Cutesy/Affectionate listening: 5: I definitely like to think of it this way at times with my partner or a close friend
Emotional intimacy: 5: 200% I feel uniquely connected to people I've shared this with, even if it took place many years ago
Romantic connection: 4: I can imagine listening to hearts (or being listened to) without romance, but I can't imagine romance without listening/being listened to.
Physical intimacy: 5: I like how the level of intimacy can vary. You can just sit next to a friend and use a stethoscope and it's still really intimate but not on the same level as cuddling with your partner with your head on their chest.
Sexual intimacy: 2: I'm not a very sexual person, and I don't seek out sexual content related to cardiophilia. But I can understand how it can be a sexy thing with the right person and in the right context.
Intellectual curiosity: 3: I was never good at science, but I'm intrigued by cardiology in a casual way.
Medical realism/Roleplay: 2: This doesn't repulse me, but it does ruin the mood for me.
Dark cardiophilia: 1: I understand the concept of having fantasies you would never act on, but the dark stuff tends to make me sick to my stomach.
]]>Cutesy/Affectionate listening: 4
In many respects this aspect is what I personally feel got me into Cardiophilia.
Emotional intimacy: 4
Romantic connection: 3
I don't see myself as the romantic type and can't really flirt for toffee.
Physical/Sexual intimacy: N/A
Intellectual curiosity: 5
While Cutesy/Affectionate Listening got me into this, learning about the heart is probably my main driving point so to speak.
Medical realism/Roleplay: N/A
Dark cardiophilia: ???
To be honest this varies between "hell no" to "I'm fascinated as to the why this is a thing and how it came about in a historical and philosphical (sic) sense." I'm not sure how best to describe what I find a complex puzzle. I do get the occasional idea and put it down in art or prose form to get it "out of the system". That said, one clear thing I know is that I don't want to see anyone harmed and the more attached to fantasy the better.
I hope I'm making sense here.
Self-monitoring: N/A
Self-directed visualization/projection of heart-related purple prose: 3
I dabble into purple prose, using terms such as "life song". But it's not a major aspect for me.
EDITED for clarity and typos
]]>Cutesy/Affectionate listening: 5
I LOVE the idea of this but it gets me terribly flustered.
Emotional intimacy: 5
This is the one that gets me. The heart doesn’t lie and that’s one of the scariest parts to me as someone who feels butt-naked and unfinished if I’m assessed raw without actively shaping how I present myself to others to appear competent. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
It reminds me a lot of how I feel about crying, and I think this fear of having my heartbeat give me away and have people assume things about me from it that I haven’t reconciled within myself comes from the same cause. I told my friend the other day, “I wish I could stop crying at doctor’s offices because it wastes our time, it makes me have to fall back on my mom to answer questions I would be perfectly capable of answering if my voice and frontal lobes didn’t go on vacation, it makes me look less competent and more emotional than I really am, and it leaves an impression on others that I don’t own as an accurate reflection of myself and that I want them to forget. I get too focused on how I’m coming across—I want it to be so that it’s my words that matter, not how my body is choosing to react. So when I say “my tears are not a part of me”, it’s because they dont represent the long-standing patterns of my experiences over a whole lifetime the doctor doesn’t ever get to see outside of this specific moment; the unprecedented crying throws off my compiled experiences in which I hardly cry at all in my day to day life. Or how I’m actually judging and thinking about this appointment and not what it appears on the outside—crying is seen as something inherently emotional and sentiment-based when that is not how I’m making sense of anything internally in any way in any capacity. I can’t get around that because the contents of my words won’t matter as much as the way it’s delivered. Whatever one says, no matter how logical, it has sentimental connotations slapped onto it due to tone and presentation that cannot be correctly applied to how I am consciously thinking about something.”
You can cover yourself up all you want yourself to appeal to others, to appear more rational, but say goodbye to that if someone’s got a hold of your heartbeat. That’s why it’s so potent to me. I think someone’s heart says a lot about them because it can be a physical indicator of mental state, a way to “externalize” feelings stuck inside one’s head a dynamic way. And that logic also applies to myself even if I don’t feel that I personally own how my heart beats (just as I feel I don’t own my tears), because I’m out of touch with my own feelings, but in touch with the feelings of others based on this principle. It’s hard to explain.
