Objectophilia Explained

Objectophilia, also known as objectum-sexuality, involves romantic and sexual attraction to specific objects. Psychologists Dimitria Electra Gatzia and Sarah Arnaud have studied how someone comes to develop “deep and enduring emotional, romantic, and sexual relations with specific inanimate (concrete or abstract) objects such as trains, bridges, cars, or words.” They found that some of the determinants of objectophilia are fetishism, difficulty socializing, and synesthesia. For many people, sexual or close emotional relationships with humans are challenging and even impossible.

In 2007, American Erika Eiffel famously got married to the Eiffel tower in France. Source https://www.hindustantimes.com/sex-and-relationships/decoding-objectophilia-5-reasons-why-people-fall-in-love-with-objects/story-LMvWWzhs257dD47yxNGC9H.html

Regardless of how complicated or even incomprehensible this might seem to some of us, individuals who believe in animism might even sense reciprocation. They believe objects have souls, intelligence, and feelings and can communicate. Dear reader, I’m about to describe animism as a belief. I am not implying that objectophilia is more common or that it started with any of the cultures that believe in animism. Animism is a modern construct like “kink” or “fetish.” The word doesn’t exist in Indian-origin religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism), Shintoism (Japan), Kalashism (northern Pakistan), Muism (Korea), or traditional African religions because they believe that there is no categorical difference between the spiritual and physical world. If the soul, spirit, or sentience exists in animals, plants, rocks, geographic features, etc., reciprocation is expected. People around the world interpret life in different ways. Sometimes, the easiest way to understand something is to take it for what it is. Instead of trying to relate to animism from my Judeo-Christian perspective, I accept that some people relate to objects and nature in a way that I don’t.

Something that leads to fetishizing animism is difficulty socializing (which heightens the ability to relate and connect with objects) and synesthesia. Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway (for example, hearing) leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway (such as vision). Simply put, when one sense is activated, another unrelated sense is activated at the same time. This may, for instance, take the form of hearing music and simultaneously sensing the sound as swirls or patterns of color. Both of these traits are common in people with Autism Spectre Disorder (ASD). However, in my research, I was surprised to find that the American Psychiatric Association (APA), based on the emotions and experiences reported by people with objectophilia, considers it a sexual orientation, not a fetish.

FUN FACT: In the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo wrote: “[Quasimodo] loved [the bells], caressed them, talked to them, understood them. From the carillon in the steeple of the transept to the great bell over the doorway, they all shared his love. Claude Frollo had made him the bell ringer of Notre Dame, and to give the great bell in marriage to Quasimodo was to give Juliet to Romeo.”

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/sex-and-relationships/decoding-objectophilia-5-reasons-why-people-fall-in-love-with-objects/story-LMvWWzhs257dD47yxNGC9H.html

FUN FACT: In 2016, American Carol Santa Fe got married to a train station in San Diego.

FUN FACT: A March 2012 segment of TLC's My Strange Addiction featured Nathaniel, a man emotionally and sexually attracted to his car. Nathaniel told Anderson Cooper that he was also attracted to jet skis and airplanes.

FUN FACT: In 2020, a Russian woman, Rain Gordon, married a briefcase after a five-year relationship.

FUN FACT: Big Boi's 2012 solo album, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, includes a song called "Objectum Sexuality."

FUN FACT: Australian Netflix series Lunatics (2019) features a character named Keith Dick (played by Chris Lilley), a fashion designer who falls for “Karen,” a Sharp XE-A203 cash register, as well as an old-fashioned vacuum cleaner.

FUN FACT: In the series SpongeBob SquarePants, Plankton is in love with Karen, a computer.

FUN FACT: Edward Smith, a 57-year-old man from Washington State, admitted having sex with over 1,000 cars. He said: “I write poetry about cars, I sing to them and talk to them just like a girlfriend. I know what’s in my heart and have no desire to change.”

FUN FACT: Amanda Whittaker from Leeds (U.K.) claimed that she had fallen in love with a three-foot statue of the Greek god Adonis she bought. It was reported: “She enjoys reading and talking to her companion and keeps him close when watching television and eating dinner. She also kisses and caresses him imagining the pair of them walking through meadows of wildflowers or at the seaside.

It’s almost too easy to judge other people when we consider ourselves to be “right” or “normal” (not that I do). People who are extremely shy and lonely, and those with a psychiatric disorder like ASD, have severe difficulty establishing normal relationships. Even engaging in a routine conversation about the weather can be overwhelming. But this leaves a vacuum in their lives, which can be alleviated by having relationships with objects. If you add the element of animism and synesthesia, this relationship may seem reciprocal, emotional, and even sexual. Researchers have found that people with synesthesia seem to go into more of a trance during sex than those without. People with synesthesia experience the world in a way that is hard to describe to non-synesthetes. Christian Jarrett at Research Digest explains:

“The sexual synaesthetes described different perceptual sensations for different stages of sexual activity from arousal to climax. Initial fantasy and desire triggered the colour orange for one woman. As excitement built for another participant, this went together with colours of increasing intensity. With excitement plateauing, one person described fog transformed into a wall. Orgasm was then described as the wall bursting, “ringlike structures … in bluish-violet tones.” The final so-called resolution phase was accompanied for another participant with pink and yellow.”

 Much like being attracted to specific physical attributes in men and women, objectophiles are drawn to certain features in objects. The following is universally true: we all experience sex and sexuality differently. Honestly, our sensory perceptions are all unique. We don’t even know if what I see when I see “blue” is the same thing you see. For people with synesthesia, stimulation of one sense - or sometimes just thinking of a particular concept - triggers another kind of sensory experience. This reminds me of TLC’s My Strange Addiction. Even our own physical and emotional reactions to the same thing vary over time.