For nature lovers, it is an extraordinary pleasure to take a long and peaceful walk through the forest. The fresh air, the sounds of nature, the silence at the same time, the scents of flowers and plants … are a balm for our body and for our mind. What if we took our passion for the natural world or more specifically for trees to the extreme? Dendrophilia identifies those people who are sexually attracted to trees and plants , being able to use them as if they were sexual objects.
Can you fall in love with a tree?
You may have heard that there are people who are erotically attracted to objects (very different from each other), such as vehicles, musical instruments or household appliances. This tendency is what is known as objectofilia . However, objectors are generally not exclusively concerned with satisfying their sexual needs. Rather, when they fall in love with a certain object, they build an intimate relationship with it and maintain a kind of association that only those involved in it can understand.
On the other hand we have dendrophilia, which in this case, instead of feeling sexual inclination towards an object is, in this case, a living being, although not human: a tree, a plant.
Within this paraphilia, pleasure can be obtained from rubbing with a tree to using this (or all kinds of plants or vegetables) as an object of pleasure. Thus, a hole in a tree trunk can be used by men to have ‘sexual relations’ with it (any protrusion can also be seen as a sexual attribute) ; or vegetables such as cucumbers, carrots or zucchini (due to their phallic shape) can be used as natural masturbators, either for their introduction into the anus or vagina. Using flowers to caress the genitals would also be part of this particular paraphilia.
The etymology of this paraphilia is found in the Greek, coming from the roots dendro- which means “tree” and -philia , which means “love”.
This type of affection goes far beyond the pure love of nature as we see. People with dendrophilia are quite capable of developing deep feelings for other people and maintaining social contacts, but they usually only experience sexual satisfaction in direct contact with a tree. They are greatly excited by the feel of the tree’s bark on their skin and the sight of strong roots piercing deep into the ground excites them supremely. It is not uncommon for them to choose a particular tree in their immediate environment or in a remote part of the forest, with which they feel a strong bond. Touching and hugging “their” tree gives them an equally pleasant feeling of happiness as hugging their human partner or other people.
Where does this paraphilia or inclination towards the trees come from? Again, it is unknown, but people with these sexual interests live their needs in secret for fear of social rejection and therefore also enjoy the exchange of tenderness and passion with the forest trees in solitude.
