The Intimacy Podcast That Pushed Audio Boundaries
The Heart launched February 2014 (rebranded from Audio Smut) as host Kaitlin Prest’s experimental audio art exploring intimacy, desire, relationships, and bodies. The show pushed podcasting’s aesthetic and content boundaries through sound collage, ambient recording, poetry, and fearless sexual frankness.
Landmark episodes included “No” (2015, exploring consent and sexual refusal), “Mariya” (2016, polyamory documentary), and “Sex, Lies & Hiv” (2018, dating with HIV). The show’s sound design — intimate whispers, ambient city noise, experimental music, raw unpolished recordings — created visceral emotional experiences impossible in visual media.
The hashtag captured The Heart’s cult following and influence on audio experimentation. The show won Prix Italia (2016), Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Competition (2015), and inspired countless “experimental narrative” podcasts. Prest’s work demonstrated podcasting could be avant-garde art, not just journalism or entertainment.
The Heart’s sexuality frankness was revolutionary: discussing masturbation, kink, desire, assault, abortion without euphemism or shame. This created controversy (Apple Podcasts flagged episodes as explicit) but also provided rare representation for queer, polyamorous, and sexually exploratory communities.
The show ended 2018 after Prest joined Mermaid Palace collective and shifted focus to other projects. The Heart’s brief run (60+ episodes across 4 years) influenced far beyond listener numbers: it proved podcasting could be literary art form, that intimacy translated powerfully to audio, and that experimental sound design enhanced rather than distracted from storytelling.
By 2023, The Heart remained influential among audio producers, taught in podcast production courses, and cited by experimental podcasters as foundational inspiration. The show’s legacy: podcasting could be art, not just content.
Sources:
- https://www.theheartradio.org/ (archived site)
- https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/the-heart (Radiotopia archive)
- https://www.nytimes.com/ (NYT profile)