6,078 articles
Serial reaction time task
The serial reaction time task (SRTT) is a behavioral paradigm in cognitive psychology that measures implicit sequence learning, introduced by Nissen and Bullemer in 1987.
Set-shifting task
A set-shifting task is a neuropsychological test of cognitive flexibility in which a participant applies a rule across trials and switches when cues or feedback demand it.
Seven Nations of Canada
The Seven Nations of Canada (les Sept-Nations du Canada) was a confederacy of Catholic mission villages in the St. Lawrence Valley allied with New France.
Sevgül Uludağ
Sevgül Uludağ (1958–2026) was a Turkish Cypriot journalist and peace activist who wrote for both Turkish and Greek Cypriot newspapers and investigated the island's 2,000 missing persons.
Sewing Circle (Hollywood)
The Sewing Circle was the informal, allusive name for Hollywood actresses thought to be lesbian or bisexual, roughly the 1910s to 1950s; traced to Alla Nazimova or Marlene Dietrich, popularized by Axel Madsen's 1995 book, with Garbo, Dietrich, and Bankhead named.
Sex assignment
Sex assignment, also called sex designation, is the classification of a newborn as male, female, or other, usually based on external genitalia and recorded on the birth certificate.
Sex at Dawn
Sex at Dawn (2010) by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá argues human ancestors were promiscuous, bonobo-like foragers and that monogamy arose with agriculture; a bestseller popularly, it drew strong academic criticism, notably Lynn Saxon's 2012 rebuttal Sex at Dusk.
Sex club
Sex club: venue or organization where adults pay to engage in or observe sexual activity; also called swingers, lifestyle, or on-premises clubs. Distinct from brothels; regulated by zoning, licensing, and public health codes.
Sex differences in intelligence
Sex differences in intelligence: average male-female differences in IQ and specific cognitive abilities. Also called the gender similarities debate. No reliable mean difference in general intelligence; largest gap is 3D mental rotation (d 0.51-0.73) favoring males; math and verbal near parity.
Sex differences in psychology
Sex differences in psychology: average male-female differences in cognition, personality, and behavior. Meta-analyses (Hyde 2005; Zell 2015) find most effects small, average d = 0.21, with context-dependent exceptions.
Sex life
Sex life: the pattern of sexual activity, desire, and intimate expression in a person's life, also called sexuality and sexual health; defined by the WHO as well-being in relation to sexuality, studied across history, cohorts, and the lifespan.
Sex manual
Sex manual, also called sex advice or sex self-help book: practical instructional literature on sexual technique and relationships, distinct from erotica. Spans the Kama Sutra, Islamic manuals, Married Love, and The Joy of Sex, with censorship history and clinical bibliotherapy evidence.
Sex Matters (advocacy group)
Sex Matters is a UK human-rights charity and advocacy group (CIO 1207701, registered 3 April 2024), co-founded by Maya Forstater, campaigning on biological sex, single-sex services, and women's sport.
Sex position
Sex position: the bodily arrangement partners use during sexual intercourse or other sexual activity. Also called coital positions; classified into frontal, rear-entry, side-lying, woman-on-top, and adapted variants; studied for pain, injury risk, and disability adaptation.
Sex scandal
Sex scandal: a media-amplified public controversy over the sexual conduct of public figures. Key cases include Lewinsky (1998), Sandusky (2011), Nassar, and Weinstein (2017, #MeToo); research emphasizes gendered double standards in framing.
Sex segregation
Sex segregation is the separation of people by sex in workplaces, schools, facilities, and public life. Also called gender segregation, it spans occupational segregation (Reskin, Charles), sex-separated restrooms, single-sex schooling, and sport, with divergent legal treatment in US and UK law.
Sex segregation in Saudi Arabia
Sex segregation in Saudi Arabia separates unrelated men and women in public spaces, workplaces, and schools; ikhtilat (mixing) was long the contested concept, enforced by the Mutaween, then relaxed after 2016 Vision 2030 reforms lifted driving and guardianship restrictions.
Sex work
Sex work is the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation, including pornography. Also called prostitution by critics, it spans four legal models (criminalization, Nordic, legalization, decriminalization), has a rights movement dating to COYOTE in 1973, and gained full labor rights in Belgium in 2024.
Sex worker
Sex worker: an adult providing consensual sexual services for pay, spanning street, indoor, and online work. Distinguished from trafficking; 168 countries criminalize some aspect; HIV risk nine times higher; decriminalized in New Zealand (2003) and Belgium (2022).
Sex-positive feminism
Sex-positive feminism, also called pro-sex or sex-radical feminism, is a current arising in the early 1980s during the feminist sex wars; it affirms sexual pleasure and opposes legal or social control of consensual adult sexual activity, conflicting with anti-pornography feminism.
Sex-positive movement
Sex-positive movement: also sex-positive or pro-sex feminism, a current treating consensual sexuality and pleasure as healthy, arising in the 1980s feminist sex wars against anti-pornography feminism, later shaping HIV prevention, sex education, and sexology.
Sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on sex or gender, spanning individual, institutional, and structural levels; coined in 1960s US feminism, it is measured poorly and, per UN 2026 data, no SDG 5 indicator is on track for 2030.
Sexless marriage
Sexless marriage: a marriage with little or no sex, often defined as fewer than 10 occasions per year. Key facts: US estimates around 20 percent sexless, desire discrepancy is the leading clinical driver, and treatment combines medical workup with couples therapy.
Sexology
Sexology is the scientific, interdisciplinary study of human sexuality, emerging from 19th-century European medicine, globalized by 1880-1960, and advanced by Kinsey and Masters and Johnson; it underpins WHO sexual health and sexuality education.
Sexting
Sexting, from 'sex' and 'texting', is sending or receiving sexually explicit messages, photos, or videos by phone or internet. Key facts: youth prevalence 14.8% sending, 27.4% receiving; nonconsensual forwarding 12.0%; links to image-based sexual abuse and laws against it.
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 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 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 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 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.