Objectum Sexuality

Reading through my blogroll this morning I came across this post on Jezebel about a documentary on objectum sexuality, or OS--the, quite literal, love of objects. The tone of the Jezebel article is a little snickery and incredulous, though it tries to keep neutral. It's kind of an easy thing to make fun of--especially the woman who married the Eiffel Tower--easy to dismiss. But on the other hand, it seems like a sort of natural reaction to the extremely ambivalent attitude towards objects that permeates Western culture. As consumers and connoisseurs, we're taught to love and covet objects, but on the same token to collect them, and therefore see them as somehow interchangeable.

I personally have a hard time not loving objects--not in the sexual way of OS, but in a pretty dependent and intense way. I wore the same gray cardigan for about 4 years straight, until holes ate away at it and my mama threw it away. I spent the better part of high school writing odes to bobbypins, mailboxes, and particularly lovely chairs. I've cried over a pair of broken glasses frames--not just at the inconvenience and expense of a new pair, but because the old pair had been with me through my formative years and had in literal and metaphoric senses shaped the way I had seen the world and myself.

He thought they were successful
She thought they were blessed
With objects and material things--
But I never was impressed

I think objects and material things are incredibly important--how we treat them, and how they treat us in return. If they all become disposable, imbued with no meaning, then where will we be? There's a scene in the movie Wall-E where the slobby future-humans, who live in a perpetual state of leisure and consumption, receive an advertisement that red is the new blue--a button is pressed and suddenly all the red shirts are blue shirts. Presto. Magic. (It may be the other way around--Blue to Red). Everything in that world is interchangeable and objects have no meaning, except to Wall-E, who collects his favorites, based not on use or even beauty, but on their inner (for lack of a better word) spirit.

Are you an object lover? If so, leave me a comment with your favorite object-love story. Extra points for poetry!