Mechanophilia (or mechaphilia [1] ) is a paraphilia involving a sexual attraction to machines such as bicycles, motorcycles, [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]
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]
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.
