Glossary of Relationship Terms

Marriage, Love Relationships

& Polykoity

By

Norman Elliott Anderson

S-Si

Table of Contents
Introduction
- A -	- H -	O	U
- B -	- I -	- P -	- V -
- C -	J	Q	W
- D -	K	- R -	X
- E -	- L -	- S-Si -	Y
F	- M -	- Sk-Sz -	Z
- G -	- N -	- T -	©
Feedback opportunity

S:

Abbreviation for single (q.v.).

sabbatical from marriage:

See marriage sabbatical.

sacanagem; adjective, sacana (Portuguese, Brazilian slang):

1. The practice of openly seeking sexual pleasure with one or more other partners besides one's primary partner, for instance, during Mardi Gras.

2. Group sex (q.v.).

3. Something "dirty"; sexual behavior that falls outside of conventional norms.

4. A dirty trick; unfairness.

See also ajois relationship, mbuya relationship, promiscuity, sexual varietism.

x Portuguese terms.

sack:

1. To break off a relationship with a lover.

2. To terminate someone's employment.

See also bad breaker-upper, break up, ditch, dump, E&E, EwE, flush, get the mitten, get the sack, get the shaft, give the mitten, jilt, let go, reject, separate, split up, throw over, walk out.

sacramental marriage:

Marriage (q.v.) consciously cultivated as a mystery that participates in the deep mystery of the relation between Christ as God-man and his church, this participation entailing transforming effects such that the chaotic impulses of sexuality are channeled to reason, stability, and, by way of offspring if possible, the propagation of the faith.

Comment: The term apparently derives from the Latin Vulgate translation of Ephesians 5:32. In a discussion of marriage where an analogy is drawn with the relation of Christ to the church, the translation reads: Sacramentum hoc magnum est, ego autem dico in Christo et in Ecclesia. Sacramentum translates the Greek word mustêrion.

See also ecclesiastical marriage, hierogamy, holy matrimony, marriage-is-forever myth, married but not churched, "one flesh," sacred sex.

x Greek terms.

x Latin terms.

sacred sex:

Sexual activity

• that is perceived to participate in a divine or deistic story; or,
• that is an aspect of or accompanied by religious ritual; or,
• that serves a religious end; or,
• that enhances the inner (spiritual) lives of the participants; or,
• that is sensed to be part of an invisible connectedness both between the participants and betweeen them and something transcendent, such as the cosmos or Being itself or the Divine or some deity or love abstractedly understood and perhaps personified; or,
• that otherwise inspires someone to think of that sexual activity as other than profane ("profane" in the sense of nonreligious, secular).

Comments: This is to be distinguished from the phrase, "the sacredness of sex," which is sometimes used to refer to the intimacy between lovers as a good and as ideally inviolate; also from "the sacredness of the marital bed," which is sometimes used to refer to marriage as ideally inviolate, there sometimes being sacramental overtones.

Among the many models of sacred sex:

• Participation of human sexuality in a larger story, whether (a) metaphysical (such as creation), (b) metaphorical (such as Christ and the church), or (c) mythical (such as might be found in fertility cults).
• Limitation upon passion so as to produce spiritual growth by way of the conflict between and resolution of sensuality and spirituality.
• Denial of sensuality so that spirituality can flourish. (This would, perhaps, be beyond what can justly be called a model of sacred sex, except as a way of negation.)
• The nesting of loves, for instance: sexual attraction into romantic love into marital love into the divine agapic order.
• Human sexuality in willing submission to agapic love or the divine will.
• The idea that pursuit of contented conformity to social mores serves the common good, any or all of the elements of that idea, including the transcendent nature of the common good as a goal, being under girded by religion.
• Lovers' recognition and appreciation of the numinous or divine spark in each other either accompanying or as an element of sexual activity.
• Pursuit of harmony with or balance within nature, including the sexual and romantic nature of the human beings involved.
• The use of sexual actvity as a way of connecting ritually with the rhythms of nature.
• Awakening to the power to heal psyches through connectedness to the transcendent in sexual activity.
• The awakening of certain energy centers in the body as a route to cosmic consciousness.
• Ecstatic admission into another mode of being, even nirvana.

