What Is Sentient Object Romance?

A genre of romance novels that appears to be growing in popularity is “sentient object romance.” We wanted to explore it here on Sex and Psychology, so we spoke with author Chuck Tingle, who has published hundreds of novels on the topic. In this article, we’ll provide an overview of the sentient object romance genre, discuss one of Tingle’s books (“I’m Gay For My Living Billionaire Jet Plane”), and recap a little of what we discussed with Tingle on the Sex and Psychology Podcast (head to episode 355 for the full conversation).

Defining Sentient Object Romance

So what are “sentient objects” anyway? Sentience indicates some ability to think or feel. Sentient objects, then, are nonliving things that are afforded some level of consciousness, such as the ability to experience emotions or communicate with others. Sentient objects are widely present in fiction novels and are often imbued with some form of magic that gives them sentience. For example, the sorting hat from Harry Potter is able to independently look inside students’ minds, assess their personalities, and then vocalize a house assignment for each student. These actions — thinking, assessing, and talking — all demonstrate how the sorting hat is imbued with human-like qualities that make it sentient. 

Sentient object romance takes this concept of giving objects the ability to think, speak, and feel, and expands on it by extending those abilities to sexual and romantic attraction. As a genre, Vera Valentine defines sentient object romance as “a love story centered around one human character and one or more ‘sentient object’ character(s).” Here, a person may find themselves in love with a library card, a bowl of mac and cheese, or even a pumpkin spice latte — all of which are sentient objects that Tingle has written romance books about. However, the genre also extends to ephemeral moments or concepts, such politics, days of the week, and the physical manifestation of Halloween (which have also all been written about by Tingle). 

“I’m Gay For My Living Billionaire Jet Plane” 

To get a better idea of the sentient object romance genre, I read “I’m Gay For My Living Billionaire Jet Plane,” which appears to be one of Chuck Tingle’s most popular and highly-rated books in the genre. It’s a short book (just 16 pages) and is only available on Kindle. In this story, Keith is a 400-seat gay passenger plane who is also a billionaire. The human protagonist in the story, Alex, meets Keith while he’s taking a nearly-empty flight from New York to Los Angeles. While experiencing some turbulence on the flight, Alex hears Keith’s voice reassuring him that all will be okay, and the two begin chatting. Alex learns that Keith is also a Blackjack card-counter on the side (who knew that airplanes could have two professions!), and that he gets lonely sometimes flying at night. Before deplaning, Keith invites Alex over to his house to learn how to count cards as well. 

Alex arrives at a mansion that Keith himself is too large to fit inside (400-seat passenger planes and doorways don’t really mesh well with one another), so the two sit by the pool to spend time together. As with any erotica novel, Alex (our human) and Keith (our plane) have sex with one another before taking a first-class trip to Vegas together as lovers. To learn more about the logistics of their sexual encounter, however, you’ll have to read the book for yourself. While it’s obvious that individuals need to be willing to suspend reality to get through the story, such as the logistics of how a human and an airplane would have sex, the book also seems to reflect a perfectly reasonable love story between a human and a sentient object as long as readers are able to be willing to do so. 

What’s the Appeal of Sentient Object Romance?

So what is it that people find appealing about this romance genre? We sat down with Chuck Tingle on episode 355 of the podcast to discuss this, as well as where Tingle gets his inspiration from.

One of the big questions about sentient object romance is whether it is related to a specific kink or fantasy like other niche romance content, such as monster erotica, or if the genre is appealing for other reasons. For example, there have been several instances in real life of people who develop attraction to and relationships with objects, such as the My Strange Addiction episode where a man is in a romantic relationship with his car. While certainly rare, these individuals may have a paraphilia (an attraction that falls outside of the mainstream) that is related to objects (known as “objectophilia”) or machines (understood as “mechanophilia”). 

However, it’s unlikely that everyone who enjoys sentient object romance is drawn to objects in real life. Instead, as Tingle explains, perhaps most readers don’t have an inherent sexual desire for sentient objects, but rather find some level of absurdity and humor that draws them into his work.

Despite the humor and ridiculousness of the work (like we see in the relationship between Keith and Alex), Tingle hopes that people realize that there is a seriousness and political subtext behind what is being written, and that readers take away a few things. First, he hopes that individuals are able to resonate with the larger political message inherent in his work, which seeks to counter political narratives that vilify non-cisheterosexual relationships. Second, Tingle hopes that readers follow others before them who have either (a) described that they have an increased amount of empathy for LGBTQ+ people, or (b) even begin to explore their own queer identity a little more. 

Want to Learn More?

If you’re interested in learning more about the topic of sentient object romance, click here to listen to the full interview between Justin and Chuck. You can also check out this reading list put together by Vera Valentine, and listen to this podcast episode from Fated Mates on the topic as well. 

If you have a sex question of your own, record a voicemail at speakpipe.com/sexandpsychology to have it answered on the blog or the podcast. 

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