If I Were an Objectophile...

Magic Cornucopia by Finijo

While I was working on the computer, Marilyn put on an episode of Boston Legal that she DVR'd. It caught my attention because one storyline focused on a psychological condition I had not previously heard of - objectophilia. Objectophilia is sexual attraction to an inanimate object. People who experience this phenomenon describe themselves as being in a relationship or being in love with the object. They cannot connect with human beings, so their love/lust is projected onto objects instead. I am trying to figure out what I would objectify, if I were going to be in love with an object. Ruling out the obvious, this isn't as easy as it sounds.

Marilyn says I would be in love with my composter. I know that can't be right, because a composter is the object equivalent of being in love with a hippy - damn dirty hippies. Marilyn has settled on her object of love - the book, Damage, by Josephine Hart. She said, "I love the words, the story, the paper it's written on and the font." As objects go, I think a book is a more noble choice than the Berlin Wall. Still, I don't think my object would be a book. It seems to me that it would have to be something more physically substantial, but then again, maybe it should be something more intellectually dynamic. Perhaps something with a memory chip or artificial intelligence would be in order. I mean we are talking crossing the line between a species and an object, and that's got to be a greater barrier than interracial, or even inter-species relationships. I'm leaning towards the Williams Fountain, but fountains in general, seem too feminine. According to the information I read, buildings seem to be fairly common among the people who practice objectophilia, but to me a building just seems like overkill. Way too much of it, way to little of me - I do not want to be completely dwarfed by the object of my affection, but I am quite fond of the Esperson Building... I am toying with the idea of my blog being the object of my affection, but I think that would take the condition a step further and make me a virtual objectophile - which would probably seem really bizarre to the run of the mill, solid-object objectophile.

I think this phenomenon should work it's way into popular culture. Along with our mental games of "If you could have sex with any three people in the world" and "What five things would you want with you if you were trapped on a desert island," we should add "If you were in love with an inanimate object, what would it be?"