Human sexuality portal

Human sexuality covers topics such as the biological basis of and the social factors affecting, sexual behavior, gender and sexual orientation.

Over time and across cultures, there have been different views on sexual ethics and different laws on what sexual behavior is permitted. Sex education programs promote reproductive health and family planning and try to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Many societies have forms of erotica or pornography and a sex industry with sex workers such as prostitutes.

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Shunga 春画 is a Japanese term for erotic art, typically ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Translated literally, shunga means picture of spring; "spring" is a common euphemism for sex.

See more shunga on the Wikimedia Commons

Netsuke of mammoth ivory

Shunga production started in the Heian period when it was the reserve of the courtier class, but reached its peak in the Edo period, when it was enjoyed by all classes, both male and female. At this time it expressed chonin sexual mores, including heterosexuality, homosexuality and fetishes. Subjects included courtesans and kabuki players who acted as male prostitutes. Despite censorship it was created openly by Japan's finest artists (who also made more "soft core" bijinga). Shunga never had the stigma of pornography and at times had an educational function. It died out with the introduction of erotic photography, but inspired modern hentai.

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Randy Tobias, former U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, gets publicly tested for HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia in an effort to reduce the procedure's stigma.

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Paraphilias

Clinical literature discusses eight major paraphilias individually; according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the activity must be the sole means of sexual gratification for a period of six (6) months, and either cause "clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" or involve a violation of consent to be diagnosed as a paraphilia.

• Exhibitionism: the recurrent urge or behavior to expose one's genitals to an unsuspecting person.
• Fetishism: the use of non-sexual or nonliving objects or part of a person's body to gain sexual excitement. Partialism refers to fetishes specifically involving nonsexual parts of the body.
• Frotteurism: the recurrent urges or behavior of touching or rubbing against a nonconsenting person.
• Pedophilia: the sexual attraction to prepubescent or peripubescent children.
• Sexual Masochism: the recurrent urge or behavior of wanting to be humiliated, beaten, bound, or otherwise made to suffer.
• Sexual Sadism: the recurrent urge or behavior involving acts in which the pain or humiliation of the victim is sexually exciting.
• Transvestic fetishism: a sexual attraction towards the clothing of the opposite gender.
• Voyeurism: the recurrent urge or behavior to observe an unsuspecting person who is naked, disrobing or engaging in sexual activities, or may not be sexual in nature at all.
• Other rarer paraphilias are grouped together under Other paraphilias not otherwise specified (ICD-9-CM equivalent of "Sexual Disorder NOS") and include telephone scatalogia (obscene phone calls), necrophilia (corpses), partialism (exclusive focus on one part of the body), zoophilia (animals), coprophilia (feces), klismaphilia (enemas), urophilia (urine). More than 50 other paraphilias have been identified and named by sexologists (see list of paraphilias).

(See also paraphilias).

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