See also carte blanche, hierogamy, holy matrimony, holy wedlock, metasex, mystic betrothal, Oholah and Oholibah, "one flesh," sacramental marriage, sex, sex god, sex goddess, soul mate, spiritual connection, spiritualization of sensuality, spiritual marriage, spiritual polyamory, theogamy.

Quotation from D. H. Lawrence Illustrating "Sex ... Sacred"
She [Kate Leslie] walked across the beach to the jetty, feeling the life surging vivid and resistant within her. "It is sex," she said to herself. "How wonderful sex can be, when men keep it powerful and sacred, and it fills the world! like sunshine through and through one! ..."
From the novel: The Plumed Serpent (Quetzalcoatl), by D. H. Lawrence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926): chapter 27, p. 436.

sacrificial love:

1. Compassion that is practiced at a cost to oneself.

2. Affection at a cost to oneself or that is willing to bear a cost.

Comments: Sacrificial love is widely thought of as a great good; however, in some quarters it has a bad name, since, in either sense, it can be unhealthful. As compassion, the cost can be such as to have a net harm; the good of all must be taken into account. As affection, it can entail self-effacement, the demise of dreams and the motivations in life that they bring, and susceptibility to manipulation, as in: "If you love me, then you'll do such and such for me."

In any case, affection within a committed relationship is necessarily sacrificial for the relationship to work. One course of life is chosen over others, and the bad must be taken with the good. The results are usually regarded as a net benefit for both society and the individuals directly involved.

As a rule of thumb: Sacrificial love that operates out of low self-esteem or as a way of living up to artificial expectations or in response to the vanity of others is generally considered unhealthy; sacrificial love that operates out of virtue or a sense of duty (including avoidance of shame) or a joy in giving is generally considered healthy.

See also agapic love, altruism, Florence Nightingale syndrome, love, rescuer, unconditional love.

saddest words in matters of love:

See oh well.

saddled with:

Burdened with (a relationship), reluctantly still attached to (a partner), or choosing the lesser or least of evils by remaining in (a relationship at a high level of commitment).

See also caging.

Sadie Hawkins Day^®:

A day designated, normally in November, for single females to initiate and go on dates with single males. A male is supposed to accept the first female who "collars" him. The celebration of Sadie Hawkins Day is typically associated with American colleges and high schools and is often timed to coincide with a school event, such as a football game or dance.

Comments: The custom of celebrating Sadie Hawkins Day derives from Al Capp's Li'l Abner comic strip. The Day was introduced there on November 15, 1937.

In the strip, Sadie Hawkins is "the homeliest gal in the hills." Her father, Hekzebiah Hawkins, mayor of Dogpatch, anxious to marry her off, decrees a Sadie Hawkins Day. On that day a chase is to take place on foot in which the unmarried females will pursue the town's bachelors, who will be given a ten-minute head start. If caught, a bachelor faces a shotgun wedding officiated by Marryin' Sam. The Day becomes an annual event.

The first known real-life celebration of Sadie Hawkins Day was sponsored by the Charleston Gazette on the campus of Morris Harvey College (now the University of Charleston, West Virginia), November 1, 1938. From there it rapidly spread to hundreds of schools and colleges around the United States, each developing its own ways of observing the day. Some went so far as to incorporate an officiated chase, the sometimes scanty costumes of the L'il Abner strip, and mock weddings.

Sadie Hawkins Day functioned socially, for over four decades, to help empower women to take the initiative at least some of the time and to ask why not any time. Nowadays try asking a twenty-year old, "Do you ever have a special day for the girls to ask out the guys?" The reply may well be (as it was when I asked): "You mean every day?"

See also anniversary, date, feminism, mock wedding, pity date, shotgun wedding, Valentine's Day.

Related term beyond the scope of this glossary: squaw dance.

safe:

1. At no risk of falling in love with a particular person or, at least, of falling in love with that person to one's disadvantage.

2. At no risk of entering into marriage with someone or, at least, of entering into an imprudent marriage with that person.

