/ David Pescovitz / 10:35 am Wed Jun 18, 2008

People in love with objects

Objectum-sexuals are people who fall in love with inanimate objects, like building, cars, and Hammond organs. And I don't mean appreciation of good design, I mean l-o-v-e. For example, Wall Winther (given name Eija-Riita Ekklaf) is intimate with the Berlin Wall. She calls it her "husband." Ekklaf's Web site, Berlinmauer.se is all about their relationship. From Bizarre magazine:
“We see things as living beings,” (Winther) says. “That’s a must. Otherwise you can’t fall in love with an object.” Wall Winther is attracted mostly to constructions with plenty of parallel lines – buildings, fences, bridges, gates and, in one case, a guillotine. But other OS fetishists might be turned on by the intricate workings of a turbine or television set, the delicate curves of a shiny sports car, the rigid harshness of a railtrack, or the bell end of a trumpet.

Look hard enough and you’ll discover an internet populated by tales of love affairs with objects. Joachim A, for example, confesses to his affair with a Hammond organ that began when he was 12. He’s now in a steady relationship with a steam locomotive. Psychology student Bill Rifka tells of his sexual obsession with his iBook (he defines it as a homosexual relationship as he regards his laptop as male) and Doro B talks about falling for a metal processing machine she encountered at her work. Online at least, OS is a genuine sexual orientation, where relationships thrive, desires are aroused (and fulfilled) and deep emotions burn.
Link

Previously on BB:
• Man loves sex with cars Link

44

  4. Well, I’ll admit I dabbled with BeOS, FreeBSD, and Linux … but I am *NOT* an OS fetishist.

  6. I had an affair with a Kenmore freezer until things chilled between us.

    Now just gives me the…it doesn’t talk to me.

  10. People are objects too. It’s just a slight glitch in the wiring that makes people fall in love with a car or something. But a steam locomotive? Man… that’s just sick.

  11. Many of us are still in love with Hammond organs. The cammed spindle makes the strangest of tones when you bitch-slap the keys. Barky.

  12. I’ve heard of objectifying people, but what about peoplefying objects? Is that also considered to be in poor taste, or is it the pinnacle of good taste?

  13. Loving material goods is nothing new. Look at all the fetishistic behavior concerning books.

    Oh book
    how I love thee
    pages bright
    there’s now better sight
    than the words of Cory Doctorow
    black on white
    I read you, smell you, touch you, taste you–
    A paper cut on my tongue
    blood makes the love real

  17. “You can’t marry an object because an object can’t give consent.”

    I hope that’s not the only reason you can’t marry an object.

  19. Is this some kind of anti-resistentialist movement? Or is it anti-anti-resistentialist? Love thine enemies? FOOLS! By basing themselves in our beds the objects have achieved the most intimate levels of control! This, combined with their conspiracy with gravity, surely spells doom for our species.

    DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

    Didn’t Tom Robbins have some special insight on these matters? DoD needs to set him up a consulting contract right quick.

  20. Sexual attraction to objects? How mundane!

    Me, I’m in love with abstractions. I have the hots for the number 43, the infield fly rule, the fine-structure constant, the color blue, and the Platonic idea of chair-ness.

    Objectum-sexuals? Amateurs!

  21. I love the earth. It does so many great things for me. Keeps me breathing, feeds me and entertains me to no end.

    Unfortunately our size difference makes a physical relationship comical at best.

  23. “We see things as living beings,” (Winther) says. “That’s a must. Otherwise you can’t fall in love with an object.”

    But they’re NOT alive. So you CAN’T.

    I dunno, I’m all for letting people do whatever they want in the bedroom, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. But where do we decide to draw the line between “different” and “crazy”? These people labour under the delusion that the object is capable of loving them back. If they weren’t OS, they might form actual relationships with actual people.

    It’s dangerous business to start going around talking about “curing” people, but how much deviation from the norm are we willing to tolerate before we intervene for a person’s well-being? It’s an interesting discussion subject…

  24. I guess this is better than treating people as objects.

    I kinda wish I had this fetish. I mean think about it. You’d have the most innocuous porn collection EVER. You wouldn’t even have to hide it! People could look RIGHT AT it and you wouldn’t get the disgusted glances or the nervous laughter.

    …

    What, nothing, so what?

  25. But where do we decide to draw the line between “different” and “crazy”?

    Is the person dangerous to me or anyone else? Are they capable of holding down a job and taking care of themselves?

    Yes?

    Not my business then. Even if I’m 100% sure I could improve their lives through interfering, unless they want help, it’s not really my business.

  26. #23, good point! That does bear discussing, and it’s not something I recall being brought up when I was hanging out with my more philosophical friends. I’ll ask them this weekend and get back to you. ;-)

    In this case, I think I lean more towards “leave them alone, and just be glad they’re not breeding”.

