BDSM is a variety of often erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged in by people who do not consider themselves to be practising BDSM, inclusion in the BDSM community or subculture often is said to depend on self-identification and shared experience.
In biology, taxonomy is the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa and these groups are given a taxonomic rank; groups of a given rank can be aggregated to form a more inclusive group of higher rank, thus creating a taxonomic hierarchy. The principal ranks in modern use are domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus is regarded as the founder of the current system of taxonomy, as he developed a ranked system known as Linnaean taxonomy for categorizing organisms and binomial nomenclature for naming organisms.
A mnemonic device or memory device is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval in the human memory, often by associating the information with something that is easier to remember.
Anna Mary Robertson Moses, or Grandma Moses, was an American folk artist. She began painting in earnest at the age of 78 and is a prominent example of a newly successful art career at an advanced age. Moses gained popularity during the 1950s, having been featured on a cover of Time Magazine in 1953. She was a subject of numerous television programs and of a 1950 Oscar-nominated biographical documentary. Her autobiography, titled My Life's History, was published in 1952. She was also awarded two honorary doctoral degrees.
Shemale is a term most commonly used in the pornography industry to describe trans women or other people with male genitalia and female secondary sex characteristics acquired via hormones or surgery. Many people in the transgender community consider the term offensive and degrading. Using the term shemale for a trans woman may imply that she is working in the sex trade.
Societal attitudes towards same-sex relationships have varied over time and place. Attitudes to male homosexuality have varied from requiring males to engage in same-sex relationships to casual integration, through acceptance, to seeing the practice as a minor sin, repressing it through law enforcement and judicial mechanisms, and to proscribing it under penalty of death. In addition, it has varied as to whether any negative attitudes towards men who have sex with men have extended to all participants, as has been common in Abrahamic religions, or only to passive (penetrated) participants, as was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Female homosexuality has historically been given less acknowledgment, explicit acceptance, and opposition.
Bareback sex is physical sexual activity, especially sexual penetration, without the use of a condom. The topic primarily concerns anal sex between men without the use of a condom, and may be distinguished from unprotected sex because bareback sex denotes the deliberate act of forgoing condom use.
Stonewall is a 1995 British-American historical comedy-drama film directed by Nigel Finch, his final film before his AIDS-related death shortly after filming ended. Inspired by the memoir of the same title by gay historian Martin Duberman, Stonewall is a fictionalized account of the weeks leading up to the Stonewall riots, a seminal event in the modern American gay rights movement. The film stars Guillermo Díaz, Frederick Weller, Brendan Corbalis, and Duane Boutte.
Semantic change is a form of language change regarding the evolution of word usage—usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. In diachronic linguistics, semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word. Every word has a variety of senses and connotations, which can be added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that cognates across space and time have very different meanings. The study of semantic change can be seen as part of etymology, onomasiology, semasiology, and semantics.
The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) authorizes and organizes the taxonomic classification of and the nomenclature for viruses. The ICTV develops a universal taxonomic scheme for viruses, and thus has the means to appropriately describe, name, and classify every virus taxon. The members of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses are considered expert virologists. The ICTV was formed from and is governed by the Virology Division of the International Union of Microbiological Societies. Detailed work, such as identifying new taxa and delimiting the boundaries of species, genera, families, etc. typically is performed by study groups of experts in the families.
Homosexuality is sexual attraction, romantic attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exclusively to people of the same sex or gender. It "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions."
Ego-dystonic sexual orientation is a highly controversial mental health diagnosis that was included in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) from 1980 to 1987 and in the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) from 1990 to 2019. Individuals could be diagnosed with ego-dystonic sexual orientation if their sexual orientation or attractions were at odds with their idealized self-image, causing anxiety and a desire to change their orientation or become more comfortable with it. It describes not innate sexual orientation itself, but a conflict between the sexual orientation a person wishes to have and their actual sexual orientation.
The Dolch word list is a list of frequently used English words, compiled by Edward William Dolch, a major proponent of the "whole-word" method of beginning reading instruction. The list was first published in a journal article in 1936 and then published in his book Problems in Reading in 1948.
Gay pornography is the representation of sexual activity between males. Its primary goal is sexual arousal in its audience. Softcore gay pornography also exists; which at one time constituted the genre, and may be produced as beefcake pornography directed toward heterosexual female, homosexual male, and bisexual audiences of any gender.
Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) beginning with the first edition, published in 1952 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). This classification was challenged by gay rights activists during the gay liberation following the 1969 Stonewall riots, and in December 1973, the APA board of trustees voted to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. In 1974, the DSM was updated and homosexuality was replaced with a new diagnostic code for individuals distressed by their homosexuality, termed ego-dystonic sexual orientation. Distress over one's sexual orientation remained in the manual, under different names, until the DSM-5 in 2013.
The Path of the King is a 1921 novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, presented as a loosely-coupled series of short stories.