Contrast in danger (q.v.).

Quotation from Jane Austen Illustrating "Safe"
[Lydia Bennet]: '... There is no danger of Wickham's marrying Mary King. There's for you! She is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool; gone to stay. Wickham is safe.' 'And Mary King is safe!' added Elizabeth [Bennet]; 'safe from a connection imprudent as to fortune.'
From the novel: Pride and Prejudice, [by] Jane Austen (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, c2003): chapter 39, p. 279. Originally published: Pride and Prejudice: A Novel ..., by the author of "Sense and Sensibility" (London: T. Egerton, 1813).

safe sex, or safer sex:

Any of various practices designed to avoid the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Among the most common safe sex practices:

• the restriction of sexual activity to manual or purely external stimulation;
• the use of barriers during sexual activity, such as latex condoms; and,
• living in a closed relationship, such as a monogamous or polyfidelitous relationship.

Obviously each of these safe sex practices has a potential for failure:

• STDs can be introduced into closed relationships either because of prior contact or because of lapses or because, as is the case with HIV/AIDS, they are capable of being transmitted in nonsexual ways (which means in part that ongoing testing for STDs has an important role);
• manual and external stimulation create a strong desire for other types of sexual activity; and,
• condoms can break (a rare occurrence) or slip off or be used in too limited a way, if not disused altogether.

So the point is frequently made that no sexual activity with others is completely risk free, hence the term "safer sex." It is also said that total abstinence from sexual activity with others is the only truly safe approach to sex, although such a statement discounts the psychological and attitudinal damage that abstinence for the sake of avoidance of STDs may do.

See also abstinence, abstinence plus, family values, fluid-exchange relationship, protected sex, safe sex circle, SSC.

safe sex circle:

A group whose members consciously decide not to have unprotected sex with anybody other than members of the group, this for the sake of avoiding sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Generally the commitment entails the avoidance as well of other risky behaviors that might introduce HIV/AIDS into the group. Commonly testing for STDs plays a big role in such a circle, both to gain entry and to remain a member allowed to participate in unprotected sex after unprotected outside sexual contact or other possible exposure to an STD.

See also chains of affection, chastity circle, closed circle of f*** buddies, closed loop relationship, condom commitment, fluid-exchange network, fluid monogamy, polyfidelity, protected sex, safe sex.

x circles.

Saint Beelzebub's order:

See order of Saint Beelzebub.

Saint Valentine's Day:

See Valentine's Day.

salutation of Beatrice:

A greeting from a beloved that boosts one into a state of exultation, similar to that described by Dante when greeted by his beloved Beatrice.

See also Dante Alighieri syndrome, theology of romantic love, vision of romantic love.

x Beatrice.

Quotation from Charles Williams Illustrating "Salutation of Beatrice"

Two or three incidents bear on the idea of her [Beatrice's] relation to God. The first is the moment when the girl comes down the street and say "Good morning" in passing. This thrilling and universal moment | is known as "the salutation of Beatrice". So, of course, it is, and it is as serious (but not as artistic) as that. It is the flash of the moment in a word. Dante says: "I say that when she appeared from any place, there was through my hope of her admirable salutation, no enemy remaining to me, but a flame of caritas possessed me, which made me pardon anyone who had offended me; and if anyone had then asked me concerning anything, my answer would have been only Love, with a face clothed in humility."

From the theological work: He Came Down From Heaven, [by] Charles Williams (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1984): chapter 5, "The Theology of Romantic Love," pp. 98-99. Originally published: London: William Heinemann, 1938; in series: I believe; no. 5. I presume that the translation from Dante is Williams' own.

Charles Williams' Quotation from Dante in the Original

Dico che quando ella apparia da parte alcuna, per la speranza dell' ammirabile salute nullo nemico mi rimanea, anzi mi giungea una fiamma di caritade, la quale mi facea perdonare a chiunque m' avesse offeso: e chi allora m' avesse addimandato di cosa alcuna, la mia risponsione sarebbe stata solamente, Amore, con viso vestito d' umiltà.

