OK, so I might have coined a term here. But there is reality behind the term. I refer to those who love inanimate objects, and even “marry” them. This small but growing movement may easily just be dismissed as so much foolishness, but of course the same could have been said about homosexuals “marrying” a few short decades ago.
Back then such a concept was laughable. But today of course the laughable has become the actual, and there is most certainly a slippery slope now going on here. I have documented many, many cases of the slippery slope in action, since the push for homosexual marriage has become reality.
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All sorts of radical sexual lifestyle groups are demanding their rights to marry as well. And in my book Strained Relations I spoke about those even marrying objects. Let me offer a few paragraphs from my book:
Consider a recent article in the Futurist, produced by the World Futurist Society based in America. A cultural historian wrote an article entitled “The Transformation of Marriage”. Stephen Bertman, professor emeritus of languages, literatures, and cultures at Canada’s University of Windsor, argued that marriage may be “a semantic artefact of a lost world”. He argued that it is not just the transience of marriage that is at issue now. “It is the very definition of the term that futurists must now address. A radical redefinition of marriage is now under way that promises to transform its meaning for all future time”…
And finally, presumably still with the utmost seriousness, he speaks of the “theoretical possibility” of “the marriage of human beings to inanimate objects”. He speaks of how many men love their cars, or how many people have formed an intimate relationship with their computer. “Why should not this bond of tactile intimacy be validated by more than an owner’s manual?” he asks, seemingly in complete sincerity.
Well, there have been plenty of objects that people have “married”. I have documented some of them elsewhere. And consider this article which features “13 People Who Married Inanimate Objects”: http://www.ranker.com/list/13-people-who-married-inanimate-objects/jude-newsome
While many of them may well be a joke, it is no joke that some folks are taking all this quite seriously. Let me offer another example, which also may be regarded as a joke, and then look at a rather serious exploration of all this. The recent case comes from Europe:
“An Australian woman has taken her desire for the ‘strong and silent’-type to a new extreme when she married a bridge. Jodi Rose married Le Pont du Diable Bridge in Céret, southern France after falling head over heels for the ‘sensual’ 14th century stone structure….
“The wedding between Jodi and Le Pont du Diable, which translates to The Devil’s Bridge, took place in front of 14 guests and was blessed by the mayor of neighbouring town Saint-Jean-de-Fos. The pair made their vows at the groom’s entrance. Rose wore a custom bridal gown and veil, and commissioned rings for both her and the bridge. ‘He understands that I love other bridges – and men – ours is a love that embraces the vagaries of life, as materialised in the swirling currents of the river that flows beneath his magnificent body,’ Rose wrote on her website….
“Their union is not legally recognised in France, but Rose claims their marriage is as strong as any other. ‘This is not a decision I undertake lightly, just as our curves complement, we truly bring joy to each other, and the strength of his pylons will always carry me home.’ Ms Rose, who says she is completely devoted to her new husband, has yet to explain how she determined the sex of the bridge.”
But leaving aside this case without further comment, consider a very lengthy interview done in a rather serious magazine, The Atlantic. It has to do with a guy in love with, and married to, a doll. Yep. While the whole interview is quite revealing, let me offer a few excerpts from it:
“Davecat met his future wife, Sidore Kuroneko at a goth club in 2000, so the story goes. The less romantic but perhaps more true version is that he saved up for a year and a half to buy her online. She cost about $6,000. Sidore is a RealDoll, manufactured by Abyss Creations in the shape of a human woman. She is covered in artificial skin made of silicone, so she’s soft. These high-end, anatomically correct—even equipped with fake tongues—love dolls (or capital-D Dolls) are ostensibly made for sex.
“But 40-year-old Davecat (a nickname acquired from videogames that he now prefers to go by) and others who call themselves iDollators see their dolls as life partners, not sex toys. Davecat and Sidore (or, as he sometimes calls her, Shi-chan) obviously aren’t legally married, but they do have matching wedding bands that say ‘Synthetik [sic] love lasts forever,’ and he says they’re considering some sort of ceremony for their 15th anniversary. Davecat considers himself an activist for synthetic love….
