All articles starting with S
44,216 articles
Sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence, also called celibacy or chastity, is refraining from sexual activity. Distinguished from abstinence-only education (found ineffective in trials) and abstinence-plus programs; CDC lists it for STI prevention.
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse: coerced sexual acts or acts directed against a person's sexuality, including child sexual abuse and image-based sexual abuse; WHO estimates 31.6% of women affected, with evolving legal responses.
Sexual abuse in the American film industry
Sexual abuse in the American film industry, also called the casting-couch problem, covers harassment, coercion, and assault in Hollywood production; #MeToo (2017, Harvey Weinstein allegations) and Hollywood Commission surveys document prevalence and weak accountability.
Sexual abuse of animals
Sexual abuse of animals (bestiality, zoophilia) is human sexual contact with nonhuman animals, criminalized in nearly all US states and much of Europe, with veterinary forensic methods and recent UK law reforms defining the offense.
Sexual abuse scandal in New Orleans Boy Scout Troop 137
Troop 137 scandal: a 1974 New Orleans Boy Scout troop whose adult leaders ran a child sexual abuse and prostitution ring, exposed in 1976, prosecuted 1977-1978, and later featured in the Netflix film Scouts Honor.
Sexual activity during pregnancy
Sexual activity during pregnancy, also called sex during pregnancy, includes intercourse, orgasm, and oral sex, and is safe for most people with healthy, low-risk pregnancies.
Sexual addiction
Sexual addiction, also called hypersexual disorder or out-of-control sexual behavior, is a proposed pattern of uncontrolled sexual behavior; not in DSM-5, its ICD-11 counterpart is compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD), an impulse control disorder.
Sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians during the Gaza war
Sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians in the Gaza war: UN Commission of Inquiry, ICC, Amnesty, and HRW findings on rape, detention abuse, reproductive healthcare destruction, and accountability since 7 October 2023.
Sexual and gender-based violence in the October 7 attacks
Sexual and gender-based violence in the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel: UN investigators found reasonable grounds for rape and gang rape at the Nova festival site, Road 232, and Kibbutz Re'im, amid limited forensic evidence and contested public debate.
Sexual anhedonia
Sexual anhedonia is reduced or absent pleasure from sexual activity; the orgasm-limited form, orgasmic anhedonia or pleasure-dissociative orgasmic dysfunction (PDOD), is ejaculation or orgasm without pleasure, distinct from anorgasmia, with limited treatment data.
Sexual arousal
Sexual arousal: physiological (genital vasocongestion, lubrication, erection) and subjective (mental) activation in response to sexual stimuli; distinguished by Masters and Johnson's four-phase cycle, Kaplan's desire phase, Basson's circular model, and the concordance gap between men (r=.66) and women (r=.26).
Sexual arousal disorder
Sexual arousal disorder, or female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD), is a sexual dysfunction of reduced genital and subjective arousal despite desire and stimulation; DSM-5 now classifies it as female sexual interest/arousal disorder (FSIAD), distinct from persistent genital arousal disorder.
Sexual assault
Sexual assault is sexual activity without freely given consent, covering rape and unwanted sexual contact. Key facts: CDC prevalence data, the Hale marital rape exemption, and consent-based law reform in Canada, the UK, and France.
Sexual assault in the United States military
Sexual assault in the US military, also called military sexual trauma, covers sexual offenses under the UCMJ. Key facts: 7,998 reports in FY2025, 33% reporting rate, SAPRO program, independent special trial counsel since 2023.
Sexual attraction
Sexual attraction is the desire for sexual contact directed by another person's sex or gender, one component of sexual orientation alongside identity and behavior; studied via the Kinsey Scale, it varies by gender and culture.
Sexual cannibalism
Sexual cannibalism: females consuming males before, during, or after mating, best studied in spiders and mantids. Driven by hunger, size dimorphism, and mate choice; countered by male sperm-loading, silk binding, genital detachment, and redback self-sacrifice.
Sexual desire
Sexual desire, or libido, is the urge for sexual activity. Key facts: Masters and Johnson 1966 four-stage model, Kaplan 1979 desire phase, Basson circular responsive-desire model, dopamine and testosterone mechanisms, HSDD diagnosis, flibanserin and bremelanotide.
Sexual Development
Sexual development: the biological process from prenatal sex determination (SRY, SOX9, WNT4; Müllerian and Wolffian ducts) through puberty (HPG axis, ages 8-13 girls, 9-14 boys) to adolescent reproductive health, including disorders of sex development.
Sexual differentiation
Sexual differentiation: the developmental process producing male or female gonads, genitalia, and traits from a bipotential state, via SRY/SOX9 genetics, gonadal hormones, temperature-dependent determination in reptiles, and cell-autonomous sex identity in birds.
Sexual differentiation in humans
Sexual differentiation in humans: the developmental process from chromosomal sex at fertilization through SRY/SOX9-driven gonadal, hormonal, and genital differentiation, plus DSDs.
Sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism: differences between males and females of a species in morphology, physiology, behavior, and life history. Ranges from female-biased size dimorphism in most insects to male-biased dimorphism in mammals and birds; driven by sexual selection, ecological divergence, sex chromosomes, and hormones.
Sexual dysfunction
Sexual dysfunction, also called sexual disorder, is the inability to participate in sexual relationships as wished, affecting about 31% of men and 41% of women; it spans desire, arousal, orgasm, pain, and ejaculation problems, treated with psychotherapy, PDE5 inhibitors, flibanserin, and testosterone.
Sexual ethics
Sexual ethics, also called sexual morality, is the branch of moral philosophy and religion governing right and wrong in sexual conduct. Covers its two organizing questions, four classic views of sex, consent-centered liberalism, and critiques of consent.
Sexual fantasy
Sexual fantasy, also called erotic fantasy or sexual daydream, is imagined sexual content that arouses. Research shows few fantasies are rare; 68.8% report BDSM fantasies; only 1.7% of men with paraphilic fantasies feel distress.
Sexual fetishism
Sexual fetishism, erotic arousal from nonliving objects or nongenital body parts; named by Binet (1887), codified by Krafft-Ebing; fetishistic disorder in DSM-5 requires distress or impairment, and ICD-11 removed fetishism as a named category.
Sexual fluidity
Sexual fluidity is situation-dependent flexibility in sexual responsiveness, allowing attractions, identity, or behavior to change over time. Introduced by Lisa Diamond's 2008 study of 100 women, it is distinct from bisexuality and from conversion therapy claims.
Sexual grooming
Sexual grooming is the process of building trust with a child to prepare sexual abuse; also called online grooming or child grooming. Covers grooming strategies, online versus offline patterns, UNICEF prevalence data, and grooming laws in the UK, Australia, and Singapore.
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment, also called unwelcome sexual conduct or sex-based harassment, is sex discrimination under Title VII, taking quid pro quo and hostile work environment forms, prohibited in nearly two-thirds of UN states and governed by ILO Convention 190.
Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, also called the POSH Act, is an Indian law protecting women from workplace sexual harassment.
Sexual headache
Sexual headache, or primary headache associated with sexual activity (PHASA, coital cephalalgia), is an ICHD-3 primary headache disorder triggered only by sexual activity, typically dull then explosive at orgasm, more common in males, and diagnosed only after excluding subarachnoid hemorrhage, RCVS, and dissection.