160 articles
Gold digger
Gold digger: derogatory term for a person entering a relationship for money, applied mostly to women. First recorded 1915; popularized by Hopwood's 1919 play The Gold Diggers and Depression-era films.
Gooning
Gooning, also called the goon state or goon space, is internet slang for prolonged edging to pornography seeking a trance-like state. Originating on Urban Dictionary in 2005, it grew via Reddit subcultures from 2019 and went mainstream around 2023; it is not a clinical diagnosis.
Group sex
Group sex: sexual encounters involving three or more participants, also called collective or group sexual activity. Distinct from swinging, polyamory, and chemsex; US lifetime prevalence under 8%; studied mainly as an HIV/STI risk environment.
Gynophillic attraction in straight women
Gynephilia (gynophilia, gynophillic) is attraction to adult females; in straight-identified women it appears as mostly heterosexual or fluid same-sex attraction, documented in Diamond's 10-year longitudinal studies of female sexual fluidity.
Hair fetishism
Hair fetishism, or trichophilia, is sexual arousal focused on human hair or hairstyles; a body-part fetish classified under fetishism/partialism, diagnosable as a disorder only with distress or impairment.
Hand fetishism
Hand fetishism is sexual arousal focused on hands, a nongenital body-part fetish related to glove fetishism. Less common than foot fetishism; classified under fetishism/partialism in DSM and ICD, a disorder only with distress.
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality, also called being straight, is the sexual orientation of enduring attraction to the other sex or another gender; the most common self-reported orientation, with a history as a concept and links to heterosexism.
History of masturbation
History of masturbation: from classical good-humored disdain through the Onania (c.1712–1716) and Tissot (1760) anti-masturbation panic, the nineteenth-century medical crusade, and the twentieth-century reversal to today's health consensus.
Homoeroticism
Homoeroticism denotes erotic desire or representation between same-sex individuals, distinct from homosexuality as identity or relationship; used since Ferenczi (1911) and central to LGBTQ history, art history, and media studies.
HuCow
HuCow, from human + cow, is a kink role and erotica genre in which a submissive plays a dairy cow for a dominant farmer, centered on lactation and milking; used since at least 2012, with 450+ FetLife groups.
Human sexual response cycle
Human sexual response cycle: model of physiological and emotional changes during sexual activity. Masters and Johnson's 1966 four-stage linear model (excitement, plateau, orgasm, resolution), Kaplan's desire phase, and Basson's 2000 circular female model.
Impact play
Impact play is a consensual BDSM activity of striking a partner with hands or implements (paddles, floggers, canes) for sensation and power exchange; risks concentrate on head, neck, kidneys, and genitals.
Incest
Incest is sexual activity or marriage between close relatives within prohibited degrees of consanguinity. Covers the near-universal incest taboo, Westermarck and inbreeding explanations, genetic risks, comparative criminal law, and family-member sexual abuse statistics.
Incidents of necrophilia
Incidents of necrophilia, also called sexual attraction to corpses, a rare paraphilia; documented through Rosman and Resnick's 122-case review, Aggrawal's 10-class system, and homicidal case studies.
Innuendo
Innuendo, from Latin innuendo "giving a nod to," is an indirect, deniable hint, often sexual, or disparaging; also a legal pleading term and the psychological "innuendo effect" of negative inference from omission.
John Saul (prostitute)
John (Jack) Saul, c.1857–c.1904, Irish-born Victorian London male prostitute, attributed author of The Sins of the Cities of the Plain (1881) and star witness in the 1889 Cleveland Street scandal and Euston libel trial.
Kama Sutra (कामसूत्र)
The Kama Sutra (कामसूत्र) is a Sanskrit treatise on erotic love and the art of living, covering topics from sexual positions to marriage and life as a courtesan.
Klismaphilia
Klismaphilia (also klysmaphilia) is a paraphilia of sexual arousal from receiving or administering enemas, coined by psychiatrist Joanne Denko in 1973; classified under DSM-5 other specified paraphilic disorder, with reported fatal risk from rectal alcohol enemas.
Kunyaza
Kunyaza (kachabali in Uganda) is a traditional Central African sexual technique from Rwanda and the Great Lakes region in which a man rhythmically taps the clitoris and labia with the glans of his erect penis to trigger female orgasm and liquid expulsion, documented for at least 150 years.
List of prostitutes and courtesans
Prostitutes and courtesans across history: named figures such as Rhodopis, Veronica Franco, and Valtesse de la Bigne, plus categories like hetaira, cortigiana onesta, mingji, and tawa'if, with sources.
Male dominance (BDSM)
Male dominance in BDSM is the consensual Dominant role in D/s power exchange. Covers negotiation, safewords, prevalence (2.2% men past-year, Australia), dominant motivations, abuse distinctions, and practitioner psychology.
Male prostitution
Male prostitution: men selling sexual services, historically called porneia in Greece. Regulated via male homosexuality laws in UK/Australia; Belgium granted labor rights in 2024; workers increasingly operate online.
Marguerite Alibert
Marguerite Alibert (Maggie Meller, Marguerite Fahmy), French courtesan and mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales; acquitted at the 1923 Old Bailey trial for shooting her Egyptian husband Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey at the Savoy Hotel; died 1971.
Masculinization (sexual activity)
Masculinization, also known as forced masculinization or forcemasc, is a consensual BDSM practice in which a participant, often a woman, temporarily adopts a masculine role through cross-dressing and personas.
Masturbation
Masturbation, sexual self-stimulation of one's own genitals for pleasure (mutual masturbation when shared with a partner), is safe, common, and endorsed by health organizations; surveys quantify prevalence and its compensatory or complementary relation to partnered sex.
Matt Fradd
Matt Fradd (Matthew Fradd), Catholic speaker and author of The Porn Myth (Ignatius Press, 2017), host of the Pints With Aquinas podcast, founder of ThePornEffect.com and Strive21, now on The Daily Wire.
Medical fetishism
Medical fetishism (medfet) is sexual arousal from medical scenarios, equipment, roles, or procedures, from doctor/nurse roleplay to catheters and enemas. Not a disorder unless distress or impairment; ICD-11 removed standalone fetishism diagnoses.
Missionary position
Missionary position: face-to-face sex position with the penetrating partner on top. Term attested by 1963, coined via Kinsey's 1948 reading of Malinowski; the missionary-origin story is undocumented.
Molly Kochan
Molly Kochan, American podcaster and memoirist (Screw Cancer: Becoming Whole) who co-created the Wondery podcast Dying for Sex with Nikki Boyer about her sexual exploration after a terminal stage IV breast cancer diagnosis; she died March 8, 2019, and inspired the 2025 FX series.
Muscle mommy
Muscle mommy (also muscle mami, muscle mummy) is internet and gym slang, spread on TikTok around 2021-2022, for a notably muscular, strong woman, whether or not she is a mother; used admiringly or as self-description, with mixed reception.