“Have you always been interested in dolls, and if so, was it always in a sexual way?
“I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of artificial people, specifically artificial women. Before I knew Dolls existed, I’d long identified as being a technosexual, even before I knew there was a word for it. A technosexual is someone who is attracted to robots. Like any subculture, there’s many shades within the term. Some technosexuals prefer their organic partners to dress as robots; others are attracted to robots who don’t necessarily have a humanoid appearance, such as R2-D2. My preference is for humanoid robots that are covered in artificial flesh, so they look organic upon first glance; both Geminoid-F and the Actroid series of Gynoids by Hiroshi Ishiguro are excellent examples.
“Obviously, I’m sexually attracted to synthetic humans, such as Gynoids and Dolls, but the much larger part of their appeal is that they’re humans, but they don’t possess any of the unpleasant qualities that organic, flesh and blood humans have. A synthetic will never lie to you, cheat on you, criticize you, or be otherwise disagreeable. It’s rare enough to find organics who don’t have something going on with them, and being able to make a partner of one is rarer still….
“In your episode of My Strange Addiction, you talk about how you’re perfectly aware she’s a doll, and you’re not trying to pretend she’s a person. Yet you consider yourself married to Sidore, a marriage/relationship being something that is inherently two-sided. How do you reconcile those two things in your head at once?
“Both Sidore and Elena have two backstories. One in which Sidore is the daughter of a Japanese father and an English mother, and was born in Japan and raised in Manchester, England. Elena’s is similar; she grew up in Vladivostok, Russia. The other backstory they have is that they’re Dolls. Self-aware Dolls, but Dolls nonetheless. In one backstory they have favorite foods; in the other, they don’t eat, because they don’t have digestive tracts… because they’re Dolls. You get the idea….
“Also, I have to ask—do you really feel fulfilled? Does it ever get lonely, is there anything that Sidore and Elena can’t offer that you wish you had?
“At this stage in the game, I’d have to say that I’m about 99 percent fulfilled. Every time I return home, there are two gorgeous synthetic women waiting for me, who both act as creative muses, photo models, and romantic partners. They make my flat less empty, and I never have to worry about them becoming disagreeable. Because of my status as an iDollator, I’ve met people across several countries and forged solid friendships. I’ve seen things I would never have seen were I not an iDollator.
“I’ve been interviewed for various television programs and websites, and asked to speak in front of a room full of psychology students about the benefits of synthetic partners. I’ve collaborated with performance artists and sociology teachers. To this day, I still get people contacting me online, saying that they saw how happy I am with Sidore, and they’re saving up for a Doll of their own, to pull them out of their own loneliness. It’s true that Sidore and Elena wouldn’t exist without me, but without them, I’d be a much more reduced individual, so I owe them quite a lot.
“However, that 1 percent of unfulfillment? That’s only there because neither Sidore nor Elena are Gynoids. Once that technology becomes affordable, I’ll have one made in my wife’s likeness, and that’ll be the final piece of the puzzle. She’d be able to hug me back whenever I embrace her, we’d be able to attend films and concerts together, and do all manner of things besides. There would be genuine interaction. The foundation for the technology is already there, so I’m convinced it’ll happen; it’s just a matter of waiting.”
On and on it goes. The fact that this mainstream periodical chose to even run with the story shows that something is underfoot. Whether or not this guy is a bit of a nutter is immaterial here. Increasingly the serious, respectable parts of the mainstream media are devoting a lot of attention to all this.
And that simply helps to make my point: there is a real slippery slope going on here, and once we countenance an oxymoron like homosexual marriage then we might as well push the door wide open and allow any “love” to be formally recognised, and even become the stuff of marriage.
http://www.koorong.com/search/product/strained-relations-the-challenge-of-homosexuality-bill-/9780646560953.jhtml
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356774/Australian-woman-Jodi-Rose-marries-bridge-France–gets-mayors-blessing.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/09/married-to-a-doll-why-one-man-advocates-synthetic-love/279361/
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