A woman from British Columbia has announced her relationship with a tree. Not just any tree, an Oak Tree. Vancouver Island resident Sonja Semyonova, who likes the feeling of being tiny and supported by something so strong, discovered her feelings for the tree during COVID.
Semyonova claims that this whole thing began back in 2020 during the Covid lockdowns. She would go for walks in the woods and those strolls took her past the tree. Sometime during the summer of 2021, she began to feel something erotic for the tree: “I would lie against it. There was an eroticism with something so big and so old holding my back.”
She says there’s no actual sex with the tree despite insisting on how erotic her experience with it is. She likens it to the natural human attraction to the outdoors.
“It’s already present in a lot of people. There’s a reason we want to go for picnics in parks and hike in nature. What we fail to notice is that the reason we want this is to tap into the life force that comes from these things, which is the erotic. I believe that we could gain from having a more symbiotic relationship with nature, that relationship could definitely be erotic.”
You are under no obligation to agree. Your next picnic need not be burdened by an internal battle over whether the object of your passion is the person with you (depending on the company) or the surroundings. Wow, the nitrogen level in this grass makes me so horney! It’s just so…green!
Semyonova is clearly a lonely woman for whom cats were not a solution (none big enough or strong enough to own legally, if I had to guess – and where would she keep the litter box?). Her loving a tree doesn’t harm anyone or anything else. She’s entitled to her devotion as long as no one else is forced to acknowledge it as normal or natural, and the tree is not…underage (it appears to be over 50). So, hey, if it makes her happy, whatever, but she’s going to have a hell of a time naming all the children when she’s not stepping on them.
There might be some conflict over pollination, so it should be an open relationship. All those anthers and stigma. It’s one giant, umm … use your ecosexual imagination. And I have to guess that Mrs. Sonja Semyonova Oak (or is she keeping her last name) is allowed to be ‘inspired’ by other deciduous growth. No conifers, that would be weird. Pine Cones. Seriously!
Christmas cards – no roaring fire. Not a lot of travel together options. I hope she likes hanging out at his/her place. Oh, and “loving” trees as romantic context isn’t even a new idea.
Content warning (sort of).
