when i was a wee thing pretending to be an adult online, i had a friend who i spoke with daily. i'll call them MK. MK was many things. i have many stories to tell about this person but for now i will talk about one of many things they made me aware of: objectophilia.
you may have heard of it. that lady who married the eiffel tower for one. many people think, "wow, that's weird!" and then they go along their day. but as i spent a lot of time with MK, i learned a lot about them, and a lot about the paraphilia (as it manifested for them).
i don't have anything against people who are into that. i somewhat understand; i have a stronger connection to inanimate objects than most people, too. maybe this person rubbed off on me, or maybe i was predisposed to it
i certainly think the way in which large objects pull me is powerful. while reading some of the things that Erika Eiffel (the lady who got famous for marrying the Eiffel Tower) has said, i can't say i don't understand her. she's into bridges, i'm into cranes.
some people are naturally like that. i can't speak on it. if you're into your fence, or an old airplane carrier you dream of meeting in real life, or your pillow of your car or whatever, who am i to judge?
still, here's some observations i've had.
it's strange that, if you make a wrong turn, it seems like many people on the internet these days are not only aware of objectophiles but supportive of them. it's not a bad thing per se, but it's very strange.
it's still a closed-off community for internet freaks, but it was even more so back then. these days if you're not careful you can easily run into these types on twitter or even tiktok
they call themselves "objectum". maybe they were too scared of the phile part in objectophile. maybe it made them think of pedophiles, necrophiles, zoophiles... those are the big 3 "scary paraphilias". but phile simply means -lover. there is such thing as podophilia, the word for for people with foot fetishes...
the "proper" term for this orientation—and unlike many, i don't wholly disagree with it as an orientation—is "objectophile" first and foremost. it was coined in the 70s and actually comes from german. it simply means lover of objects, as you may have imagined. but when that made them look like "merely another paraphilia", what gives>
the term objectum-sexuality was coined in the 1970s. the usage of OS for short came about in 2006 to avoid public discussions. the "sexual" in "objectum-sexual" is the same as in "homosexual" or "heterosexual"; it's simply a word for an orientation. our foe Wikipedia calls it object sexuality.
back when i hung around these places, thanks to MK, people proudly called themselves objectophiles. if they wanted the slightly nicer label, it was all OS, or sometimes OSOR (the U stands for Romantic).
i guess people are too afraid these days to be seen as fetishists, even though that's what these people have always been labelled as, and i think they should fight for their own rights rather than trying to look more acceptable.
you're OS. you like bridges. why not?
you look upon these "objectum" spaces, and they are full of people only in love with their computers. this is not really a bad thing. MK was in love with their desktop computer. i am, in one way or another, in love with my laptops; not in a romantic sense, but i believe they each hold souls, and they each have names, and i think of them very dearly.
but MK was also into their old family car. they wrote fiction about a man in love with his guitar, too. it's curious that many of these objectum people don't seem to have interest in any other objects at all, and some of these computer-lovers believe the others to be weird...?
again, i understand having a type, but it's curious. very curious.
these observations aren't negative at all, despite my cynical tone. it's purely interesting to me. i wish all objectophiles lovely days and hope they find the things that bring them love and joy, because i am not a cruel person
besides, i believe a certain musician has to be OSOR in some way.