SONIC INTANGIBILITY
‘Sonic intimacy has particular affordances by virtue of its intangibility and its intrinsic temporal dimension, and because the ear cannot be as choosy as the eye or the hand’ (Dominic Pettman, 2017). Is Pettman right?
- Year
- 2025
- Context
- Mediating Intimacy: Space and Intersubjectivity in Recorded Music & Sound, BA Music, University of Oxford
- Length
- 14 pages, 3,455 words
Dominic Pettman argues that sonic intimacy is defined by its intangibility and its temporal dimension, and that the ear cannot be as choosy as the eye or the hand. This essay asks whether that still holds.
Looking at the voice, headphones and the erotic ASMR industry, it argues that recording technology has made listening as selective as looking or touching. A case study of two popular erotic voice actors, ManicWildcard and EyesofSuggestion, shows sound producing physical feeling without touch, and the essay concludes that Pettman's framework is now outdated.
the research, in short
the question
Is Pettman right that the ear cannot be as choosy as the eye or the hand?
the argument
Not any more. Headphones, binaural microphones and ASMR have made sound embodied, accessible and reproducible, and listening a deeply subjective choice.
the approach
Embodied listening (Ouzounian, Eidsheim), the anatomy of the ear, and a case study of two erotic ASMR voice actors.
