The bubbling cauldron of obscure fetishes and exotic sexualities that is the internet has produced some pretty strange micro-communities over the years. One of the strangest and most difficult to understand is objectophilia, the inclination to form emotional and sexual bonds with inanimate objects. You know, like Erika Eiffel, the lady who married the Eiffel Tower? According to a 2008 documentary on Eiffel, there are only around 40 self-proclaimed “objectum sexuals” in the world, seemingly all of whom have appeared on a TLC documentary at one point or another.
These documentaries aside, there aren’t many fictional depictions of objectophilia in pop culture, most of which are played for laughs. It’s not as common as fictional depictions of sex dolls, for example, or people falling in love with computers, or androids, or the disembodied spirit of a lover possessing a sword or a brain in a jar. But there are a few odd souls in TV, movies, book, and comics who let their freak flags fly, and who dared to love—or maybe just lust after—non-humanoid things.
