Human sexuality portal

Human sexuality covers a broad range of topics, including the possible biological basis of and the social factors affecting sexual behavior, gender and sexual orientation.

Sexuality varies greatly over time and across cultures. There are different views on sexual ethics and different laws on what sexual behavior is permitted. Sex education programs may promote reproductive health and family planning and try to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Many societies have some forms of erotica or pornography and a sex industry with sex workers such as prostitutes.

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Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida "Grietje" Zelle (August 7, 1876, Leeuwarden – October 15, 1917, Vincennes), a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was executed by firing squad for espionage during World War I, though she may well have been an innocent scapegoat.

She has become an archetype of the femme fatale, a spy who performed an erotic dance that included a partial striptease, who has been shown in fiction as seducing the young virgin Indiana Jones.

See more images of Mata Hari on the Wikimedia Commons

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Close fitting Zentai suits which cover the whole body were originally developed for dance, but have acquired other uses including sexually fetishistic ones.

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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).

(See paraphilias).

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