Handle With Care Zine

Current editors: Ross & Crispy (@drinkingasoline)

[handlewithcarezine]

HANDLE WITH CARE VOL. 6 — CALL FOR ARTISTS

Handle With Care is now seeking artists for the next volume! We are looking for about 20 artists for this edition.

Important information, boundaries, and legal stuff:

Submission deadline for Vol.6 is 19 May, 2026. If you are accepted but unable to make the deadline for whatever reason, please communicate with us! We are more than willing to be accommodating and figure something out.

The zine’s physical dimension will be 5.25 inches wide and tall (13.3 cm by 13.3 cm). Submissions should be at least 300 DPI. Optionally, submissions in CMYK would be appreciated as the zine will be printed! But RGB submissions are just as accepted, they just might look a bit off on paper.

The prompt given for Vol.6 is gathering dust. This prompt is not strict: make something that’s the complete opposite if you want; it will not affect piece submission. Or feel free to go big and go bold with the theme, if you choose to engage with it!

Visual artists are welcome to submit a written accompaniment to their visual artwork if they’d like. Fully written works are currently capped to a maximum of five pages, though this may be adjusted once we have a rough idea what people are submitting.

Handle With Care is meant to celebrate raw objectum emotion and experiences, and meant to give these emotions a physical place in the world. We do not have a minimum skill level as a result.

However, we reserve the right to reject or ask for revisions on any submissions that make us uncomfortable, including any romantic depiction of an object that resembles a realistic feral animal or a human child. If your submission can be misconstrued as something far more concerning than just objectum sexuality by people who are not familiar with the community, it will be rejected for the peace of mind of everyone involved.

HWC is also strictly safe for work. Non-sexual nudity is allowed, although if it crosses a line we may ask for revisions.

All participants must be at least 18. Legal issues with using a minor's work and all that. Minors will be booted off the HWC discord, sorry! You are welcome to enter when you'll be legally an adult.

AI-generated submissions are also currently not allowed. We want to see work straight from objectum artists, not an objectum middleman commissioning ChatGPT for free and taking the credit.

HWC is non-profit. Physical copies are sold only to break even on printing and shipping. Any profit from donations will be re-invested in the zine or split evenly between all contributors.

Artists will retain all rights to their individual work, including copyright and being able to resell it. The zine editors (Ross Gillesby and Christopher Pye, in this volume) are allowed to sell the pieces only in the bundle of the entire zine and not individually, and will not own any copyright to those pieces.

Zine organization and communication is done through a Discord server. If you are interested in submitting something for Handle With Care Vol.6, please email [email protected] or [email protected] with:

What are you thinking of submitting? If it's a written work, how many pages do you estimate you'll need? What are your socials (for contact and verification purposes)?

We're very excited to work on a sixth volume of the zine!

-Ross and Crispy

[crabussy]

imagined the day my beloved bicycle breaks for good and without even a second of delay started miming the act of pulling out all my insides in an extremely frantic and dramatic manner. all that to say I reckon I have a sensible level of emotional attachment to my inanimate possessions

[crabussy]

I have written actual love songs about this bike. I have tucked her into bed during a hurricane. she's had thirty four years of adventure. I've only had her for two of those years. she's only had me for two of those years. but I like to think these two years have been the most wonderful and eventful and gentle years of her life. I don't know. I like bikes

[crabussy]

not only is she old, she's been in use for like FIVE TIMES the average bike lifespan. I'm twenty. that's one fifth of the human lifespan. problematic rider-bike age gap.... starts giggling and fanning myself

[crabussy]

hi websy

[mx-marriott]

All around us all the time

[treadgrinder]

i love being objectum.

[hornyharpy]

freak matching trade for @psychodogmoder

[treadgrinder]

⚠️ Community Opportunity for OS people in the American south!

Momocon Atlanta, Georgia May 24 • 2 PM EST

Hosted by Casper Cielo

Looking to meet other objectum people in real life? Curious about the subject? I was asked to host a meetup at Momocon! We will be handing out pride goodies and making light conversation. Come join us for chill vibes to close out the weekend and come make some new friends!