Romantic connection: 4
I’ve never been in a romantic relationship (I’m arospec so it’s not one of my priorities) but I enjoy the concept of this.
Physical/Sexual intimacy: 1
Physical intimacy is different from sexual intimacy I think. Physical intimacy intrinsically ties into emotional intimacy for me because you’re physically vulnerable, but it doesn’t have to be in a sexual way. It can be sensual enjoyment (rather than sexual) and I love it... in theory because I get too nervous irl. Also I’m EXTREMELY touch starved but I get overwhelmed when touched. :(
I’m asexual and I’m not into the sexual part of it, but you know what, good for those who are. I say that as long as they’re not annoying or gross about it (such as violating others’ personal—including psychological—boundaries for their own pleasure). I’ve seen that a lot on Youtube and it makes my skin crawl. Seeing fetish mining and content creators who aren’t aware they’re being fetish mined makes me feel secondhand embarrassment like nothing else and frustration, I want to tell these creators that they’re being taken advantage of; it’s so predatory.
Intellectual curiosity: 5
Yes yes yes! I have a special interest in biology in general and I just think it’s amazing. Aside from the symbolic aspects of the heart as it relates to sentiment, I think it’s very neat as an organ itself. It simultaneously manages to be a beautiful construction of nature yet grotesque in appearance lol. It’s just cool that mindless cells evolved to create an organic positive displacement pump, and we as humans recreated the same essential thing for mechanical devices in a convergent evolution fashion; basically reinventing the wheel. As for how these individual cells that are useless on their own work together to produce something not originally present, Kurzgesagt talks about this phenomenon here, it’s called “emergence”. https://youtu.be/16W7c0mb-rE
I just find it neat how sophisticated we actually are but take for granted.
I think this part also ties in to how synonymous it is with “aliveness” even when it really shouldn’t be, because while clinical death (cessation of circulation and breathing) may be reversible if restarted before ischemic injury sets in to the body’s tissues, brain death is ultimately not reversible. For example: there are “beating heart cadavers”, people who are brain dead (thus they have no awareness and never will ever again), yet whose organs are kept perfused with oxygen by inflating the lungs on a ventilator in order for organ transplantations be more successful. The brain stem is dead, so the autonomic nerves innervating the heart to modulate the speed that the heart’s SA node fires at are dead as well, but the brain itself does not control the pumping action of the heart or the firing of the SA node; it’s all self-contained. As long as the heart’s cells continue to receive oxygen, the heart will continue to circulate blood at a rhythm set only by its own bundle of pacemaker cells. Heart cells are just like any other cell as they need oxygen to undergo cellular respiration: to convert energy stored in glucose into a useable form (ATP), which is required for any kind of cell activity. But I don’t think any other organ has its own electrical conduction system like that, which makes it really interesting.
Medical realism/Roleplay: N/A
Medical stuff is just medical stuff to me. I don’t really have an opinion on this.
Dark cardiophilia: 1
I don’t like the idea of someone’s heart being tortured. On a mechanical level it’s interesting if I detach from my feelings, but from an ethical point of view it feels degrading. Like what did the heart do to deserve that? Every day this thing works to keep you alive and well and that’s how you treat it? Applying dangerous electric stimulation to the heart or pushing it to its absolute boundaries just seems like autoerotic asphyxiation 2.0. Makes me feel nervous about their wellbeing, not turned on in the slightest. I understand why it would be powerful to others though; it’s essentially the same as the adrenaline rush from skydiving—walking the line between life and death.
However, and I might get a little nippy here with my stance so bear with me as I’m not targeting anyone in particular, I also think it objectifies the struggles people who have actual heart problems go through... it just feels wrong in some way. Even though it’s a nerve problem and not a heart problem, having POTS is debilitating and prevents me from doing a lot of the things I’d like to because I get fatigued so quickly. If someone thought it was hot that my heart beats so quickly upon standing that I get dizzy and brain fog I’d feel mortified and disrespected. If someone else had POTS or a heart condition, the primary thing I would feel is sympathy for their condition and for how it impacts their life, instead of thinking “wow their murmur and arrythmias sound sexy. sucks about their condition though :(“
The focus is too much on gratification derived from the heart, to the neglect of the person‘s psychological and physiological wellbeing, and that’s the part I find abhorrent about some of the aspects of cardiophilia and why I struggle to identify with the label because I don’t like...objectify people. People are a lot more than just their hearts. I’m sure many here would agree, but this doesn’t go away even when I’m ‘fixated’ on the heart. I don’t have a post-nut clarity like “oh right this is a person” because it’s not sexual to me in the first place, so I’m clearheaded the entire time and never lose that first and foremost sense of “this is a person”.