Dante, Vita Nuova §11 (for the salutation, cf. §3). Italian text as found in: The Vita Nuova and Canzoniere of Dante Alighieri (With alterations. London: J. M. Dent, 1911, t.p. 1948; in series: The Temple Classics): p. 26.

salvator femininus (Latin):

"Feminine savior."

Comment: The term is used satirically in a novel by D. H. Lawrence. What follows as to Lawrence's point is guesswork:

The Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed., 1911) contains this remark in its entry for Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage: "as Sospita she was invoked all over Latinium as the saviour of women in their perils." Sospita is the feminine form of one of the Latin words for savior, sospes. However, "saviour of women" readily translates into Latin as salvator feminarum. Lawrence might have been playing off of that latter designation for the goddess of marriage.

Alternatively, he might have been playing off of salvator feminae, that is, "savior of a woman," as a man might be who marries a pregnant woman.

The character Rupert Birkin suggests to Gerald Crich that he marry Minette Darrington, who had become pregnant by another man; and then, in the next breath, Birkin says that he himself shall "come right" through marriage. Birkin has suggested that Gerald be the savior of a woman, while implying his own need for a female savior. So Gerald responds, "Salvator femininus."

Even if Lawrence was playing off of salvator feminarum, this need not have meant that Gerald was alluding primarily to the goddess, for each woman was said to have had her own Juno comparable to each man's genius (see, for example, Seneca, Epistle 110:1); furthermore, a man might refer to his wife as mea Iuno (Plautus, Casina 2.3.14).

Reference
Women in Love, [by] D. H. Lawrence; with a foreword by the author and an introduction by Richard Aldington (New York: Viking Press, 1960): chapter 8, p. 91. Early editions: New York: Privately printed for subscribers only, 1920. London: Martin Secker, 1921.

See also God's gift to women; Mater semper certa est, pater est, quem nuptiae demonstrant; mea Iuno; out of wedlock; paternity; sex goddess, unwed father.

x Latin terms.

Samaritan woman at the well:

1. Jesus' female interlocutor in the story presented in the Gospel of John 4:3-44 (in the New Testament), a story which is pregnant with nuptial imagery and allusions.

2. A title sometimes given to the aforementioned story.

Comments: The story is often badly misunderstood, partly because the nuptial imagery and allusions are overlooked and partly because the story is often viewed through the lens of later Jewish mores or even of modern traditionalism. For instance, it is often understood that she was living an immoral life, but:

• There is no hint of censure (contrast John 8:11).
  
• She may have been repeatedly divorced due, for instance, to infertility; or she may have lost several husbands in a row due to death, the levirate system perhaps playing a role. And,
  
• A variety of explanations are possible for her being described as having a man not her husband, for instance, the man may have been her son or she may have returned to live with her father or brother. If she had been living with a man who was a non-relative, she would likely have been considered either his wife with equal status or his wife with inferior status -- that is, a concubine -- neither of which fits the description.

Because of the nuptial imagery -- for starters: in the Torah, which serves as the principal literary background, some brides were found at wells -- the question arises as to whether Jesus took this woman as his own wife, perhaps as one of his wives. That would follow the pattern of a prophet living out a parable in his own life, such as we see in the story of Hosea and Gomer (Hosea 1:2ff). However, here the Gospel writer seems less interested in Jesus' acting out a parable than in himself making a parable out of this story about Jesus, a parable in which Jesus represents God's outreach and the woman represents the Samaritans. God's outreach to the Samaritans satisfies the nuptial imagery, for the prophet Ezekiel had represented Samaria as the second wife of God (Ezekiel 23). Nevertheless, other intimations are not necessarily negated thereby.

In the presentation of the life and message of Jesus in the Gospel of John, the Samaritan woman became an evangelist on his behalf -- some say the first evangelist, although his disciples were baptizing earlier (John 4:2). The fact that she served in such a capacity has played significantly in modern discussions about the role of women in the church.

See also Oholah and Oholibah, "was Jesus married" question.

x Bible.

