Abstract

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.

Clinical study

Agalmatophilia became a subject of clinical study with the publication of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's "Psychopathia Sexualis". Krafft-Ebing 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" or trapped within a statue and displayed in a museum.

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", in which the female protagonist sucks a statue's toe; in the 1962 novel "Kort Amerikaans" ("Crew Cut") by Dutch writer Jan Wolkers (and the movie of the same name, based on the novel, from 1979), in which the main character (in the movie played by Derek de Lint) develops an interest in, and ultimately is caught having sex with, a plaster torso; as well as in Tarsem Singh's 2000 thriller movie "The Cell", which centers on a serial killer who bleaches his victims' bodies so they resemble dolls.