I feel sort out of place in a cardiophile community because of that, but also out of place outside of these circles because my preoccupation with the heart seems to be more than is normally socially acceptable without seeming sus? Yet at the same time I‘ve never had a secret cardiophilia sideblog, or a youtube channel, or anything of the like. This is the first community I’ve ever joined related to this thing just to check out what it’s like after lurking for years on asmr Youtube, and I was relived to find that there’s a LOT more non-sexual cardio”philes” (if you can call them that—I think “heart enthusiast” works better) than I had initially thought who simply enjoy the heart as something emotional, intimate, intriguing, reassuring, and relaxing. And that’s how I feel.
Self-monitoring: N/A
I have POTS so it gives me a legitimate reason to self-monitor. Monitoring as completely separate from the other aspects; I approach it from a purely medical standpoint to monitor my dizziness and be aware of of my limits before I begin to feel yucky.
Self-directed visualization/projection of heart-related purple prose: N/A
I’m not entirely sure what this means and it seems hyperspecific so idk? But as far as prose goes I’ll copy what hiyasynthgirl said in another thread: “you know you're a cardiophile when writing out heart-related phrases makes you kind of flustered like a 14-year-old writing her crush's name in her diary”.
I think from my responses you can see how much I care about how people perceive me. And this isn’t something I can just shut off, it’s a part of my inherent personality and it would cause me massive distress to just try to not care what other people think. Even if people think it’s vanilla as fuck, and they probably do especially because it’s not sexual for me (and even if it WAS sexual it’s pretty innocent compared to like, necrophilia or coprophilia or a lot of weird, specific ones, there’s a lot of worse fetishes out there to have. The Weird Side of cardiophilia from what I’ve seen is offputting to me though), I just don’t want people to think I’m an aspiring killer or something for liking the heart LMAO. I’m too scared to tell anyone in the first place because as you can clearly see I fear wrong assumptions about me. Even if a friend I told was accepting and wanted to humor me about it like “aww thats so cute, u should let me listen ur heart ^_^” without me being mentally prepared I would probably nope out out of embarrassment or dissociate because I’m so afraid of being vulnerable even though I want to be able to be so bad! And I think this is why it’s a only fantasy of mine, because I actually feel like I have some degree of control over my body’s reaction and their reaction, how I’m perceived, in a situation like that.
And I know it’s not sexual because I don’t have this issue talking about the heart medically or intellectually (although because of my special interest in biology in general it may seem my enthusiasm for it is greater than a normal person’s would be, which makes me embarrassed because I fear people think like “what’s the point of knowing all that if you’re not a cardiologist..do you have a fetish or something” NO I DON’T I just think it’s neat.)
But when the heart enters an emotional/sentimental or vulnerability context I get STUPIDLY embarrassed and my cheeks flush and I end up writing prose slowly and delicately because it’s so intimate. I know other people find it intimate too ... but they don’t see it as such a big deal as I do and it makes me feel so silly. Then there’s other people are don’t like the heart altogether because it gives them anxiety (probably the “you-are-now-manually-breathing” kind of awareness) and I don’t want to make people anxious or seem repulsive to them because of my odd fixation with something so trivial to others.
I think for me my preoccupation stems from a mix of heightened intellectual fascination and appreciation of biology, the collective unconscious’ symbolism of the heart (and a literal interpretation of literary devices), my need to have a logical basis my emotions, and a fear of losing control and composure.
I actively reject involuntary thoughts and reactions. I’m very deliberate in everything I do which is corrected and scanned for inconsistencies before I externalize it. And this is a problem because the heart beats involuntarily; it is something which I do not have control over. Worse yet, it’s perceivable to the external world.
(I mean, crying is also involuntary, but even if I really don’t have control over it, I still feel like I’m somehow able to by holding my breath, haha. Also crying isn’t as biologically interesting or vastly culturally symbolic, and it’s not something vitally fundamental to or a symbol of someone’s “aliveness”, so it doesn’t hold the same sway that the heart does.)