The Samaritan Woman at the Well
John 4:3-44 (Sawyer translation)	My Interpretive Adaptation
¶ 3 ... [Jesus] left Judea and departed again to Galilee. 4 And it was necessary that he should pass through Samaria. 5 He came, therefore, to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the lot which Jacob gave his son Joseph. 6 And Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being fatigued with travelling sat thus by the well; it was about the the sixth hour [noon]. 7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink; 8 for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy provisions. 9 Then the Samaritan woman said to him, How do you, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, who am a Samaritan? for the Jews do no business with the Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. 11 The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; whence then have you the living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and who drank of it himself, and his sons, and his cattle? 13 Jesus answered and said to her, Every one that drinks of this water will thirst again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water which I will give him shall never thirst; but the water which I will give him shall be in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life. 15 The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, nor come here to draw. 16 He said to her, Go and call your husband, and come here. 17 The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You have said well, I have no husband; 18 for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband. In this you have spoken truly. ¶ 19 The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. 21 Jesus said to her, Believe me, woman, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem you shall worship the Father. 22 You worship what you know not; we worship what we know; for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father seeks such to worship him. 24 God is a spirit, and those that worship him must worship in spirit and truth. 25 The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, called Christ; when he comes he will tell us all things. 26 Jesus said to her, I that speak to you am [the Messiah]. ¶ 27 And upon this his disciples came, and wondered that he had talked with the woman; but no one said to him, What do you seek? or why do you talk with her? 28 Then the woman left her bucket, and went to the city and said to the men, 29 Come and see a man who has told me all things which I have done; is this the Christ? 30 They came out from the city and came to him. ¶ 31 In the meantime the disciples asked him saying, Rabbi, eat. 32 But he said to them, I have food to eat which you know not of. 33 Then the disciples said to one another, Has any one brought him food to eat? 34 Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, There are yet four months and the harvest comes? behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the fields; for they are white for a harvest. 36 Already he that reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for life eternal, that he that sows and he that reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this is the saying true; He that sows is one, and he that reaps is another. 38 I have sent you to reap that on which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor. ¶ 39 And many of the Samaritans in that city believed on him, on account of the word of the woman, testifying, He told me all things which I have done. 40 When, therefore, the Samaritans came to him, they desired him to remain with them; and he remained there two days. 41 And many more believed on account of his word, 42 and said to the woman, We no longer believe on account of your report, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is truly the Saviour of the world. ¶ 43 And after two days he departed thence to Galilee. 44 For Jesus himself testified that a prophet is without honor in his native country.	Do you remember that the wives of Isaac, Jacob, and Moses were all found at wells? After Jesus had been in Jerusalem teaching in the Temple and while he was passing through Samaria on the way back to Galilee, he came to a well outside the city of Sychar, Jacob's well, in fact. The sun was at its height in the sky; and Jesus was weary from the journey and the heat. He was sitting by himself near the well, his disciples having gone into the city to buy food. A Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well, and Jesus asked her for a drink. The woman said, "How is it that you, a member of the Jewish cult, ask me for a drink, since I am a woman of the Samaritan cult?" (As a general rule, Jews would have no dealings with Samaritans, since Samaritans worshipped on Mount Gerizim and not in Jerusalem.) Jesus answered, "If you knew what God is capable of giving you and who just asked you for a drink, you would be the one doing the asking, and he would surely give you life-giving water." "Look," she said, "you don't have anything to draw water with, and the well is deep. How do you expect to come up with any of this life-giving water? Do you think that you can do better than our patriarch Jacob who dug this well and quenched not only his own thirst, but that of his family and his livestock and the generations that followed up to this very day?" Jesus responded to her, saying, "Anyone who drinks of this water will become thirsty again; but the water I have to give will bubble within as an unending fountain of true life." "Okay, then, sir," she said, "I'll ask. Give me some of this water so that I'll never get thirsty and have to keep coming back here for more." Jesus replied, "Go call your husband and come back." The woman said, "I have no husband." Jesus said, "You've spoken correctly saying that you have no husband, currently. You have had five." (This corresponds, by the way, to the five ancestral peoples of Samaria, each of which pursued one or more gods other than the one God.) "And," he continued, "the one whose care you are now under is not your husband." (Jesus was referring to her relative and also to himself and especially to God.) The woman said, "Sir, it's dawning on me that you're a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but members of your Jewish cult say that Jerusalem must be the center for worship. What do you say?" "Believe me," Jesus answered, "the time is coming when you will worship God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what has remained unknown; but we Jews worship One who has been active among us for the sake of the whole world. The time is coming -- in fact, it is already here -- when those who truly worship will worship simply out of inward spiritual honesty, without regard to place. Those are the kind of worshippers God really wants. God is spirit, not confined, and can be worshipped truly only that way, that is, out of inward spiritual honesty." The woman said, "I realize that the Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything." Jesus replied, "You're speaking to him now." At this point the disciples returned and they were puzzled as to why Jesus was talking to a woman at the well, as if he had betrothal in mind. But they didn't have the temerity to ask reprovingly what was on their minds, which was, "What are you looking for, another woman? Then what were you doing speaking with her, a Samaritan!" Upon their arrival, the woman went back to the city, leaving behind her water-bucket for Jesus. She said to the people there, "Come and see a person who sketched out for me my entire life up to this very day. Do you think maybe he's the Messiah?" At this they set out from the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were saying, "Rabbi, eat something." But Jesus said to them, "I have food to eat, food you are not aware of." Puzzled again, the disciples queried each other, saying "Did you bring him any food? or did you?" Jesus explained to them, "My food is to do the will of the One who sent me by bringing God's work to fruition. You were saying, it's still four months till harvest. But take a look. The fields are white, ready for harvest. I am today reaping my reward and gathering a crop for enduring life, in order that the One who sows and the one who reaps may rejoice together, turning happy the woeful proverb that 'one sows, another reaps.' This is like my sending you into the city to harvest what you haven't labored over; you've benefited from their labor." Jesus pointed to the coming crowd. After the Samaritans arrived, they kept begging Jesus to stay with them; so he did stay for a couple of days. Many had already believed him to be the Messiah because of the woman's testimony, "He sketched out my entire life for me up to this very day." Many more came to believe because of the things he said to them directly; and they made this confession, that he really is the rescuer of the world. After the two days, Jesus left for Galilee, where, of course, he had testified from experience that a prophet receives no honor in his (or her) own country. Thus did Jesus come seeking to restore not only Oholibah, the younger wife of God, which is Jerusalem, but also Oholah, the elder wife of God, which is Samaria; to recall the metaphors of Ezekiel, the prophet. Do you wonder any more why Jesus was once called a Samaritan?
The New Testament, translated from the original Greek, with chronological arrangement of the sacred books, and improved divisions of chapters and verses by Leicester Ambrose Sawyer (Twelfth thousand, revised and improved. Boston: Walker, Wise, 1861): pp. 164-166, this being, in Sawyer's numbering, John 5:2-6:1 = in the King James Version, John 4:4-44. I've omitted Sawyer's numeration and headings, inserted the KJV numbering, and adjusted the formatting accordingly. All square brackets are his, except for the first.	An adaptation of John 4:3-44; compare Genesis 24:10-27, 42-49, 62; 29:11-12; Exodus 2:16-21; Deuteronomy 11:29; Joshua 8:33; 2 Kings 17:27-41; Ezekiel 23; John 8:48. This adaptation was originally posted in The Text of Fire, October 19, 1998. The Text of Fire numbering is 10.15.1-26, which I have here deleted.