Those who are questioning & allies welcome! This is an 18+ meetup.

[handlewithcarezine]

favorite word?

Ross: "I have no favorite word."

Chris: "Gotta have one but I'm blanking"

[jabberwick]

STRANGE ⭐ LOVE

Something self-indulgent for my soft gay heart

[bookgilled]

My piece for HWC 6 @handlewithcarezine.

Image descriptions can be found in the alt text <3

[crabussy]

sometimes I have to stop myself from posting shit like "who made replacing a bike chain so erotic" because I remember the number of people who see my posts and I have to take a step back and reconsider my choices. sometimes I have to hide my true and sincere thoughts in a post about how I'm not posting them because it is funnier this way

[crabussy]

artist's impression

[crabussy]

whatever. it's just reaching between all its delicate parts to wrench out its guts with lots of sweating and straining. while it's upside down and immobilised. and then it's just taking the slick and shiny new chain and feeding it gently through gears and between metal before pulling it taut until the derailleur is extended and the chain clicks into place and can no longer be removed. I; think I'm bicycle. I mean bisexual

[crabussy]

forgot what website I'm on apparently. peace and love on pervert planet

[treadgrinder]

Furry Weekend Atlanta 2026 • Objectumsexuality Meetup 💙🩶⭕️💛💜

Wow, what a turnout! This was my first time holding a dedicated meetup for objectumsexuals outside of a paneling space and I was blown away by the reception. We managed to pack out a whole table on the 10th floor of the Marquis ... with spillage! 😵‍💫 Our final photos represent only a fraction of the people who showed up, with many more who unfortunately couldn't make the timeslot.

I was so touched to see the number of both familiar and new faces, with even some of you guys coming to say hello! 😭 Many people who showed up had been to my panels before and/or explored the topic more in-depth after seeing my presentation at FWAs in the past. We also had a bunch of new people who were curious about the topic, which is always great!

These events are largely a way for OS people meet others like them, mingle, interact with each other's objects, foster education about objectumsexuality, and provide the opportunity for OS people to get their hands on pride goodies that may not be easily accessible for them. Many people brought their objects of affection and piled them together, and were able to interact with the published materials and read through stuff that isn't archived online. All in all, an extremely successful outreach. We're already planning to have another one very, very soon, so keep an eye on that! 🫂

I want to give a tremendous thank you to my outreach partners, @objectosexual & @corey-beepington, for their wrangling of various odds and ends and planning logistics. Of course, @handlewithcarezine's support in my ability to continue doing this cannot be understated with their provision of zines. Please consider following their page to see their latest issue, coming soon!

[corey-beepington]

:]

[treadgrinder]

Today I held an objectumsexuality meetup in the exact same building someone pined for in the first issue of Handle With Care. 💙🩶⭕️💛💜

[planefood]

Somebody’s gay and jobless!

I’m not surprised about spirit closing up shop tbh. Them declaring bankruptcy in 2024 and then the fuel crisis added on top of that, yeah I didn’t see it going well lol. Budget airlines tend to have much shorter life spans than the more major, “respectable” airlines, in this case ones like Delta and American.

I will say Spirit being a more famous budget airline it can be quite shocking for some people. I love budget airline planes as someone with a huge interest in commercial planes because they’re like underdogs to me, but I can’t say I’m a fan of the companies themselves, or any commercial airline company for that matter. I’m not shedding any tears for the shutting down of Spirit but I will say I love the character I made for the airline, shown above! Even though I don’t draw him much, I find him much more charming than the other American Airlines.

