Fetishes I Don't Have

A few months ago, I found an old 1997-2001 Toyota Camry repair manual. My interest in cars is closer to birdwatching than anything. I like identifying specific models, but I've never owned a car and have no understanding of how they work. As an outsider, the manual's black-and-white images of disembodied hands reaching into ominous masses of interlocking metal components look beautiful, intimidating, and strangely intimate to me.

The manual invoked a memory of encountering a machine fetishist on the internet who was obsessed with the 1989 animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book. I was probably around 11 years old. The machines in that cartoon had terrified me when I was younger, so I was particularly intrigued by how differently this person experienced them. The pornography they drew was basically just whimsical vehicles and factories. Still, even with my limited understanding of sexuality, it seemed unnervingly lewd. This was probably my first exposure to object sexuality, where people feel attracted to things like cars, buildings, weapons, and other inanimate objects. (The Objectùm-Sexuality Internationale website is a really interesting resource.)

I inevitably saw all sorts of strange hand-drawn fetish porn online as a kid. I remember feeling disturbed and fascinated. Even when it depicts no sex, nudity, or even bodies, it manages to look obscene. Its aura of unbridled desire, sleaze, urgency, and extreme attention to detail is unmistakable. There is something transcendent about being driven beyond shame by uncontrollable need, creating something that has not yet been commodified because it is too unusual or abhorrant to conventional taste.

It's often apparent when an artist doesn't have the kink they're depicting. The tasteful, Corporate Memphis-style illustrations of whips and handcuffs you might see accompanying a mainstream article about BDSM convey no sleaze whatsoever, which is a real shame. I haven't seen a professional designer's attempt to depict a more niche fetish, but I'm sure even Sonic inflation porn could be translated into palatable, lifeless vector art by any technically good illustrator. Making art inspired by a fetish you don't have is like trying to season a soup when you're sick with a cold and can barely taste.

I ran into this problem. I'm unable to experience firsthand what aspects of machinery mechanophiles find arousing, so I was only able to focus on things like composition and color. My collages don't really look pornographic. The first in the series is the closest to what I was trying to achieve, for reasons I don't fully understand.

Written May 2026, edited Sept 2026.