Chaucer's Use of the Story of The Samaritan Woman at the Well
In the Original Middle English	Translation by Burton Raffel
Herkne eek, lo, which a sharp word for the nones, Biside a welle, Jhesus, God and man, Spak in repreeve of the Samaritan: "Thou hast yhad fyve housbondes," quod he, "And that ilke man that now hath thee Is noght thyn housbonde," thus seyde he certeyn. What that he mente therby, I kan nat seyn; But that I axe, why that the fifthe man Was noon housbonde to the Samaritan? How manye myghte she have in mariage? Yet herde I nevere tellen in myn age Upon this nombre diffinicioun.	And here are biting words that Christ pronounced Beside a well -- Jesus, both God and man, Speaking to a woman, a Samaritan: 'You've had five husbands,' he said, scolding the lady, 'So the man who has you today, I tell you, is surely Not your husband.' And that's what he said, truly. Yet exactly what he meant, I cannot say, Except to ask just why the fifth of her men Was not, in fact and law, an honest husband For this Samaritan? For just how many Men was she entitled to take in marriage? Numbers have never been counted: people have managed To marry without arithmetic. I've never Heard of such a definition.
From "The Prologe of the Wyves Tale of Bathe," lines 14-25, in:  The Canterbury Tales, [by] Geoffrey Chaucer; edited by A. C. Cawley (London: J. M. Dent; Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle, c1992; in series: The Everyman Library): p. 158.	From: "The Wife of Bath's Prologue," lines 12-25, in: The Canterbury Tales, [by] Geoffrey Chaucer; a new unabridged translation by Burton Raffel; introduction by John Miles Foley (New York: Modern Library, c2008): p. [159]. Note: For the wife of Bath, Jesus' comment bears upon how many husbands a woman may have successively. Jesus' comment is taken as a reproof. The man not her husband, rather than being understood as a sixth man, is understood to be her fifth husband with the implication that he was not legitimately her husband.

