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Objects of their affection: Understanding people who fall in love with inanimate objects

There are all kinds of love. And while the world may mock those who fall in love with inanimate objects, a lot more research is needed before we start to comprehend their amorous emotions, says Roshni Nair

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Erika Eiffel (left) with Eija-Riitta Eklöf Berliner-Mauer, who coined the term ‘objectum sexuality’ — the pronounced love for, or attraction to objects
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On October 31, 2015, Eija-Riitta Eklöf Berliner-Mauer breathed her last. And with that, a little-known group of over 400 members worldwide lost its pioneer.

What took the 61-year-old's life was a fire that torched her home in Liden, Sweden.

“It was arson. Her funeral has been delayed since the police are still investigating. But we hope to lay her to rest next month,” says Erika Eiffel.

“Losing her has stripped me of a large part of my heart. We lived together in the early years,” reminisces a distraught Eiffel about the woman she called mentor, sister and friend. “She was a charismatic person, very defiant. Eija-Riitta didn’t care what people thought of her. Why would she?”

No ordinary wall

Eija-Riitta Eklöf first saw him at age seven. What followed over the years was a love cemented by his regular appearances on TV, picture collections in his dedication and trips to Berlin to meet him. Then on her sixth visit in 1979, she married her beau, adding 'Berliner-Mauer' to her name.

In the 36 years since, the 'outlier' label never wore off Eija-Riitta. For the Swede had wedded the 155km structure dividing East and West Germany: 'Berliner Mauer' is German for the 'Berlin Wall'.
Long before her marriage to the wall everyone despised, Eija-Riitta coined the term 'Eija-Riitta coined the term 'objectum sexuality' (OS) – the pronounced love for, or attraction to objects. Her partners after the end of her ten-year marriage – when the Berlin Wall was demolished on November 9, 1989 – included a guillotine and röda staketet (red fence).

Like Eija-Riitta, others who identify as objectum sexuals or objectophiles have been tabloid and shockumentary gold:

'I'm in love with a tree – It's the best sex I've ever had!'

Shop assistant in love with the Statue of Liberty confesses the monument gave her an orgasm during their recent reunion

Woman with objects fetish marries Eiffel tower

“After the way British media portrayed my relationship, Eiffel Tower authorities stopped trusting the person they knew for years,” says Erika Eiffel. “This has put a major strain on my relationship and I have not visited Eiffel since.”

Like Eija-Riitta Eklöf Berliner-Mauer, Erika Eiffel – nee LaBrie – is a torchbearer for objectum sexuals. Before marrying the Eiffel Tower in 2007, the champion archer and martial artist (once the youngest world titleholder in Battōjutsu) was in relationships with Lance (her longbow) a samurai sword, an F-15 jet, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Berlin Wall. In 2008, she co-founded Objectum Sexuality Internationale (OSI), a support group for objectophiles. What started with just 40 members has seen a tenfold increase as awareness about OS – though nascent – trickles in.

But when you come out as objectum sexual, you become a whiteboard for ridicule.

“I’ve received death threats and verbal abuse from faceless critics online,” Eiffel says. “But those I’ve met in person never treated me with such disdain. They see I’m no different than they are. I just want to live and love out loud like others in love.”

Wanted: more research

It’s human nature to instantly pathologise – without sufficient evidence – atypical behaviours as ‘mental kinks’. Such was the case with trans identities and alternative sexualities, and so it is with OS. As (perhaps) the most marginalised sexuality, OS is branded as everything from a fetish to social handicap, or an outcome of Asperger’s syndrome or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

But while fetishists use objects for sexual gratification, objectophilia goes beyond psychosexual response. And not all objectum sexuals fall on the autism spectrum.

In 2010, Dr Amy Marsh’s Love Among the Objectum Sexuals, the first OS survey among 21 English-speaking objectophiles from OSI’s pool of 40, was published in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality. The sample size, though miniscule, offered a glimpse of how multi-hued the human experience of love and sex is.