In other news, I have been a bit unwell this past two weeks and I’m hoping I recover soon 🫡 so I haven’t been drawing much or speaking to many people. I hope you guys are all doing well

[bunchasticks]

Berkut poetry

[frutigermetrosexual]

What year did you start identifying as OS?

pre-2000

2000-2005

2006-2010

2011-2015

2016-2020

2021-2025

2026 (to present)

Voting ended onApr 25

For the purposes of this poll please vote based on when you started using the label, not when you first started experiencing objectum feelings (+ IDing as objectophile counts as using the label)

[treadgrinder]

⚠️ CALL FOR INFORMATION ON A LOST PIECE OF OBJECTUM MEDIA ⚠️

Earlier this week I attempted to purchase a book called Mechaphilia: The Sexual Attraction to Machines, a book published in 2003 that is of particular interest to me because of when, where, and by who it was written by — an anonymous mechaphile. The book was never shipped out and I cannot find another copy or much information about it anywhere.

If you have any information about this book, please contact me here or at [email protected]

↓ Mirrored Text Below

Hello there! My name is Casper Cielo. I am a full-time artist that often explores the topic of objectumsexuality. I am an amateur archivist and passionate community volunteer, with an interest in preserving objectum community history.

While looking for objectum literature on Amazon, I stumbled upon Mechaphilia: Sexual Attraction to Machines. After confirming the book was an early 2000s account from an anonymous mechaphile, I decided to purchase it for the purposes of archiving & personal research.

There was one single copy in stock through a private seller on the listing, with a mirror on AbeBooks by the same seller.

My order was cancelled two days after my initial purchase for what I can only assume was a lack of inventory.

Following this, I began a search to uncover another copy ...

The bulk of the information I have found out about this book is from two exhausted leads. A Wordpress blog from a psychologist who cited the book in his research had the following to say:

In 2003, a man simply calling himself ‘Schlessinger’ published a book called Mechaphilia: Sexual Attraction to Machines. The (non-academic) book charts Schlessinger’s “personal journey” of coming to terms with his sexual desire for machines and his quest to seek acceptance from his family and friends about his sexual love of machines. The book is detailed in his description such as his detailing of the curves of a reel-to-reel recorder that he fell in love with. Schlessinger ends the book by saying that he has happily come to accept his ‘quirky sexuality’.

I was able to establish contact and confirm he never personally owned the book.

I also got in contact with who I believe to be the publisher through a Facebook page that had been inactive since 2017. They left my message on read, so I can assume that they either do not have or have no desire to distribute the book.

The publisher in question looked to be a smaller independent venture with a presence both in Baltimore and, most interestingly, Berlin. All of this aligns with modern objectumsexuality’s European roots, Schlessinger’s name, and the book being spiral-bound, a comparatively cheaper binding method. I suspect the book was printed in small quantities and distributed primarily in Europe, though the seller I initially found for this book was in Portland, Oregon.

Because of its date of publishing, this book is one of the very few surviving raw accounts of an objectumsexual’s lived experiences circa the early 2000s. Many objectum spaces were lost following the dissolution of Yahoo Groups, and distrust of outsiders means we rarely see OS perspectives meant for a general audience. Most books on the subject skew academic, not anecdotal. This book also covers a European’s experience in my native language, making broadening my research less difficult.

Schlessinger also identified as a mechaphile, not an objectumsexual — these two terms have distinct, separate communities even today, and I would love to see what early mechaphile spaces looked like.

The publisher’s location is also of particular note to me, and I would be curious to see if Schlessinger was associated with OSI and/or Eija-Riitta due to his potential proximity to Berlin.

So how can you help?

As of now, all possible leads have been exhausted. If you do a Google search for this book, you will find my aforementioned leads. Please do not message them! They have done everything they can to help me.

As of now, I think the only way to find this book is to either pray someone has a PDF, or to find it in the real world. It is possible this book can pop up on secondhand sites, stores, or sales, especially around its area of distribution.

If you know of anyone who has this copy and would be willing to part with it, I am interested in offering money or art in exchange for it. Barring that, I am willing to also pay for shipping & hassle both ways to scan the book in and return it to its owner.

Those in explicitly European mechaphile / objectum spaces may have a better chance at finding this book or someone who knows more about it.

I have not reached out to lost media spaces or book sellers.

Please do not contact others on my behalf to avoid disturbing exhausted leads. Forward all leads to [email protected].