sambandham (Hindi?):

Matriarchal marriage among the Nayars of the Malabar region of India, the initiation of which was traditionally one of the three major rites (samskaras) in the life of a Nayar girl, the others being tali-kettu-kalyanam, which was celebrated pre-puberty, and tirandukalyanam, which was celebrated upon the initiation of puberty as signaled by the girl's first menstrual period.

Comments: Compare the Sanskrit word sambandha ("relation").

Typical sambandham was characterized by the wife living in her matriarchal home, the tarwad, where the husband would visit her each night. He would then return to his own dwelling. Either partner was free to initiate divorce and to remarry. The matriarchal system of which sambandham was a part has, since 1912, been largely supplanted by a patriarchal system.

See also duolocal residence, marriage, tali-kettu-kalyanam, visiting husband, walk-in marriage.

x Hindi terms.

x Sanskrit terms.

same room sex (SRS):

A swing arrangement in which the sexual activity of all participants occurs in the same room.

Contrast closed swinging (q.v.). See also group sex, open swinging, SRS, swing.

same-sex marriage:

An ongoing commitment of persons of the same sex to each other to be bonded sexually and to be loyal one to the other. Generally the social patterns for heterosexual marriage are followed as much as possible, such that the marriage is solemnized in a public ceremony (even if the marriage is not recognized by law), a domicile is shared, property is pooled, and monogamy is the expectation. Furthermore, additional arrangements are often made for matters that the law has taken care of for heterosexual but not gay marriages, such as next-of-kin status and the disposition of property in the event of separation or death.

Contrast different-sex marriage (q.v.) and heterosexual marriage (q.v., and the comment there). See also Boston marriage, civil union, counterfeit bride, counterfeit bridegroom, daddy/boy relationship, Defense of Marriage Act, domestic partnership, equal marriage, female marriage, gay lifestyle, gay marriage, homosexual marriage, male marriage, marriage, she-troth.

sanatio in radice:

See radical sanation.

sanation of marriage:

See radical sanation.

sandwich:

1. Slices of bread with one or more edible filler, hopefully tasty and nutricious fillers, placed between them.

2. By analogy with the preceding, one person in between and being embraced by or having sex with two others simultaneously.

See also double penetration, group sex.

sannup or sanup (Algonquian):

Married male.

Contrast squaw (q.v.). See also partner, tepee seduction.

x Algonquian terms.

x sanup.

