Gay marriage bills are being reintroduced in many states across the country, perhaps a sign of changing times. But while older generations —and governments may be beginning to accept relationships other than heterosexual ones, a new sexual orientation is giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “object of my desire” — the “objective sexual.”

The objective sexual, as explored in the UK documentary, “Strange Love: Married to the Eiffel Tower,” is someone who professes not only to be in love with an inanimate object, but that the love is real and reciprocal.

“We love objects and many of us in an intimate way and this feeling is innate,” reads the official objective sexual Web site. “Objective sexual love comes for most in a similar awakening as other sexualities at the start of puberty. This is often followed by an acute awareness that we do not relate to peers due to the source of the projected feelings.”

The documentary begins with Erika Eiffel, a 36-year-old American woman who claims to be married to the Parisian monument, but also admits to have affection for the Golden Gate Bridge as well.

“There is a huge problem with being in love with a public object,” Eiffel said in the documentary. “The issue of intimacy — or rather lack of it — is forever present.”

While Eiffel’s love has resulted in ostracism from family and friends, she is not alone. There is Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer, a Swedish woman whose adopted surname means Berlin Wall in German, and Amy Wolf who is in love with the Empire State Building, a church banister and an amusement park ride, among others.

However, psychologists have criticized these people’s attraction and instead assigned it to mental problems. Eiffel was discharged from the U.S. Air Force for psychological reasons after professing love for a sword, and Wolf has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, where symptoms include difficulty relating to others.

“It is not that an Asperger person does not long for human relationships; they do, desperately,” said Jerry Brooker, a psychotherapist from New York state interviewed for the documentary. “But someone who falls in love with objects can control that relationship on their own terms. Their objects will not let them down. That is extremely attractive for a person who is otherwise often desperately lonely.”

Other psychologists hypothesize that the objective sexual results from childhood abuse and being treated as an object. In fact, Eiffel was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder due to sexual abuse and abandonment as a child. However, while psychologists believe that objective-sexuals can be cured through intensive therapeutic techniques, Eiffel refuses.

“I do not wish to be fixed,” she said in the documentary. “If it is true that all that has happened to me in my childhood made me the person I am today, I am fine with it. I do not want to change.”