The Woman Who Fell in Love with the Berlin Wall / Objectum Sexuals / OSWall Love
Bricktease - meet the woman who married the Berlin Wall. Bizarre investigates the curious world of people who fall in love with objects.
Bizarre joins the furries - more fetish fun here
Like millions of sweethearts across the globe, Wall Winther has found true love. Her husband, in his prime, was a stalwart of immense stature, a domineering presence who was feared throughout his homeland and infamous the world over. Events haven’t been too kind to his physical state, but the couple’s love remains strong. You might think Wall Winther is lucky to be attached to such a celebrity, but it’s unlikely the couple will be gracing the cover of Hello! any time soon. That’s because Wall Winther’s other half is the Berlin Wall.
Wall Winther (whose original name was Eija-Riita Eklaf) is an Objectum-Sexual, or OS for short. Most OSes harbour their passions in private, terrified of rejection by society. But they can still form meaningful relationships, even if their partners might be considered unconventional. “It’s an orientation, like hetero or homosexuality,” explains Kiowa, a US-based OS who moderates an internet forum for like-minded souls. “We’re emotionally and physically attracted to objects. Replacing the term ‘hetero’ with ‘object’ would accurately describe OS.”
Wall Winther agrees. “We see things as living beings,” she says. “That’s a must. Otherwise you can’t fall in love with an object.” Wall Winther is attracted mostly to constructions with plenty of parallel lines – buildings, fences, bridges, gates and, in one case, a guillotine. But other OS fetishists might be turned on by the intricate workings of a turbine or television set, the delicate curves of a shiny sports car, the rigid harshness of a railtrack, or the bell end of a trumpet.
Look hard enough and you’ll discover an internet populated by tales of love affairs with objects. Joachim A, for example, confesses to his affair with a Hammond organ that began when he was 12. He’s now in a steady relationship with a steam locomotive. Psychology student Bill Rifka tells of his sexual obsession with his iBook (he defines it as a homosexual relationship as he regards his laptop as male) and Doro B talks about falling for a metal processing machine she encountered at her work. Online at least, OS is a genuine sexual orientation, where relationships thrive, desires are aroused (and fulfilled) and deep emotions burn.
Falling for a wall
Waving the OS flag proudly, Wall Winther is arguably the most outspoken and prominent member of the OS community, fearlessly trying to achieve mainstream recognition for her ‘leftfield’ sexuality. Her site, Berlinermauer.se, attracts thousands of visitors each year, and is filled with love poems, photographs and touching memories. She spends much of her time running the Model & Guillotine Museum in her Swedish hometown of Liden, which showcases scale models of buildings (many of her beloved Berlin Wall), fences and bridges she has expertly built. Wall Winther is a talented model-maker (it’s in her genes: “My father was a carpenter,” she says), and comes across as intelligent and warm, recounting her tales in softly spoken English, delivered with more than a passing nod to her native Swedish tongue.
“When I was a child, I thought all people looked at objects the way I did,” she says. “I was 14 or 15 when I discovered most people are heterosexual. But I’d always been attracted to objects, even before puberty. My father built various models, including a model of the Great Wall of China. Then, when I was seven years old, I saw the Berlin Wall on television, just as it was completed. It was my first love. My feelings were like, ‘Wow, it’s gorgeous.’”
The love was sealed by marriage in the summer of 1979, in a ceremony attended only by a penpal. Wall Winther subsequently took her husband’s name, to be known as Wall Winther Berliner Mauer (Berliner Mauer is ‘Berlin Wall’ in German). Of course, this wasn’t technically legal matrimony, but Wall Winther shrugs this off, insisting the spiritual bond is what counts.
“I don’t think that’s important,” she says. “If I want to marry the Berlin Wall and have a normal ceremony and do other normal things that are done at a wedding, then I’m married.”
As with other alternative lifestyles, the internet has proved a powerful tool in uniting OS people. One of the closest friendships Wall Winther has struck up is with Kiowa, a world-class athlete in her native US who’s won both world and national honours. And she attributes part of her success to her “spiritual relationship” with sporting equipment.
Despite an age gap of some 20 years, Kiowa describes her close relationship with Wall Winther as being “like sisters”. Yet, like most sibling relationships, there have been dramatic arguments. Kiowa also confesses a deep love for the Berlin Wall, though she says her feelings developed in the wake of the construction’s political ‘dismantling’ in 1989.
