A New Kind of Knothead: Ecosexual Woman Falls in Love With an Oak Tree

May–December relationships can be tough. In case you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s a term for a romantic relationship between two people with a considerable age difference. Many experts believe that these types of relationships can be especially difficult. Between societal pressures and different milestones, two individuals from differing decades might just have to try a little harder to make a relationship work for the long haul.

Sonja Semyonova, a 45-year-old woman from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, has found herself in one of these relationships, though hers is slightly more complicated. The one she is attracted to could be up to 55 years older than her. We can’t be sure, of course, because the only way to tell with any degree of accuracy would be to cut the one she loves in half and count the rings. You see, Semyonova identifies as ecosexual, and her beau is an oak tree. 

Isn’t it ironic that the same people who think folks who believe in two sexes are strange condone what people like Semyonova embrace? Rational thought eludes them.

Semyonova describes her relationship as erotic. While she has always felt lonely, the oak tree has filled that void. I should mention that Semyonova claims to be a self-intimacy guide, whatever that is. I shudder to think what she sets her clients up with, especially since she claims that what she feels for the tree is what she has always wanted in a person.

“The feeling of being tiny and supported by something so solid," she says. "The feeling of not being able to fall. I had been craving that rush of erotic energy that comes when you meet a new partner and that is not sustainable.”

Right, because nothing says true love like a deciduous lover. 

Semyonova claims this whole thing began 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 doesn’t engage in physical sexual acts with the tree, so while erotic, it isn’t the same as human sexuality.

“A big misconception is that ecosexuality means sex between people and nature, it's a different way to explore the erotic," she explains. "To watch the changing of the seasons is to me an erotic act. You go from death in winter and then everything comes alive in spring and mates. There are similarities between sex with people and the eroticism ecosexuals feel with nature, but they're not the same.”

Yeah, so take that, all you plain old run-of-the-mill heterosexuals. Still, you can hope for a deeper relationship. Semyonova says that she thinks everyone is a closet ecosexual and all we have to do is recognize it. Of course, she dutifully added that if we could just relate to those feelings it could help with climate issues. 

Then she added this: “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.”

I may be going out on a “limb” here, but I prefer that my wife’s exterior doesn’t consist of bark, that squirrels and birds don’t live in her hair, and that, starting in October, I don’t have to start raking the bedroom. 

Tree hugging has long been associated with liberals, but Semyonova has taken it to a different level. Since the tree has already put down roots, maybe she can build a treehouse and the two can live happily ever after.