2,229 articles
Slavery in Mauritania
Slavery in Mauritania is hereditary, descent-based servitude of Haratines to Beydane masters. Abolished by ordinance in 1981, criminalized in 2007, strengthened by 2015 and 2020 laws; estimates range from 43,000 to 149,000 enslaved.
Slut
Slut is an offensive English word for a woman thought to have many sexual partners, first attested c. 1400 meaning an untidy woman; central to slut-shaming, the sexual double standard, and SlutWalk reclamation.
Slut-shaming
Slut-shaming, also called slut bashing, is the stigmatization of women and girls for actual or perceived sexual behavior or appearance. Key facts: sexual double standard, 50% of girls affected, SlutWalk protest movement.
SlutWalk
SlutWalk: transnational feminist protest movement founded in Toronto in 2011 after a police officer's victim-blaming remark at York University; marches against slut-shaming and rape culture, spread to over 50 countries.
So-yeon Schröder-Kim
So-yeon Schröder-Kim (Kim So-yeon), born 1970, is a South Korean interpreter and translator, fifth wife of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (married 7 May 2018), former NRW.INVEST Seoul representative, dismissed by NRW.Global Business in 2023 after attending a Russian embassy reception.
Soaking (sexual practice)
Soaking is slang for penetrative sex without thrusting, framed as a premarital-sex loophole among Latter-day Saints and BYU students. It went viral on TikTok in 2020-2021 and via TV shows, but researchers call it largely a rumor; it carries normal STI and pregnancy risks.
Social alienation
Social alienation is the estrangement of individuals from others, society, or themselves, defined philosophically as problematic separation and operationalized by Melvin Seeman's five dimensions (powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, self-estrangement), distinct from social isolation and loneliness.
Social commentary
Social commentary is the act of saying something about subjects that affect society, or a work in art, literature, or journalism that voices views on society and encourages reflection.
Social construction of gender
Social construction of gender: the theory that gender roles and hierarchies are produced through socialization, interaction, and institutions rather than being natural or inevitable; contrasted with gender essentialism, central to feminist sociology since West and Zimmerman's doing gender.
Social hygiene movement
The social hygiene movement, or hygienism, was an American Progressive Era reform campaign led by physicians to eliminate venereal disease and prostitution through sex education and legal reform.
Social issue
Social issue (social problem): a condition or behavior harming large numbers of people that the public recognizes as needing action. Combines objective measurable conditions with subjective concern; studied via constructionist claims-making theory, with data on poverty, inequality, and public priorities.
Social justice warrior
Social justice warrior (SJW) is a pejorative for promoters of progressive views; positive in the early 1990s, pejorative from about 2009–2011, mainstreamed by 2014 GamerGate, later displaced by "woke".
Social movement
A social movement is a sustained network using unconventional means, shared beliefs, and solidarity to pursue conflictual aims. Covers classical, resource mobilization, political process, new social movement, and framing theories, plus digital-era protest.
Social network
Social network: a set of actors (nodes) connected by ties (relationships), studied via social network analysis founded in Moreno's 1930s sociometry; distinct from social network sites like Facebook, which make networks visible online.
Social structure of China
Social structure of China (中国社会结构): the organized pattern of families, classes, urban-rural groups, and institutions in Chinese society, marked by shrinking households, hukou-based urban-rural division, a pyramid-shaped stratum structure, rapid urbanization, and population aging.
Socialist feminism
Socialist feminism, a 1970s feminist current combining Marxist and radical feminism, explains women's oppression through capitalism and patriarchy together, via concepts like capitalist patriarchy, dual systems theory, and social reproduction theory.
Societal attitudes toward homosexuality
Societal attitudes toward homosexuality, measured by Pew and Gallup acceptance questions since 1994 and 2002, divide sharply by region, wealth, religion, age and ideology, rising globally yet dropping recently among U.S. Republicans.
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
SPCA societies are independent animal welfare charities tracing to the 1824 London founding; examples include RSPCA, ASPCA, and SPCA New Zealand, which differ sharply in legal enforcement powers and funding.
Sociobiological theories of rape
Sociobiological theories of rape, chiefly Thornhill and Palmer's A Natural History of Rape (2000), explain rape as an evolved adaptation or by-product; contested by feminist and social science critics.
Sociology of the family
Sociology of the family: sociological study of the family as a social institution, using functionalist, conflict, symbolic interactionist, and feminist perspectives; covers Parsons, Goode, industrialization, and family diversity.
Sodder children disappearance
Sodder children disappearance: 1945 Fayetteville, West Virginia house fire after which Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty Sodder were never seen again; no remains were found, and the parents' four-decade abduction campaign remains unresolved.
Sodomy
Sodomy, from Latin peccatum Sodomiticum, is a legal term for anal and oral intercourse historically criminalized; criminalized from Justinian's 538 novella and the 1120 canons of Nablus, spread by British colonialism, and struck down in the US by Lawrence v. Texas (2003).
Sodomy law
Sodomy laws criminalize sexual acts deemed unnatural, historically anal and oral sex, also called buggery or crimes against nature. Originating in English law (Buggery Act 1533) and spread by colonial penal codes, they remain in about 63 UN member states; Lawrence v. Texas ended them in the US in 2003.
Sodomy laws in the United States
Sodomy laws in the United States: state statutes criminalizing oral and anal sex, universal until Illinois's 1961 repeal, upheld in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), invalidated by Lawrence v. Texas (2003), with 12 dormant statutes remaining as of 2023.
SOGIE Equality Bill
SOGIE Equality Bill, also SOGIESC Equality Bill or Anti-Discrimination Bill: long-pending Philippine legislation first filed in 2000 to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, expression, and sex characteristics, with fines up to PHP 250,000; still unenacted.
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth (Isabella Van Wagenen, c. 1797-1883), New York-born abolitionist and women's rights orator; won the 1828 case recovering her son Peter; the famous 'Ain't I a Woman?' refrain comes from Gage's 1863 version, not the 1851 transcript.
Solomon Northup
Solomon Northup (born c. 1808) was a free New York carpenter kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841, enslaved twelve years in Louisiana, rescued 1853; his memoir Twelve Years a Slave, edited by David Wilson, inspired the 1984 Gordon Parks and 2013 Steve McQueen films.
Somaya Bashir
Somaya Bashir (סומיה בשיר, born 1974) is an Arab-Israeli psychologist and activist from Jatt, founder of We Have No Other Land and Insan, Women Wage Peace leader, and the first Arab woman elected to a realistic slot on Israel's Democrats party Knesset slate.
Something old
Something old: first item of the English bridal luck rhyme "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence in her shoe," a Victorian-era custom symbolizing continuity, new beginnings, borrowed happiness, and fidelity.
Somnophilia
Somnophilia is a paraphilia, coined by John Money in 1986, involving sexual arousal toward sleeping or unconscious people; distinct from sexsomnia, it becomes a paraphilic disorder only with distress, impairment, or consent violations.