Object sexuality or objectophilia is a form of sexual or romantic attraction focused on particular inanimate objects. Individuals with this attraction may have strong feelings of love and commitment to certain items or structures of their fixation. For some, sexual or close emotional relationships with humans are incomprehensible. Some object-sexual individuals also often believe in animism, and sense reciprocation based on the belief that objects have souls, intelligence, and feelings, and are able to communicate.
Research
In 2009 Amy Marsh, a clinical sexologist, surveyed the twenty-one English-speaking members of Erika Eiffel's 40-strong OS Internationale about their experiences. About half reported autism spectrum disorders: six had been diagnosed, four were affected but not diagnosed, and three of the remaining nine reported having "some traits." According to Marsh, "The emotions and experiences reported by OS people correspond to general definitions of sexual orientation," such as that in an APA article "on sexual orientation and homosexuality... refers to sexual orientation as involving 'feelings and self-concept.'"
OS awareness and advocacy
In 2009, Erika Eiffel appeared on Good Morning America and The Tyra Banks Show with Amy Marsh to discuss her marriage to the Eiffel Tower and how her object love helped her become a world champion archer. Marsh shared the results of her survey and her belief that OS could be a genuine sexual orientation, and reasoned that if childhood trauma were a factor, that there would be more OS individuals. Eiffel, who had adopted her surname after a 2007 "marriage" to the Eiffel Tower, founded OS Internationale, an educational website and international online community for those identifying or researching the condition to love objects.
Literature
Marsh sees OS-like behavior in classic literature. In Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
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.
Discovery Channel's Forbidden featured a Dutch man who professed his love for bicycles.
In 2016 a man was refused permission to marry his computer.
Film and television
The character of Leigh Swift from the television comedy drama Boston Legal, is a self-proclaimed "objectophile".
The character of Ted Mosby from the popular television seriesHow I Met Your Mother is accused of being an "objectophiliac" in a flashback with "Empy".
In "Allegra Caldarello," a 2009 episode of Nip/Tuck, Richard Burgi portrays a plastic surgeon with an emotional attraction to furniture.
The BBC TV continuing drama seriesCasualty features an autumn 2015 episode titled "Objectum Sexual." The plot of the episode is built around a sexually inexperienced female who has fallen in love with a condemned building, soon to be destroyed. As the episode ends, the character, having been admitted with superficial injuries, declares her new love was for Holby City Hospital.
The fashion designer, Keith Dick, from the Netflix original seriesLunatics, described himself as an "objectophile" that confessed his love to a cash register, whom he called Karen.
In the series Spongebob Squarepants, the wife of the character Plankton, is a computer.
In the popular cartoons, movies, and Musical, The Addams Family, the character Fester, is in love with the moon.
Lavie Tidhar's short story, "The Woman Who Fell In Love With The Hungerford Bridge", published in Ambit Magazine in 2014, concerns a romance between a woman with objectum sexuality and London's Hungerford Bridge.
Music
Big Boi's 2012 solo album, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, includes a song called "Objectum Sexuality."
Keys N Krates's video for the song "Save Me," featuring Katy B, focuses on this particular sexuality.