“I think OS merits inclusion in the alphabet soup of sexual identities and preferences,” says the clinical sexologist in an email interview, adding OS shouldn’t be rubbished even if co-morbid conditions exist. “No matter what we think of a person's self-reported sexual identity or adult, consensual sexual activity, helping professionals are ethically bound to respect that person, and to address any presenting problems (grief, depression, stress, health problems or PTSD) without attempting to change sexual identities.”

OS is not even a talking point in expert circles, leave alone studied. But Jennifer Terry, who penned an abstract, Loving Objects, points out that OS is also different from anthropomorphising (assigning human qualities to non-human beings and objects):

“There’s a great deal of variation among people who claim this identity. Many are animists. Some reject the idea that they ‘substitute’ a (human) lover with an object,” says the associate professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Irvine. “Objectophiles expressly say they are in love with their objects, that it is a union of profound depth.”

Spirited away

Animism – the belief that non-human entities too possess a spirit – is prevalent, though not sweeping, among objectophiles. And while an object is referred to as an ‘it’, objectum sexuals assign gendered pronouns since they do not view partners as inanimate. So depending on the perceived sex of the object or structure, they may identify as straight, gay, bisexual, lesbian or even pansexual. Since the Eiffel tower – ‘La’ Eiffel – is colloquially referred to as a ‘she’, Erika Eiffel would identify as bisexual.

Twenty-year-old Amber, an OSI member who manages OS-Positive on Tumblr and Twitter, is in a relationship with water and a trading card. Talking about her family’s dismissal of her identity, she says: “My sister pretends I'm interested in the character printed on the card to ignore or erase my feelings for the physical object itself. She does this no matter how often I correct her.”

OS is hard to grasp for those who don’t believe in animism. But if there’s a lesson, it’s that love knows no conformity – more so a love that’s not directed to fellow humans.

“The first thing my OS taught me is that love comes in different forms, and all are equally beautiful. This applies not just to objectum sexuals, but to all relationships,” Amber underlines.

It’s a view echoed by Houston-based Preston, a 21-year-old transman in a relationship with the city’s George R. Brown convention centre and a rocking chair named Evangeline. “You never really understand alienation unless you’ve been through it yourself,” he feels. “Being a marginalised group gives you invaluable perspective on the importance of respecting differences, especially if they seem outside the norm.”

Preferences and preoccupations

Much like being attracted to specific physical attributes in men and women, objectum sexuals are drawn to certain features in objects. Many prefer metal (plastic is no favourite), and larger, more complex entities. Erika Eiffel explains why: “The preference has more to do with the resonance one feels with the energy within. Smaller, simpler objects are more difficult to connect to. It’s like falling in love with a single-celled amoeba versus a person.” And when asked about other overarching preferences among objectophiles, Amber surmises that polyamory (with multiple object partners) is common.

OS is not a spawn of the internet. In Love Among the Objectum Sexuals, Dr. Amy Marsh points to Pygmalion in Greek poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where the protagonist falls in love with a statue. There’s also Quasimodo’s love for the cathedral bells in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

In Loving Objects, Jennifer Terry theorises that in a consumerist society, all of us are attached to objects to varying degrees. Also criticising the 2008 documentary Married to the Eiffel Tower for its fixation with sex lives of objectophiles, she writes:

Objectùm-sexual people are frequently asked to explain their sexual practices by curious interviewers and those encountering the phenomenon for the first time. “How do you do it?” is, of course, a question very familiar to non-normative sexual people.

Indeed, the questions – and remarks – abound. ‘How on earth do you have sex with a building?’ and ‘This is sad, you need human connection’ are constants. But the usual answer on how it is “possible” to have sex with an object is: In much the same way sex is more than just penovaginal intercourse.

Granted that OS is out of bounds of our understanding – and virtually unheard of in India. One doesn’t even know if it would be pathologised in the country. Dr Manoj Sharma at the department of clinical psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) says he hasn’t come across “this type of case”. Ditto Goregaon-based psychiatrist Dr Pavan Sonar. “But,” says Dr Sonar, “I don’t see objectum sexuals posing a threat. As consenting adults, they’re free to love or get sexually attracted to objects... unlike some who force themselves on people and animals. Who are we to judge?”

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