Cats can be odd creatures. My cat loves to play rough. Hi loves an oven mitt where he can grab onto it and kick and bite. Or a hand under a thick comforter he can attack.
I can pick him up by his tail (carefully, near the root) and he isn’t upset in any way.
But fascinatingly, he loves it when I am in my kitchen, and I grasp his tail and launch him across the floor. He slides about five feet on the slippery linoleum floor, his legs all splay akimbo, then strides back over to me for another toss. He will let me do this over and over again, purring the whole time. He used to fetch, but doesn’t do that anymore.
On the other hand, he nearly ripped my legs to shreds as I was watching a movie late one night recently. He was all purry and chilled out on my lap, and I opened a beer.
The hissing sound as it opened caused him to peel out on my legs, leaving scarlet skid marks from his claws on the tops of my thighs.
Both my boys purr audibly when they’re stroked...when they want to be stroked that is...otherwise they just get out of Dodge.