When I explain my fascination to intelligent people, people who aren't jumping to judgements or attitudes, what they usually say is something like, "Oh, just like some guys are into vintage cars".

The second or third time I heard that, I reflected and concluded that, gay or straight, boys like toys. To expand on that, I knew lots of male friends who developed an interest in cars because they stood by their fathers as they fixed or tinkered with the family car. My Father didn't do that; even though he was into lots of "guy" things like guns and war and tools, he couldn't have cared less about cars. What he DID do, because he had been in the signal corps in the army was work on electrical motors and circuits. Whenever the family Electrolux and sometimes the Filter-Flo broke, before he would call a service person, he would take them apart himself and fix them himself if he could and this was one of the rare arenas where I could spend creative, recreative time with my Dad and learn from watching him. Of course I started to appreciate and be fascinated by these machines. It was also one of the unusual areas where he became a more benevolent teacher. One of the best things he ever did for me, when he realized at a very early age that I was interested in bells and whistles is he took a piece of Masonite pegboard and installed all sorts of little lights, bells and buzzers that were all connected to a 9-volt D-cell battery. It is one of the biggest sadnesses and regrets of my life that during one move or another it was lost.

At the other end of the spectrum, I was attached to the hip of our "Help", an angel named Mae Gravett, who did the housework with me tagging along. I used to love watching her do the laundry and she would put me up on the sink and I would watch our BOL Whirlpool spin. I still remember the feeling of excited anticipation as the machine would do the neutral drain and then wait for the machine to decide to start spinning. Mae had a Timeline Norge in her own home and she took me to see it. Mae had been a neonatal nurse at Bellevue and my Father liked her and asked her to come take care of his two kids. Mae stayed with us until 1969 when she left to marry a very wealthy man named James Taylor and begin the life she should have had from the beginning. I started writing away for appliance brochures later that year.

Maybe being gay helps to overcome the inhibitions of fearing to appear "sissy" (since it's academic at this point)for an interest in what used to be called "women's work". There are people that persist in thinking that I'm more that a little strange for being interested in appliances. One of the joys of age is being able to look narrow minded people in the eye and tell them to go fuck themselves.

Interesting question. I'm into many things mechanical. My straight brothers and friends rely on me to tune up cars, do brake jobs, wire in new circuits, and install toilets and dishwashers. I rely on them for decorating advice, clothing choices, etc, yet I am quite the sissy bottom boi(old queen.)

On these washers and dryers, it started for me when I bought this 1916 home and wanted a daily use reliable stove to match its 1940's kitchen. A Chambers range was found and restored by me, and it just led to other vintage appliances. Also, some folks tinker in the garage on cars, some watch way to much TV(BF) and I tinker in my basement, the whole thing is a workroom. I do my own plumbing and wiring for all these washers and dryers, do all the repairs and restoration my self, and I am long over the standard ideas of Women's work versus men's work from my folks generation. I can my own jelly and jam, sew up curtians myself, dress terribly, can't decorate a room to save my soul, know all the recent Broadway hits and old Judy Garland movies, and change my car oil myself, jack or jackie of any trade I choose. The boyfriend is significantly more standard issue male.

And once I'm done with repairing and restoring 8 washers and 6 dryers, I surely enjoy every load of dirty clothes, I watch it all and have a fun basement evening, no computer or tv in front of me.

My dad was not mechanically inclined.  He was a plumber until AR made him quit plumbing so he went to work as a carpetnter for a builder who built banks, churches, and small business buildings.  My brother, who was 18 years older than me knew my dad as a plumber and took up plumbing.  My dad was working as I carpenter when I was about 4 or 5  and I took up building and woodworking.  I loved going with my dad to hardware stores on Saturdays.  I had my own tool box and my dad was always bringing me scrap pieces of wood home so I could build birdhouses, doghouses, bookends, junk, whatever.    My brother-in-law, on the other hand, was truly a jack of all trades.  Roy could tear anything apart, washing machine, car, whatever, and fix it.  I was absolutely amazed at this repair ability.  Although amazed I never developed a keen interest mechanics.   But what truly fascinated me was standing on a stool in the kitchen and watching my mom's 1961 Lady Kenmore.  All my life whenever I need to go to my "happy place" I recall fond memories of my mom's 1961 and 1971 Lady Kenmores, going to Sears in Greenville (which had the very best Sears store) and checking out each and every one of their washers on display, helping my aunt do her laundry in her wringer washer, doing the family's laundry on Fridays during the summer when I was out of school, hanging the laundry on the line outside, and the smell of clothes that had been hung of the line. Up until I was 8 we lived in a neighborhood in Greenville where half of the kids I went to school with lived all around me.  We walked to school together, played together, and fought together.  When I was 8 we moved about 20 miles away into the country where there was no one around.  I no longer had any friends or playmates.  I was all alone.   Using the washing machine, I guess, became a game for me in some demented way.   I became obsessed with washing machines and I HAD to find out what kind of washing machine everyone in my family then everyone who's house I entered had.   I believe some folk receive joy from restoring a classic car or washing machine then there are us who receive joy from admiring and respecting classic cars or washing machines.   I also enjoy woodworking---not as much as I love washing machines, though. 

I think it's as much about inspired industrial design as it is watching what the machines do when they go through their paces and the desire to understand the mechanics behind it.  It's the automation thing.

Power tools didn't have bling or glitz factors like household machines, and a drill or a saw that only does one thing can't compete in complexity with a washer that goes through numerous different routines and varies them from cycle option to cycle option.  About the closest you'll come to a power tool inside the average home is a KitchenAid stand mixer.

. . . anybody saw an appliance repairwoman?   This is an interest of men almost exclusively.  Sexual preference is not a factor among professionals, or certainly hasn't been in my experience.  There is only one repair visit over a period of many years where I can recall my gaydar kicking in, and that happened within the last year.  Other than that, they have all been straight.

My earliest memories are of washing machines, quite apart from mother/father bonding issues, and I have never really understood why. Then, the other day I had an epiphany.

Our Frigidaire WO 65 sat in an alcove off the far end of the kitchen. My mother would be busy elsewhere, while I sat in front of the machine, too tiny to see inside. She said I would gesture "up-up" and she'd lift me to see. I remember the intense fragrant steam and really hot water. Geraldine recalls that I spent a lot of time there. We had a user-controlled hot water tank at the time, and she would heat it high and long for my brother's diapers. He was 2; I was 1. We rented then, and my dad was a plumber. At one point he modified the plumbing which required new hoses, and the old ones were placed in a long store room where I played with them often. The hose for hot was an orangey-red. These are very early memories and there are dozens more, but let that suffice for now.

Tuesday afternoon, I was washing in the WO-65 and I bent down to pick up a leaf from the garage floor. In that moment, the Frig went into spin as my head and ear were passing the cabinet. There is no outer tub in these models and roar of water is spectacular. You all know that as infants and toddlers, we are the ultimate sensate beings. Everything is sight and sound and touch. That's when the epiphany came. It was the sensate and tactile aspects of the washer that imprinted on me, and now I'm hooked forever. Although I have learned to appreciate dryers and dishwashers since joining the AW family, I have no deep particular interest in other appliances or cars or tools--just washers. I wonder if anybody else is like me.