhn don’t exist, and instead, the person behind these tickling videos is a man named David P. D’Amato, son of a wealthy and prominent attorney. And, yes, he was indeed producing these videos for fetish content to market to the gay community.

In conclusion, Tickled, currently available to stream on Netflix, is a brilliant investigative piece and although the production team did not always know where the road was leading they executed it beautifully.

As far as the fate of D’Amato, he passed away in 2017 at the age of 55, it’s unclear if his tickling empire lived beyond him. To those who left the documentary wanting more, a follow-up short was released titled The Tickle King and includes unseen footage from the original production.