What If Love Is Only Approximately Equal To Love? Object?m ...

by Richard Gadsden

Early this month, a British morning show did an interview with Amanda, a young woman who had recently ended a 10-year relationship with a drum kit and was now in a long-distance relationship with the Statue of Liberty. I found out about the story?as well as the sexual orientation it represented, object?m-sexuality?from a Jezebel post. The brief post wittily wrapped the story up as??a non-traditional twist on a very common story: High school girl falls in love with drummer because she likes his shape and recklessness, comes to her senses and ends up in a relationship with a solid woman.? I?thought the whole thing sounded pretty funny, so I watched the video. And I had some thoughts.

My first impression was intense shock at the poise of the hosts. Maybe things are different across the pond, but the first thing I expect when I hear ?talk show? and ?anything even remotely outside normative behavior? is: cringe-worthy disrespect. So the fact that the hosts were able to introduce Amanda?s relationship with the drum kit without any jokes about beating or tapping was astounding to me.

The interview started with Amanda explaining that she was attracted to objects based on their different geometrical shapes. As far as the drum kit went, she didn?t anthropomorphize or name it. She did take it to bed, but, she said, ?I just like to cuddle? and the drum was ?just like a teddy bear.?

The Statue of Liberty was different. Amanda did think of the statue as feminine, even nicknaming it Libby. And her attraction seemed to go beyond the geometric. Of her feelings for Lady Liberty, Amanda said, ?I just love the way that she looks and I love what she stands for. I love her history. I love everything about her!?

Overall, I found the segment a surprisingly balanced look at a type of non-normative sexuality that I, personally, had never heard of. Even the psychiatrist seemed hesitant to pathologize object?m-sexuality. The first thing she said was ?It?s not really a medical condition, it?s an orientation.? But what stood out to me the most about this segment was how resistant Amanda?s experience seemed from normative ideas about love and sex. To clarify, I don?t mean that Amanda herself resisted norms. What I mean is that it seemed nearly impossible to talk about Amanda?s sexuality in the ways we usually talk about sexuality.

The interviewers, as polite as they were, clearly struggled to translate Amanda?s sexual experience in a way that would make it correlate to normative sexuality. When Amanda talked about how she fell in love with the geometric shape of the drum kit, a host tried to compare that to liking the feel of an ergonomically designed phone. Upon hearing how the drum kit (unsurprisingly) didn?t ?do? anything to make Amanda fall out of love for it, but it was Liberty?s appearance that caused her emotional change, they joked about Amanda?s ?unfaithfulness.? When Amanda talked about how she?d like to watch the sunset with the Statue of Liberty, a host mentioned how difficult this would be due to the statue?s size. ?You can only get so close,? he said, putting his arm around a hypothetical companion.

At one point, an interviewer asked Amanda if her relationship with the Statue of Liberty included a sexual element. Amanda responded, ?There is an intimate attraction to her but that is only a very small part. A lot of the part is how she makes me feel and what she?s done for me. She reciprocates to me. She doesn?t put her hands around me but she makes me feel really good inside.?

The hosts? questions and comments were all geared at comparing Amanda?s experiences to what seemed to be the two closest things: aesthetic appreciation for an object, and a sexual relationship with another human. But neither of these possible comparisons can ever really work. What Amanda felt for the drum kit and the Statue of Liberty was a combination of those feelings, or something else entirely.

I was particularly struck by the way the word ?love? was used to refer to all these different feelings. We use it foe different feelings all the time, of course. You can ?love? a meal, a sexual partner, a parent, a friend, a location, a pet, and a variety of other things without ever confusing your feelings for one with your feelings for another. But the expansiveness of the word becomes really apparent with Amanda, who ?loves? inanimate objects the same way I might ?love? persons ? except not, because my crushes aren?t geometrically based. Though, I guess, that could correlate to attractiveness. Except, that?s not right, because I usually want to do more than cuddle with the person I?m in love with? So maybe it?s sort of like asexuality? Although, didn?t she say there was something like sexual attraction?

You can see how easily it gets messy. We use terms like ?love? and ?sexuality? to refer to things that can sometimes be completely incomparable. It?s confusing, but I wouldn?t say it?s a bad thing. Frankly, some things should be confusing. What?s more problematic, I think, is acting as though things are the same because they?ve been given the same name.

The ?we?re just like you? argument has been extremely popular in LGBT rights movements and has also come under heavy criticism by some queer thinkers. While I believe the argument can be useful, I don?t think it?s the best one for creating real social change. When same-sex marriage happens, for example, it will never be opposite-sex marriage, for the basic reason that it is between two people of the same sex. By the same token, granting Black Americans citizenship did not make them the same as White Americans. Even after generations of civil rights advances on the race front, recent tragedies like that of Trayvon Martin are clear examples of differential treatment. I believe that what we really need is for the differences between social groups and experiences to be recognized but dealt with in fairness rather than discrimination.

A woman being in love with a fence is not the same as a man being in love with a man. Neither of those is the same as a girl being in love with a boy. None of those is the same as a third-gender person being in love with two men and a woman.

And that should be OK. The fact that the relationships are different doesn?t mean that any should be privileged above the others. But, being different, each relationship will have different needs and follow a different course. And some elements of one relationship may be totally alien to elements of another.

What if, instead of separate but equal, we worked on together but different?

Just a thought.

What do you think? Is the girl in love with the drum kit just crazy? Are all kinds of love really the same? Or should we give up on the shared terminology entirely? Let us know in the comments!

Jezebel article: http://jezebel.com/5892953/woman-breaks-up-with-drum-kit-for-the-statue-of-liberty

Original video (only viewable in UK): http://www.itv.com/thismorning/life/amanda-whittaker-in-love-with-the-statue-of-liberty/

Website for Object?m-Sexuality Internationale: http://www.objectum-sexuality.org/

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