6,078 articles
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 identity
Sexual identity, also called sexual identification, is a person's self-labeling in sexual terms, such as lesbian, gay, or queer, one of three components of sexual orientation alongside attraction and behavior.
Sexual masochism disorder
Sexual masochism disorder (DSM-5-TR; ICD-11 removed masochism) is a paraphilic disorder: recurrent arousal from suffering for 6-plus months with distress, impairment, or nonconsent, distinct from consensual BDSM and treatable with CBT plus antiandrogens.
Sexual objectification
Sexual objectification: treating a person as a body or body parts, central to feminist theory (Nussbaum's seven features; MacKinnon, Dworkin) and objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts 1997), covering self-objectification, body surveillance, mental health outcomes, and philosophical debate.
Sexual Offences Act 1967
Sexual Offences Act 1967 (1967 c. 60), the UK statute decriminalising private, consensual homosexual acts between men over 21 in England and Wales only, following the Wolfenden Report;Scotland and Northern Ireland followed in 1980-82.
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation: enduring patterns of sexual and emotional attraction, behavior, and identity (lesbian, gay, bisexual, straight). Covers its three dimensions, history, biology, measurement, and global legal treatment.
Sexual practices between men
Sexual practices between men, also called sex between men, are the sexual behaviors and roles males engage in with other males, studied through the MSM public health category.
Sexual revolution
The sexual revolution, also called sexual liberation, was a period of rapid change in sexual values in the 1960s and 1970s, driven by the contraceptive pill.
Sexual roleplay
Sexual roleplay (RP, ERP): consensual adult play using fictional roles, costume, story, or language during intimate or game settings. Distinguished by consent frameworks (four C's), safewords and stoplight calibration, digital and AI variants, and use in sex education.
Sexual sadism disorder
Sexual sadism disorder (ICD-11: coercive sexual sadism disorder, 6D33): a paraphilic disorder defined by 6+ months of sexual arousal from another's suffering, with non-consent or distress; distinct from consensual BDSM, rare clinically, concentrated in sexual homicide samples.
Sexual tension
Sexual tension: unresolved mutual attraction shaped by desire, uncertainty, and ambiguous cues; studied in relationship psychology and neuroscience and used as a narrative device in romance fiction and screen media.
Sexual violence
Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempted act using coercion, from unwanted comments to forced penetration, recognized by the WHO as a major public health and human rights problem.
Sexuality in Japan
Sexuality in Japan (セクシュアリティ): the social organization and study of sex, sexual identity, and norms in Japan. Covers premodern nanshoku, Meiji family ideology and prostitution debates, 47.2% married sexless rate (2016), 3.5% LGBTA estimate, and the 2023 LGBT Understanding Promotion Law.
Sexuality in South Korea
Sexuality in South Korea: Confucian-influenced marriage and gender norms, state-managed prostitution history, sex education, and contested LGBT rights including the military ban and 2025 census recognition of same-sex couples.
Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln
Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln: the debate over whether the 16th US president, married to Mary Todd from 1842, had intimate relationships with men, centered on Joshua Speed, bodyguard David Derickson, and C.A. Tripp's 2005 thesis.
Sexualization
Sexualization is the assignment of a person's value through sexual appeal or imposed sexuality, distinct from healthy sexuality per the APA's 2008 Task Force definition. Related concept: objectification; key mechanism: self-objectification with measured cognitive and health consequences.
Seydoux family
Seydoux family, French Protestant dynasty of Swiss origin from Vaulruz; textile industrialists at Le Cateau-Cambrésis from 1824, later Schlumberger, Pathé, Gaumont, and French diplomacy.
Seymour Fleming
Seymour Dorothy Fleming, Lady Worsley (1757–1818), British heiress whose 1782 criminal conversation trial with Sir Richard Worsley and Captain Bissett, ending in one-shilling damages, became a landmark sex scandal.
Shaadi.com
Shaadi.com is an Indian online matrimonial and matchmaking platform launched in 1996 by Anupam Mittal's People Group in Mumbai, serving about 35 million members across India and the diaspora.
Shabbos Kestenbaum
Shabbos Kestenbaum (Alexander Kestenbaum) is an American Jewish activist and Harvard Divinity School graduate who was lead plaintiff in the 2024 Title VI antisemitism lawsuit against Harvard, settled confidentially in May 2025.
Shadow (psychology)
Shadow (psychology): in Jung's analytical psychology, the archetype of repressed, ego-unacceptable traits; encountered through projection, integrated during individuation via shadow work.
Sham marriage
Sham marriage, or marriage of convenience, is a legally valid marriage lacking genuine relationship, typically for immigration advantage. UK law defines it statutorily; enforcement, burden of proof, and criticism of the genuine/sham binary distinguish the concept.
Shan Boodram
Shan Boodram, also known as Shannon Boodram, is a Canadian sex educator and sexologist. She is the author of The Game of Desire and host of Lovers by Shan.
Shan people (ရှမ်းလူမျိုး)
The Shan people are a Tai-speaking ethnic minority concentrated in Shan State in eastern Myanmar. Mostly Theravada Buddhists, they historically ruled hereditary principalities, shaping their political relationship with the Burmese state.
Shaniera Akram
Shaniera Akram (Shaniera Thompson), Australian-born social worker from Melbourne, married cricketer Wasim Akram in 2013, embraced Islam, settled in Karachi, and leads The Akram Foundation, campaigns against blindness and child abuse, and cleans Clifton beach.
Shannon Watts
Shannon Watts, American gun violence prevention activist, founder of Moms Demand Action (originally One Million Moms for Gun Control), started after Sandy Hook 2012, later part of Everytown for Gun Safety.
Shannon–Weaver model
Shannon–Weaver model, or mathematical theory of communication: a linear sender–encoder–channel–noise–decoder–receiver model from Shannon's 1948 Bell System Technical Journal papers and the 1949 Shannon and Weaver book, foundational to communication studies.
Shaping (psychology)
Shaping is a behavioral learning technique that builds a new behavior by reinforcing successive approximations toward it, used in animal training, special education, and ABA for autism.
Sharbat Gula (شربت ګله)
Sharbat Gula (شربت ګله), also Sharbat Bibi, is the Afghan refugee known as the "Afghan Girl" from Steve McCurry's 1984 Nasir Bagh camp portrait on the June 1985 National Geographic cover; identified in 2002, deported from Pakistan in 2016, given a Kabul house in 2017, evacuated to Italy in 2021.