What do you think about people who fall in love with inanimate objects?
Do you think it's a mental disorder, or is their love just as legitimate as a human to human relationship?
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M$4 Answers
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M$I think people confuse the different types of love. We have intimate love, familial love, love for a pet, love for an object, etc.
Fetishism is a clinical mental disorder found in the Diagnosis and Statistics Manual (DSM). So, by the APA, it's a mental disorder.
Then... we have boys. Boys will have put "it" anywhere and everywhere. Dare I bring up American Pie? That might be considered Fetishism, but (as the article you quote implies), hormones have a great effect here.
So... it could be a mix of things...
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M$This is not a new question of course, and there are any number of philia's that suggest that people have strong feelings for objects. The most famous example is Pygmalion, the sculptor in Roman myth who felt that real women could not ever live up to his ideals of perfection, so he made a statue, fell in love with it, dressed it up and gave it jewelry, etc. Eventually, Venus turned the statue into a real woman so Pygmalion could marry her. Their kids and grandkids had even more unusual sex lives than they did, but I digress.
(Ovid, Metamorpheses, Book 10)
Some people think that the Pygmalion's story is an echo of ancient European ritual practices where statues would stand in for goddesses of love and fertility, in which case love of objects was once considered a sacred privelege and duty.
Which doesn't mean it's not a psychological problem; it may mean, though, that a lot of fascinating human culture stems from pychological problems.
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M$First, the DSM: it categorizes this as Borderline Personality Disorder. This includes Individuals who may feel more secure with transitional objects (i.e., a pet or inanimate possession) than in interpersonal relationships.
Now, from a practical perspective, there is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling secure with an inanimate object. From the time we are the youngest, we are provided with all kinds of things that become "security blankets"-- for example, a soft blanket or stuffed animal, a pacifier, etc. The issue is whether, when one grows old, this displaces an individual's ability to form relationships with others. That is when it becomes harmful to the individual. And, taking your question literally, to "love" an inanimate object as an adult would reflect that the individual is probably unhealthily displacing toward that object.
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M$
Ummm... No. This is NOT a symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD diagnosis does not list anything having to do with transitional objects.
This type of behavior would clearly fall under the Paraphilias category under Fetishism (302.81): " 1. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving the use of nonliving objects"
