Mechanophilia
Mechanophilia (or mechaphilia[1]) is a paraphilia involving a sexual attraction to machines such as bicycles,[2] cars,[3][4] helicopters,[5] and airplanes.[6]
Mechanophilia is treated as a crime in some nations with perpetrators being placed on a sex-offenders' register after prosecution.[7] Motorcycles are often portrayed as sexualized fetish objects to those who desire them.[8]
Incidents
In 2015 a man in Thailand was on caught on CCTV masturbating himself on the front end of a Porsche.[9]
In 2008, an American named Edward Smith admitted to 'having sex' with 1000 cars, and the helicopter used in the television show Airwolf.[10]
Art, culture and design
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Fuckzilla--arse_elektronika_2007.jpg/220px-Fuckzilla--arse_elektronika_2007.jpg)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Fucking_Machines_device_example_Intruder_MK_II_cropped_to_machine.jpg/220px-Fucking_Machines_device_example_Intruder_MK_II_cropped_to_machine.jpg)
Mechanophilia has been used to describe important works of the early modernists, including in the Eccentric Manifesto (1922),[11] written by Leonid Trauberg, Sergei Yutkevich, Grigori Kozintsev and others[12][13] – members of the Factory of the Eccentric Actor, a modernist avant-garde movement that spanned Russian futurism and constructivism.
The term has entered into the realms of science fiction and popular fiction.[14]
Scientifically, in Biophilia – The Human Bond with Other Species by Edward O. Wilson, Wilson is quoted describing mechanophilia, the love of machines, as "a special case of biophilia",[15] whereas psychologists such as Erich Fromm would see it as a form of necrophilia.[16]
Designers such as Francis Picabia and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti have been said to have exploited the sexual attraction of automobiles.[17]
Culturally, critics have described it as "all-pervading" within contemporary Western society and that it seems to overwhelm our society and all too often our better judgment.[18] Although not all such uses are sexual in intent, the terms are also used for specifically erotogenic fixation on machinery[19] and taken to its extreme in hardcore pornography as Fucking Machines.[20] This mainly involves women being sexually penetrated by machines for male consumption,[21] which are seen as being the limits of current sexual biopolitics.[22]
Arse Elektronika, an annual conference organized by the Austrian arts-and-philosophy collective monochrom, has propagated a DIY/feminist approach to sex machines.[23]
Authors have drawn a connection between mechanophilia and masculine militarisation, citing the works of animator Yasuo Ōtsuka and Studio Ghibli.[24]
The 1973 French film La Grande Bouffe includes a scene of a man and a car copulating, to fatal effect.
David Cronenberg's 1996 film Crash concerns a cult of people fascinated by car crashes.
The 2021 French film and Palme d'Or winner Titane depicts scenes of a mechanophilic woman having sex with cars.
Documentaries
- My Car is My Lover (2008)[25]
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