As opening lines go, ­tonight’s on Five is going to take some beating.

“I am a woman and this is a bridge,” says 36-year-old Erika La Tour of the Golden Gate. “And despite our vast differences, we are in love, and our love is no different to that ­between two human beings.”

Eagle-eyed readers will note this may not entirely be true.

Erika is an Objectum-­Sexual, which means she is attracted to objects rather than people. There are just 40 in the world, we’re told, ­presumably because there are only so many national monuments to go around. Erika is also in love with the Berlin Wall, had a fling with an archery bow, and is ­“married” to the Eiffel Tower.

We also meet Amy Woolf, a rotund 32-year-old New Yorker who has been in ­relationships with model spaceships, the Twin Towers, and a church banister. Her main love is a fairground ride, which must make a quiet night in difficult.

You have to admit, it’s amazing TV. Their lust is truly bizarre. Yet you’ll probably stop giggling when you learn that more than half of all ­sufferers have been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome – a low-level autism that makes it impossible for them to connect with human beings. Amy is a ­sufferer – but it’s ­mentioned once and never again. Hey, why let a crippling medical ­condition get in the way of the fun, right?

Most – such as Erika – have also been severely abused. Do we get a single doctor or ­expert talking about this?  No, we get the makers taking both on a day trip. To a ­fairground. At one point, Amy is snogging, touching up and smearing herself with grease at her favourite  ride, while Erika is ­getting ­intimate with a picket fence (let’s just say the phrase “sitting on the fence” will never be the same again). 

But why stop there, channel Five? Why not take people who suffer from bulimia out to the Krispy Kreme all-you-can-eat hour? Or zoophiles – they’re funny, right? Is ­petting day at Chessington World of Adventures open? Clearly, these people think they’re in love with objects, but you wonder if two women (the 40 others are never mentioned) with massively different problems can really be said to have the same “condition”. 

Even the Wikipedia entry on objectum-sexuals is deemed suspect and ­earmarked for deletion. And you have to wonder, just how far from the pack have you strayed when Wikipedia won’t take you seriously?

So, amazing telly. Questionable morals. Rust getting in places where rust should never get. Just another night at the Five coalface.

http://www.thelondonpaper.com/cs/Satellite/london/tv/article/1157152296230?packedargs=suffix%3DArticleController