Celebrate Love

Erika La Tour Eiffel with hubby

The perfect mate might just be an inanimate object. But to Erika La Tour Eiffel, the love of her life is anything but inanimate. Erika is one of the few in the world diagnosed as objectum-sexual: they bond with objects, some even are public monuments, for which they say they have romantic and sexual feelings.

OK, I’m open to a lot of things, but literally…be sexually and emotionally attracted to a thing…an object? This is a new one. I can imagine that some people are somewhat attached to their sex toys, we all know how boys love their toys (think of those who adore their cars and guns and how they lovingly clean them), but sexually attracted to objects and public monuments?

No, Erika doesn’t hate men. She is a former U.S. Army soldier and was a world champion archer. Her first true love was Lance, a bow. In the image above, she returned to Paris to celebrate her first anniversary with her hubby. Read more here.

“La Tour Eiffel” is female—in French, “la” is the feminine article. So this is a feminine symbol. Feminine or not, the Eiffel Tower is a magnificent phallic symbol, perhaps the ultimate one, ne c’est pas? An even more complex relationship is kept by psychology student Bill Rifka, who maintains a relationship with an iBook and assigns a clear gender to the object of his desire: “To me, my Mac is male. I’m living in a homosexual relationship, so to speak.”

The record holder for being married to an object belongs to Berliner-Mauer, her loving spouse being the Berlin Wall, with whom she tied the knot in 1979. Her previous love was a guillotine.

These beliefs are deeply held. About half of those diagnosed as objectum-sexuals, a fetish also known as objectophilia, have Asperger’s Syndrome (a high-functioning form of autism) and most seem to be women. Retired sexologist Volkmar Sigusch has a hypothesis that society is increasingly drifting towards asexuality:

More and more people either openly declare or can be seen to live without any intimate or trusting relationship with another person.” He also adds, “The objectophiles aren’t hurting anyone. They’re not abusing or traumatizing anyone.”

While this is probably the most unusual form of marriage I’ve ever encountered, I can’t help ending this with “love is in the eye of the beholder.” And wondering what others make of this?

Tags: fetish, Love, Marriage, objectum sexual, relationships

George Carlin
& Sally Wade

I’m sure that most of us have heard about George Carlin passing on June 22 from heart failure. While we know that he was a thoroughly irreverent comedian, infamous for his “Seven Words You Can’t Say On TV,” what you might not know is that George Carlin was a happily married man twice and without a divorce. How many of us get that lucky even once?

His first true love was Brenda Hosbrook who he married in 1961 and had his only child, Kelly, with her. She died in 1997 from liver cancer. Shortly before she died, George said this about his marriage: “Lest you wonder, personally, I am a joyful individual with a long, happy marriage and a close and loving family.” (Brain Droppings, 1997). I bet that would surprise most!

In 1998 he met Sally Wade, who he married that year. What he said about meeting Sally: “This happened like a thunderbolt. Everything about the relationship is what I call perfect. It’s a gift. It’s an absolute gift from the cosmos that we found each other.” And “She’s smart and funny and great-looking. And she and I have this thing where we kind of like inhabit a bubble, and it’s like the whole universe is ours. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

While George found fault with nearly everything on this planet, he surely didn’t with the women he married and loved. His feeling about marriage was that:

“Sex without love has its place, and it’s pretty cool, but when you have it hand in hand with deep commitment and respect and caring, it’s nine thousand times better…Given the right reasons and the right two people, marriage is a wonderful way of experiencing your life.”

Even though it’s hard for me to imagine myself married again, I still feel that staying in a long-term committed relationship with a person brings insights about life, love and relationships that goes beyond words. You must experience it, to learn and know someone at a nearly cellular level, to plunge the depths and brush the sky with them: there simply is no other way but to do the time.

What are your thoughts about the possibility of true love striking twice? Do you feel there’s only one soulmate?

Tags: george carlin, Love, Marriage, relationships

“She was the most special thing in my life and still is,” says Donald Joye about his wife Phyllis, with whom he’s shared 50 years of married bliss. How incredible is that!

They met in junior high and it was love at first sight. They secretly married while still in high school and somehow managed to keep their marriage secret (their parents had figured it out anyway, but approved and also kept their secret) so they could graduate and Phyllis could still be the homecoming queen. She never had a wedding dress, but had her prom dress altered to fit for their 50th wedding anniversary celebration. Read their fairy tale love story here.

They certainly have the right stuff going for them—you can still see true love zinging between them after more than 50 years since they met. It gives me chills to look at that photo! Phyllis never had a wedding gown, but kept her prom dress which she had altered so she could wear it for their 50th wedding anniversary celebration. They still look like teenagers in love, don’t ya think?

Frank Sinatra once sang,

Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you
If you’re young at heart
For it’s hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind
If you’re young at heart

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams
And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on its way

Don’t you know that it’s worth every treasure on earth
To be young at heart
For as rich as you are it’s much better by far
To be young at heart

And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive
Then here is the best part
You have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart

Maybe that golden key to celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary is nothing more than keeping fun and joy in your life and relationship.

What keeps your love glowing?

“All I Need” Sculpted Keepsake Clear lucite block features delicate beveled edges that beautifully reflect light around the heart mosaic design. Custom personalize with two lines of sentiment and optional year.

Recipe for a Happy Marriage Recipe Box “Blend well, sweeten with generous portions of love, keep warm with a steady flame of passion. Serves 2.” Personalize with first names. Also available as a photo album.

Silver-Plated Chinese Fortune Cookie Add your customized fortune. Packaged in a Chinese take-out box with the symbol for “Love” printed on the side. Or choose a personalized, giant, edible fortune cookie.

Tags: Anniversary, husband, Love, Marriage, romance, wife