“The day I watched the world smash him with picks and hammers is the day I realised he meant more to me than just my collection of postcards,” Kiowa says. “That day, I truly fell in love with him. But our joint love for die Berliner Mauer has caused problems between Wall Winther and I. She has loved him since he was built. But my attraction grew after he was almost destroyed. But she understands that now, so things are OK.”
“Kiowa loves the Berlin Wall,” Wall Winther sighs. “I did get jealous when she stayed with me. But we sorted it out.” Although Bizarre feels bad about bringing up the sensitive issue of Wall Winther’s reaction to what she calls “the terrible disaster of 1989”, we can’t leave without asking: How did she come to terms with her partner’s demolition?
“When I saw it happen on TV, I closed the door. I felt shocked,” she says, sadly. “I loved my husband when he was in his prime – it took me 10 years until I could love him again after that. I just didn’t know who he was any more. It’s difficult to explain.” Her memories tail off into a brief silence.
Sex with structures
With the pain still evident, we move on to other aspects of OS. Is it acceptable for OSers to have more than one partner? Especially considering the impracticalities of location and size of some?
Wall Winther, who enjoys relationships with many scale models of the Berlin Wall and whose previous lovers include a large model of a guillotine, says: “Yes, I can love the real Berlin Wall and the models. It’s not cheating because it’s the same construction. And when I married him, we decided being faithful isn’t important because he’s in Berlin and I’m over here in Sweden.”
Kiowa also speaks of having “many object lovers over the years”, and is currently courting “a wall, a fence, a tower and a bridge”. “Just as people date each other, I do so with objects,” she says. “Until recently, I only allowed myself to love one type of object. If I loved bridges, I could only love bridges because I didn’t believe in polygamy. This changed when I met other OSers. I realised there was no reason I couldn’t share love, so long as all parties concerned had no issues and no-one was being hurt or rejected.”
OK, but let’s get to the bottom line – what about sex? With so many shapes and sizes of objects, some enormous in scale, can someone really get jiggy with a wall? “Yes, of course, we enjoy physical relations with our partners,” says Kiowa. “It’s not easy, but the connection happens even if the pieces don’t quite fit. We each have our own means of physical union. It could be simple caressing or something more. Like beauty, sexual pleasure is in the eye of the beholder.”
Some OSers have even attempted to provide guides to having sex with specific objects. A manual devoted to car-loving exists online, suggesting methods such as leather interior humping and gearstick penetration. Wall Winther makes the important distinction that, for OS people, physical union isn’t to be confused with masturbation. “If you masturbate, you see your partner as an object, something only to pleasure you,” she says. “When I have sex with the Berlin Wall, or a model of him, I want to please him too. That’s the big difference.”
Mattka is based in the UK and confesses to having sexual liaisons with vehicles on a regular basis. Among his likes are “sports, luxury 4x4s and pick-ups”. He also finds himself attracted to “many types of boats, fighter jets and construction machinery”, adding coyly, “Some sports bikes work well – and nearly fit into bed.”
Yet he describes his interest as no more than a fetish. “There’s emotion involved, but not much,” he says. “It’s not that hard for me to swap cars and sell them on. It’s definitely not a substitute for a real relationship.”
As for true OSers, Wall Winther claims there are many people out there who fit the definition, but are too afraid to come out. “Society is a long way off accepting, understanding or even learning about OS,” she says. “Other OS people must stand up for what they are. They can’t hide in the closet. I tell them that and they get angry with me – but you’ll never win the fight by hiding.
You have to go out and tell people, it’s the only way. It’s like gay people – if they were still in the closet, they’d never have been accepted today.”
Dr Glyn Hudson-Allez, a chartered psychologist and psychosexual therapist based in Bristol, feels maybe society would be kinder to OSers than Wall Winther suspects. “I don’t think Objectum-Sexuality is becoming more common,” he says. “But we’re becoming a more tolerant society in terms of sexual diversity.”
On the flipside, Wall Winther’s hope of a re-evaluation of marriage laws is something Dr Hudson-Allez is less optimistic about. “You can’t marry an object because an object can’t give consent,” he says. “The whole idea of marriage is that someone makes a choice to join in union. I’m afraid that other people need to hear that consent, regardless of what OSers may feel.”
Which means the journey of sexual equality will be a long one for Wall Winther – and her unusual, legendary, eternally silent husband.
For more information, visit Berlinermauer.se