My internal sentiments are alien to me by themselvew because I have to make logical sense of everything within myself, despite the fact that I’m receptive to external displays that could indicate sentiment-related phenomena (such as someone’s heart racing from an emotion; the sentiment is transcended from the subject into an “objective” sense; tangible evidence of the change in someone’s emotional state. exemplified when OP said, “I once had the privilege of hearing someone's heart before and after a long conversation, during which I address some things they were anxious about. Hearing how much slower their heart was afterward really drove home how much my words meant.”). My awareness of this means I’m highly aware that I’m coming off unintentionally wrong in the first place. So my heart can race from an emotion I wasn’t even aware I had, because I understand my issues as something to take an intellectual interest in like a puzzle and/or fix for the sake of others instead of just simmering in and accepting my own feelings. I can’t make sense of my own emotions or even perceive them without there being a reason, and most of the time, I see no reason for why I would feel something. And that’s where I feel like my body’s involuntary actions that externalize emotions (crying, heartbeat) don’t project to others who I am at my cognitive core, which is a logical core, and thus betray me in how I want to be perceived by others. It’s going unchecked by my mind, it’s something I want kept behind closed doors until I’ve analyzed it throughly and cemented it within myself as okay for others to see, which only then will I graciously allow them to explore.
It makes me feel completely naked without access to a towel so I’m running in circles trying to find one, which is why it’s scary but also intimate to an insane degree. It’s pure, unadulterated embarrassment from being so self-conscious and unable to keep myself in check. Which is absolutely adorable and endearing when in others, but when I’m that person it’s like Haha Oh Fuck
My favorite aspect of cardiophile, is perhaps the medical, and in sports, I like to know what the limits of the heart are, and to know how strong and fast it is and how it beats, about all the different sounds that the heart makes in different circumstances I like that a lot, listening to the heart beat with all its might is great, the auscultation of the heartbeat and its sounds I think is the personal favorite aspect that I like about the cardiophile
exactly my view of cardiophillia
]]>Cutesy/Affectionate listening: 4
Emotional intimacy: 3
Romantic connection: 4
Physical/Sexual intimacy: eh... those are two different categories to a virginal, touch-starved weirdo so I'll say 3 and 1.5.
Intellectual curiosity: 5
Medical realism/Roleplay: 2
Dark cardiophilia: 1-2 depending on what exactly is involved.
Self-monitoring: 5
Self-directed visualization/projection of heart-related purple prose: 5
1: Aspects that make you uncomfortable to the point where you can't engage with them.
2: Aspects you actively dislike, but you can deal with.
3: Aspects toward which you have no significant leaning.
4: Aspects you enjoy.
5: Your favorite parts of cardiophilia.
N/A: Aspects you haven't engaged with enough or don't know enough about to have a real opinion.
I'll list off some aspects and how I feel about them. Feel free to add or remove some aspects from this list in your own responses. I'm fairly new so I might miss something that a big part of it for some people.
Cutesy/Affectionate listening: 5: I'm the type to sneak in an ear-steth when hugging a friend from the side. Heck, that was how I first discovered you could hear another person's heartbeat without a stethoscope.
Emotional intimacy: 5: Ties into affectionate listening. Hearing another person's heart enable a deep connection. I once had the privilege of hearing someone's heart before and after a long conversation, during which I address some things they were anxious about. Hearing how much slower their heart was afterward really drove home how much my words meant.
Romantic connection: 3: Not really sure how to rate this as I've been single my whole life due to having flirting skills equivalent to a rock. Assuming that changes, I hope my future GF lets me listen to her heart now and then.
Physical/Sexual intimacy: 1: Hearts and sexual stuff don't mix for me at all. It just feels wrong somehow, idk how else to describe it.
Intellectual curiosity: 5: What makes the cardiovascular system change it's behavior and why that is always fascinates me. Be it from and emotional or biological reaction, I always like to learn these things.
Medical realism/Roleplay: N/A: All cardiophile roleplay stuff I seen seems primarily sexual in nature. If SFW cardio roleplay exists I might try it. Medical realism is something I enjoy, and realism seems to be a major part of roleplay from what little I know.
Dark cardiophilia: 1: I doubt I'll ever understand why so many people love torture and death as an aspect of cardiophilia.
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