Agalmatophilia
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"As an act which offends public morals, and which is, therefore, punishable, the violation of statues a whole series of cases of which Moreau (op. cit.) has collected from ancient and modern times may be enumerated here. They are, unfortunately, given too much like anecdotes to allow satisfactory judgment of them. They always give the impression of being pathological like the story of a young man (related by Lucianus and St. Clemens, of Alexandria) who made use of a Venus of Praxiteles for the gratification of his lust; and the case of Clisyphus, who violated the statue of a goddess in the Temple of Samos, after having placed a piece of meat on a certain part. In modern times, the Journal L'evenement of 4th March, 1877, relates the story of a gardener who fell in love with a statue of the Venus of Milo, and was dis- covered attempting coitus with it. At any rate, these cases stand in etiological relation with abnormally intense libido and defective virility or courage, or lack of opportunity for normal sexual gratification."--Psychopathia Sexualis |
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Agalmatophilia (from the Greek agalma 'statue', and -philia φιλία = love) is a paraphilia involving sexual attraction to a statue, doll, mannequin or other similar figurative object. The attraction may include a desire for actual sexual contact with the object, a fantasy of having sexual (or non-sexual) encounters with an animate or inanimate instance of the preferred object, the act of watching encounters between such objects, or sexual pleasure gained from thoughts of being transformed or transforming another into the preferred object. Agalmatophilia may also encompass Pygmalionism (from the myth of Pygmalion), which denotes love for an object of one's own creation.
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Clinical study
Agalmatophilia became a subject of clinical study with the publication of Richard von Krafft-Ebbing's Psychopathia Sexualis. Ebbing recorded an 1877 case of a gardener falling in love with a statue of the Venus de Milo and being discovered attempting coitus with it.
Fantasy, transformation, role-play
An important fantasy for some individuals is being transformed into the preferred object (such as a statue) and experiencing an associated state of immobility or paralysis. Such fantasies may be extended to role-playing, and the self-coined term used by fetishists who enjoy being transformed into what appears to be a "rubber doll" or "latex doll".
In the arts
Sexualised life-size dolls have extensively featured in the work of famous art photographers such as Hans Bellmer, Bernard Faucon, Helmut Newton, Morton Bartlett, Katan Amano, Kishin Shinoyama, and Ryoichi Yoshida.
Agalmatophilia features prominently in Luis Buñuel's L'Âge d'Or (the female protagonist sucks a statue's toe) and in Tarsem Singh's 2000 thriller movie The Cell. The movie centers on a serial killer named Carl Stargher (played by Vincent D'Onofrio) who drowns his victims (all young women) and then bleaches their bodies so they resemble dolls. He then masturbates while hanging himself above them. Later on in the movie there is a scene taking place inside his mind in which a psychiatrist finds a collection of grotesque, doll-like, corpse-like women inside display cases depicting scenes, while attached to crude machinery that jerks them about in sadomasochistic sexual poses; how the killer perceives his victims.
Lars and the Real Girl, a movie about a delusional young man who strikes up an unconventional relationship with a RealDoll
See also
- Doll fetish
- Gynoid
- Human furniture
- Living statue
- Objectum
- Robot fetishism
- Sex doll
- Sexual objectification
- Tableau vivant
