Safe sex is sexual activity using methods or contraceptive devices to reduce the risk of transmitting or acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV. "Safe sex" is also sometimes referred to as safer sex or protected sex to indicate that some safe sex practices do not eliminate STI risks. It is also sometimes used colloquially to describe methods aimed at preventing pregnancy that may or may not also lower STI risks.
Group sex is sexual activity involving more than two people. Participants in group sex can be of any sexual orientation or gender. Any form of sexual activity can be adopted to involve more than two participants, but some forms have their own names.
Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexualityeducation or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexual reproduction, safe sex, and birth control, sexual health, reproductive health, emotional relations and responsibilities, age of consent, and reproductive rights. Sex education that includes all of these issues is known as comprehensive sexuality education. In contrast, abstinence-only sex education, which focuses solely on promoting sexual abstinence, is often favored in more socially conservative regions, including some parts of the United States. Sex education may be provided as part of school programs, public health campaigns, or by parents or caregivers. In some countries it is known as "Relationships and Sexual Health Education".
Prison sexuality consists of sexual relationships between prisoners or between a prisoner and a prison employee or other persons to whom prisoners have access. Since prisons are usually separated by sex, most sexual activity is with a same-sex partner. Exceptions to this include sex with spouses/partners during conjugal visits and sex with a prison employee of the opposite sex.
Frot or frotting is a sexual practice between men that usually involves direct penis-to-penis contact. The term was popularized by gay male activists who disparaged the practice of anal sex, but has since evolved to encompass a variety of preferences for the act, which may or may not imply particular attitudes towards other sexual activities. This can also be used as some type of foreplay.
Mammary intercourse is a sex act, performed as either foreplay or as non-penetrative sex, that involves the stimulation of a man's penis by a woman's breasts and vice versa. It involves placing the penis between a woman's breasts and moving the penis up and down to simulate sexual penetration and to create sexual pleasure.
Men who have sex with men (MSM) are men who engage in sexual activity with other men, regardless of their sexual orientation or sexual identity. The term was created by epidemiologists in the 1990s, to better study and communicate the spread of sexually transmitted infections such as HIV/AIDS between all sexually active males, not strictly those identifying as gay, bisexual, pansexual or various other sexualities, but also for example male prostitutes. The term is often used in medical literature and social research to describe such men as a group. It does not describe any specific kind of sexual activity, and which activities are covered by the term depends on context. The alternative term "males who have sex with males" is sometimes considered more accurate in cases where those described may not be legal adults.
Bugchasing is the rare practice of intentionally seeking human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection through sexual activity.
Oral sex, sometimes referred to as oral intercourse, is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a person by another person using the mouth. Cunnilingus is oral sex performed on the vulva while fellatio is oral sex performed on the penis. Anilingus, another form of oral sex, is oral stimulation of the anus.
Good Vibrations is a sex-positive San Francisco-based corporation selling sex toys and other erotic products. It operates nine retail stores: seven in the San Francisco Bay Area, one in Brookline, Massachusetts, and one in Harvard Square; a mail-order business; an e-commerce website; a wholesale arm; and an erotic-video production company, Good Releasing. Formerly, it operated three publishing companies: Down There Press, Passion Press and Sexpositive Productions.
Wank Week was a controversial season of television programming that was due to be broadcast in the United Kingdom by Channel 4, expected to consist of a series of three documentary programmes about masturbation. However, plans to broadcast it in March 2007 came under public attack, and the planned broadcasts were pulled amid claims of declining editorial standards and controversy over the channel's public service broadcasting credentials. While Wank Week itself was cancelled, the films it was meant to showcase were left open to be broadcast at a later date.
Abstinence, be faithful, use a condom, also known as the ABC strategy, abstinence-plus sex education or abstinence-based sex education, is a sex education policy based on a combination of "risk avoidance" and harm reduction which modifies the approach of abstinence-only sex education by including education about the value of partner reduction, safe sex, and birth control methods. Abstinence-only sex education is strictly to promote the sexual abstinence until marriage, and does not teach about safe sex or contraceptives. The abstinence-based sex education program is meant to stress abstinence and include information on safe sex practices. In general terms, this strategy of sex education is a compromise between abstinence-only education and comprehensive sex education. The ABC approach was developed in response to the growing epidemic of HIV/AIDS in Africa, and to prevent the spread of other sexually transmitted infections. This approach has been credited by some with the falling numbers of those infected with AIDS in Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe, among others. From 1990 to 2001 the percentage of Ugandans living with AIDS fell from 15% to between 5 and 6%. This fall is believed to result from the employment of the ABC approach, especially reduction in the number of sex partners, called "Zero-Grazing" in Uganda.
Non-penetrative sex or outercourse is sexual activity that usually does not include sexual penetration, but some forms, particularly when termed outercourse, include penetrative aspects, that may result from forms of fingering or oral sex. It generally excludes the penetrative aspects of vaginal, anal, or oral sex, but includes various forms of sexual and non-sexual activity, such as frottage, manual sex, mutual masturbation, kissing, or hugging.
Masturbation is a form of autoeroticism in which a person sexually stimulates their own genitals for sexual arousal or other sexual pleasure, usually to the point of orgasm. Stimulation may involve use of hands, everyday objects, sex toys, or more rarely, the mouth. Masturbation may also be performed with a sex partner, either masturbating together or watching the other partner masturbate.
Sexuality in China has undergone dramatic changes throughout time. These changes can be categorized as "sexual revolution". Chinese sexual attitudes, behaviors, ideology, and relations have especially gone through dramatic shifts in the past four decades due to reform and opening up of the country. Many of these changes have found expression in the public forum through a variety of behaviors and ideas. These include, but are not limited to the following cultural shifts: a separation of sex and marriage, such as pre- and extramarital sex; a separation of sex from love and child-bearing such as internet sex and one-night stands; an increase in observable sexual diversity such as homo- and bisexual behavior and fetishism; an increase in socially acceptable displays and behaviors of female sexual desire; a boom in the sex industry; and a more open discussion of sex topics, including sex studies at colleges, media reports, formal publications, online information, extensive public health education, and public displays of affection.
Sex Panic!, sometimes rendered SexPanic! or Sex Panic, was a sexual activism group founded in New York City in 1997. The group characterized itself as a "pro-queer, pro-feminist, anti-racist direct action group" campaigning for sexual freedom in the age of AIDS. It was founded to oppose both mainstream political measures to control sex, and elements within the gay community who advocated same-sex marriage and the restriction of public sexual culture as solutions to the HIV crisis. The group has been depicted as a faction in a gay "culture war" of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
The Naz Foundation (India) Trust is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in that country that works on HIV/AIDS and sexual health. It is based in the Indian capital of New Delhi.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to human sexuality:
National Masturbation Day, also known as International Masturbation Day, is an annual event held to protect and celebrate the "right to masturbate". The first National Masturbation Day was May 7, 1995, after sex-positive retailer Good Vibrations declared the day in honor of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, who was fired by President Bill Clinton in 1994 for suggesting masturbation be part of the sex education curriculum for students.
Joseph Kramer or Joe Kramer is an American sexologist, filmmaker and somatic sex educator. He is the founder of the Body Electric School and of the profession of Sexological Bodywork.
