2,229 articles
Pieing
Pieing is throwing a pie in a public figure's face as political protest, also called entartage. Started by Yippie Tom Forcade in 1970; Aron Kay and Noël Godin made it famous; peaked with the 1998 Bill Gates pieing and faded around 2011.
Pillow talk
Pillow talk: intimate, unguarded conversation between partners in bed, especially after sex. Research term for post-sex communication; a 2020 experiment found it raised men's, not women's, relationship satisfaction.
Pink triangle
The pink triangle (Rosa Winkel) was the badge Nazi concentration camps used to identify gay male prisoners, later reclaimed as an LGBTQ+ symbol of remembrance and pride.
Plurisexuality
Plurisexuality, also called bi+, is an umbrella research term for sexual identities involving potential attraction to more than one sex or gender, including bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, queer, and fluid identities, distinct from monosexual identities.
Political correctness
Political correctness (PC): avoiding language or behavior that may offend particular groups; term usually used disapprovingly. Traced to 1793 and Maoist China's 1930s party line, pejorative since the 1980s US campus culture wars.
Political movement
Political movement: sustained collective action outside formal government institutions, spanning social movements, interest groups, and hybrid movement parties; explained by resource mobilization, political process, and framing theories.
Pollution in China
Pollution in China, also called Chinese pollution, is severe air and water contamination from coal-dominated industrialization, addressed through control programs begun after the 2013 smog winter.
Polyamory
Polyamory is consensual non-monogamy involving multiple loving relationships with everyone's knowledge and consent, distinct from swinging and polygamy; coined in 1992, practiced by roughly 1 in 9 US singles, with satisfaction comparable to monogamy.
Polyandry
Polyandry: one woman or female with multiple husbands or mates. Two forms, fraternal (Tibetan brothers sharing a wife) and non-fraternal (Nair). Rare worldwide, 53 surveyed non-classical societies, declining and legally unrecognized in India.
Polyandry in India
Polyandry in India is the practice of one woman married to more than one man at once, recorded from ancient times, chiefly in fraternal form in the Himalayas.
Polyfidelity
Polyfidelity is a closed form of polyamory in which three or more equal partners are romantically and sexually exclusive to the group; coined by the 1971-1991 Kerista commune of San Francisco, which also coined compersion.
Polygamy
Polygamy, or plural marriage, includes polygyny, polyandry, and polygynandry. A 2021 meta-analysis links it to higher depression in women and worse child psychological outcomes; legal in 93 states, mostly capped at four wives.
Polygamy in Africa
Polygamy in Africa is almost entirely polygyny, one man with multiple wives, recognized under customary, Islamic, or civil law in countries such as Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria; prevalence ranges widely (11–53% of married women) and has declined from 41% to 29% in Nigeria since 1990.
Polygamy in Christianity
Polygamy in Christianity: biblical evidence (Old Testament practice, no explicit New Testament lay ban), mainstream monogamous teaching, the Vatican's 2025 Una caro note, the 2026 SECAM African report, and churches accepting polygamy.
Polygamy in North America
Polygamy in North America is illegal in the United States and Canada but continues, mostly among Mormon fundamentalist groups, with an estimated 30,000 to 210,000 people living in plural families.
Polygyny
Polygyny is marriage of one man to two or more wives concurrently, the common form of polygamy, contrasted with rare polyandry and monogamy; concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, about 2% of the global population lives in polygamous households.
Polygyny in Islam
Polygyny in Islam (taʿaddud al-zawjāt): a Muslim man may marry up to four wives under Quran 4:3, conditional on justice and financial support; modern states regulate it variously, from Tunisia's prohibition to court-permission systems.
Pornography
Pornography: sexually explicit media intended to cause sexual excitement, spanning ancient erotica to the internet industry. Covers effects research, performer health, and 2025 age-verification laws in the UK, US, and EU.
Pornography in China
Pornography in China: production, sale, and distribution are criminalized under Criminal Law Articles 363-367 with campaign enforcement and online filtering, while private consumption persists via imported material; covers legal thresholds, crackdowns, and research.
Pornography in the United States
Pornography in the United States: sexually explicit media, legal as free speech unless obscene or child pornography under the Miller test, a $10-12 billion industry, now reshaped by state age-verification laws upheld in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025).
Postcolonial feminism
Postcolonial feminism analyzes how colonialism and global power shape gender oppression. Key figures: Chandra Talpade Mohanty ("Under Western Eyes"), Gayatri Spivak, María Lugones. Distinguished by critiques of Western feminism's "Third World Woman" and links to decolonial feminism.
Postcolonialism
Postcolonialism: academic field studying the legacies of colonialism after the colonial era; founded around Said's Orientalism (1978), developed by Bhabha and Spivak, shaped by subaltern studies, and critiqued by Marxist and decolonial thinkers.
Potter's field
Potter's field: a public burial ground for strangers and the friendless poor, named from Matthew 27:7. Hart Island, NYC's tenth and current potter's field since 1869, holds an estimated 750,000 to 1,000,000 burials.
Poznań protests of 1956
Poznań June 1956 (Poznański Czerwiec), first mass workers' protest against Poland's communist government: 28–29 June 1956 strike at ZISPO, ~100,000 demonstrators, suppressed by tanks, 57 dead.
Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar
Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar (Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, 1921–1990), Indian spiritual teacher and philosopher, founded Ananda Marga in 1955 and propounded PROUT; wrote over 100 books and 5,018 songs.
Prakash Amte (प्रकाश बाबा आमटे)
Prakash Amte (प्रकाश बाबा आमटे), Indian physician and social worker, born 1948, son of Baba Amte; runs Lok Biradari Prakalp at Hemalkasa, Gadchiroli, with wife Mandakini since 1974; Ramon Magsaysay Award (2008) and Padma Shri recipient.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is a 2008 American documentary directed by Gini Reticker and produced by Abigail Disney, about the Liberian women's peace movement.
Predicament bondage
Predicament bondage (困境束縛) is an advanced BDSM restraint form where the bound person must continuously choose between uncomfortable positions; relieving one strain increases another. Distinct from static bondage by its built-in dilemma.
Prejudice
Prejudice is an unfavorable affective reaction to a group and its members, distinct from stereotypes (beliefs) and discrimination (behavior). Meta-analyses quantify intergroup contact and other prejudice-reduction interventions, with field experiments averaging d = 0.51.
Premarital sex
Premarital sex is sexual activity before marriage. Surveys show wide global variation (median 46% of 40 countries call it unacceptable), rising US acceptance, and lower reported rates among religious and Muslim-majority populations.