  27. I was listening to electric warrior on my lunchbreak and i’m pretty sure mark bolan had this issue with cars.

  29. Geekman:
    But they’re NOT alive. So you CAN’T.

    Sure you can, “We see things as…” This is what we all do. We all construct a fantasy of our beloved and then make love to that. No one, or very very few, makes love to the sweating, shitting, digesting, gurgling corporal reality that is their loved one. We construct a virtual and more sanitized version and we love that. For the OS they have merely detached that from people and placed it onto things.

    where do we decide to draw the line between “different” and “crazy”?

    It’s not our call most of the time, but the line is “is it affecting your life negatively” and “does it harm others”. If one has a full and satisfying life as an autoerotic (and there are those who do) then there is no reason for change. “Crazy” is when your delusions and fantasies negatively impact yourself and others.

  31. There was an objectum-sexual on Boston Legal, she tried to have a relationship with one of the characters but ended up leaving him for an iPhone, possibly an iPod I forget which. Either one is sexy looking enough to leave a person for I guess.

  32. Perhaps I should clarify, you can’t be “in love” with an object in the sense that without reciprocity, there is no “relationship” in the traditional human sense.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should send out the love police to enforce our preconceptions. However, this case makes for an interesting study of when we decide whether a person is psychologically fit or not.

    “Is the person dangerous to me or anyone else? … Not my business then.”

    Well, that’s not really how we make the call. A self-cutter doesn’t harm anyone else through their actions, it’s their self-harm that makes them psychologically unfit. That’s an extreme example of course. But it’s not the extreme examples that are morally interesting, it’s the ambiguous ones.

  33. you can’t be “in love” with an object in the sense that without reciprocity, there is no “relationship” in the traditional human sense.

    Reciprocity as a prerequisite in love relationships is only about a thousand years old. The idea of lover and object is far more traditional.

  34. Y’know, I consider my car to be male and have named it Zack, but this… wow.

    I mean, the object can’t exactly reciprocate, now can it? Talk about your unrequited love.

  35. I had a room mate who used to spend hours every day getting turned on by staring at his computer. Sometimes he’d even get turned on while looking at the TV. Freak.

  37. This phenomenon, and particularly this woman, keeps popping up for years now. See “Relations With Concrete Others: or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Live With the Berlin Wall,” in Avoiding the Subject: Media, Culture and the Object, by Justin Clemens and Dominic Pettman.

  38. @23 et al.: This topic of normalcy and deviancy is a fascinating one. Stanley Fish, the philosopher and law professor who has a weekly op-ed column in the NY Times, actually addressed this issue a couple of weeks ago in a really excellent article:
    http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/norms-and-deviations-whos-to-say/

    (There may be some typos in that address because, for some reason, my cut and paste functions don’t seem to be working in this little box. Nor do my arrow keys. Very odd/annoying.)

    He extends the discussion to consider groups like pedophiles and even serial killers. It’s really quite thought-provoking.

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    It also has never allowed me to create a profile.

    mrjyn

  41. I don’t know why you’re getting the error message, but your comments are coming in as you and your profile is visible by clicking your name.

  42. Is it shocking to see one such person on your posting? I can speak first-hand experience of such a phenomenon existing, as I’m living it myself. I’ve found myself living with a deep love for, of all random things, F-16s. Completely ridiculous to the outsider, but it makes all the sense in the world to me.

    It’s not a two-way relationship. I never even have an opportunity to see one up close, let alone touch it. I admire it only in photos, as if it were a long-distance relationship. Having never fallen in love with any person (or thing) before, I never set any two-way-relationship benchmark on my idea of “love”. I’ve been “obsessed” with F-16s for years and only recently, by contrasting others’ experience of love with my own, realized that I really am in “love” with the jet.

    I don’t spend every moment learning about it, analyzing it, or pursuing it. In fact, I hardly make any effort at gathering information, because it makes it seem like less of an “entity” and more like a “creation”. The more I learn about its creation, the more separated I feel from it. It’s when I sit at my computer or look at the pictures posted all over my walls, admiring its design and appearance, that I feel unquestionably in love with this plane.

    The major benefit to this “oddity” is that, well, exactly that it doesn’t entail a two-way relationship. It can’t upset you with words, it can’t betray you with actions, and it can’t break your heart with its free will. It’s an inexplicable bond with an item whose origins are, from my perception, unknown. This object, despite the obvious truth, almost feels like it takes on a life in each video I see and each photo I look at. Its huge size dwarfs me and the security surrounding it challenges me. I’ve only ever had one opportunity in my life to touch one so far and I only ever want to go back and experience it again.

    Outwardly, nobody ever knows. I’ve got an otherwise bland life, going to school and working a near-full-time job as usual. Most of the time I’m not thinking about it – the thought is sparked by things I proclaim my life for F-16s through, like my car, backpack, laptop, etc., each of which with their own subtle – or not so subtle – tributes on them.

    On one hand I want to live a “normal” life and actually find love in a person instead of an aircraft. On the other, well… who’s it hurting? It almost seems to be a blessing to feel content living by myself, surrounded by these F-16s I love. It gives me more time in a day and it sure saves me from the whole two-way relationship thing :)

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