What do you feel when you look at this little puppy? That sweet tiny face… 🥹

Gigil is a word from Tagalog, the language of the Philippines, that describes an irresistible urge to squeeze, squish, crush, pinch, or bite something perceived as extremely cute. It is similar to what is known as cute aggression, but without any intention of causing harm.

Gigil may include a component of protective tenderness. However, here I will only address the part related to the feeling of cuteness.

When you look at something you find cute, what exactly do you feel? How does this sensation manifest itself in you?

Try to trace the beginning of this experience: does it arise in a particular part of the body? How does it unfold from there? How does it influence your gestures and actions?

Before reading my phenomenological description of this experience, try to observe for yourself how it happens.

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Description

When I look at something I perceive as very cute, it is as if the body anticipates the pleasant tactile sensation that would be produced by squeezing it.

This anticipation seems to occur through a slight contraction within the oral cavity — very subtle, almost imperceptible — producing a distinctive internal sensation of cuteness.

Subjectively, this contraction feels reminiscent of the muscular configuration involved in sucking.

It is not exactly a complete sucking movement, but rather a similar muscular configuration, as if the body were internally simulating an act of compression.

There is also a slight pressure of the lips, teeth, and cheek muscles.

My eyes tend to narrow, mainly through the elevation of the lower eyelids, which contributes to intensifying the characteristic expression of cuteness and enhancing the sensation itself.

It is as if the entire body were orienting itself toward the midline, without ever fully reaching it or completely closing in upon it.

In the hands, the fingers contract slightly, creating the impression that the feeling of cuteness is being anticipated within them. They begin to move as if they were already squeezing something soft.

The fingers become slightly tenser and perform small closing movements without forming a complete fist, or they simply remain still, tense, and drawn inward, as if anticipating the characteristic resistance of something cute when squeezed.

Sometimes the fingers meet the palms and squeeze their softer regions, seeking to feel their “pads.” In doing so, I may perform small pulsating movements, gently pressing these areas.

The hands move closer to the face, the arms draw inward toward the torso, and sometimes even the toes curl up, mirroring the gestures of the hands.

All of these elements seem to contribute to intensifying the feeling of cuteness and the pleasure associated with encountering something perceived as cute.

At times, there is also an urge to bite, though not in an aggressive way. It is as if the affection were so intense that it needed to overflow physically in the form of a gesture.

Although this experience involves a certain kind of tightening or contraction, it clearly differs from the contractions associated with anguish, sadness, or fear.

Those emotions typically manifest as unpleasant constrictions, experienced as a weight in the chest, a lump in the throat, or a tendency to curl inward on oneself.

Here, by contrast, the contraction is pleasant and comforting — a gesture of closure that remains suspended, never fully completing itself.

Perhaps this is because the urge to squeeze must be restrained so as not to cause pain or harm to the source of cuteness, since the impulse is to overflow with affection rather than to destroy that elicited it.

Yet even when we replace the living being with an inanimate object, such as a slime toy, and push the compression to its limit, complete satisfaction remains unattainable.

The urge is to squeeze, to squeeze until the object is almost reduced to nothing. And even then, it does not seem sufficient. There is no sense of complete satisfaction.

What seems to happen instead is that the urge gradually weakens on its own, or simply disappears when our attention is captured by something else.

Although I can inhibit all of these outward expressions, it seems to me that, for the feeling of cuteness itself to arise, at least this subtle internal oral micro-gesture—a contraction within the oral cavity similar to the muscular configuration involved in sucking—must be present.

In other words, at least some part of my body must undergo this kind of contraction. If all outward manifestations are suppressed, this minimal internal component must still remain in order for the feeling of cuteness to be experienced.

If you find value in this newsletter, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support this work, or subscribe for free to receive future posts. And if you enjoyed this post, please let me know by clicking the like button—it helps me understand what resonates with readers. Thank you!