Quotation from Lydia Maria Child Illustrating "Sanups"
The drowsy sunshine dreaming on the hemlocks, pines, and cedars, had drawn forth an unusual fregrance; the children were at rest in the wigwams; most of the sanups had gone to Moose Head Lake, on a hunting expedition; and the few old men who remained, sat at the doors of their huts smoking their pipes in lazy silence.
"The Church in the Wilderness," in: Hobomok, and Other Writings on Indians, [by] Lydia Maria Child; edited and with an introduction by Carolyn L. Karcher (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, c1986; in American Women Writers Series): pp. 233-250, specifically p. 240. Originally published in: The Legendary, Consisting of Original Pieces, Principally Illustrative of American History, Scenery, and Manners, edited by N. P. Willis [Nathaniel Parker Willis, 1806-1867] (Boston: S. G. Goodrich, 1828). Child, an opponent of slavery and anti-miscegenation laws and an advocate for Indians, was portraying an Abenaki village in Norridgewock, Maine in 1719, prior to a series of disturbing events, which culminated with the massacre of an Abenaki congregation there in 1724. The Abenakis spoke (and some still speak) a form of Algonquian. The editor, C. L. Karcher, offers this information about the word: "sannup, derived from the Abenaki word senabe: a married Indian male" (p. 312, note 4).

San Quentin quail:

An underage girl; a female minor to whom an adult male is attracted, where statutory rape laws would prohibit sexual activity between the two.

Comments: "San Quentin" refers to a state prison in California. After 1934, only male prisoners have been kept there.

"Quail" is slang for certain human females, for instance a harlot (from the supposed amorousness of one of the species of bird called quail) or a female student. However, in this case it seems to refer to a male hunter's female quarry.

See also bird dog, jail bait, pedophile.

Sanskrit terms:

See chakra puja, choli marg, kama, misracara, niyoga, panchamakara, sambandham (sambandha), suttee (sati), vivaha.

sanup:

See sannup.

särbo (Swedish):

"Living apart together": an LAT relationship.

See also LAT relationship, living apart together.

x Swedish terms.

sarong party girl:

An Asian woman who strongly prefers to date white men and who dresses and behaves provocatively in order to attract them.

Comment: A term used primarily in Singapore and the Malay Peninsula.

Abbreviated SPG.

See also amejo, Asian fetish, kokujo, Pinkerton syndrome, racial commingling, SPG.

satellite relationship:

A secondary relationship (q.v.), especially one where a primary relationship (q.v.) already exists.

See also alternate squeeze, comarital, letter group (phi), multilateral sexuality, side squeeze.

sati:

See suttee.

satyr:

1. In Greek mythology, male inhabitants of the wild, with human and animal (either equine or caprine) features, who are unrestrained in their desire for sex and wine. Together men costumed as satyrs and maenads (women who participated in ecstatic Dionysian rituals) would form a sacred band of the god, Dionysus.

2. A man with satyriasis (q.v.).

Comment: A proposed collective term: A rut of satyrs. Cf. An Exaltation of Larks, [by] James Lipton (The ultimate ed. New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, 1993): p. 161.

Contrast nymphomaniac (q.v.). See also agapet, bacchanalia, Cassanova, crumpet man, Don Juan, erotomaniac, God's gift to women, jock, ladies' man, Lothario, lovertine, masher, multimitus, nookie junkie, philanderer, pick up artist, rabbit, rake, roué, sex addict, sexaholic, sex fiend, sex maniac, skirt-chaser, slut, stud, wild, wolf, womanizer.

x Greek terms.

x myths.

satyriasis:

1. A seemingly insatiable sexual appetite on the part of a man.

2. A powerful and chronic inclination on the part of a man to engage in sexual activity with multiple partners.

3. A psychological condition whereby a man feels a chronic non-sexually originated need for sexual stimulation, a feeling which leads to frequent masturbation and/or rampant promiscuity (q.v.).

Comments: Although less highly charged in these times than "nymphomania," "satyriasis" is still a problematic term in that its meaning is often determined by jumbled and slippery cultural and subjective attitudes. The cultural matrix alone is full of conflicting attitudes -- for instance, satyriasis as sexual athleticism, as moral deficiency, and as psychological disorder. By the way, satyriasis is not listed as a disorder in DSM-IV^TM: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1994).

Satyriasis is not to be confused with priapism, which is a prolonged and painful erection of the penis.

Contrast nymphomania (q.v.). See also Casanova complex, Don Juanism, erotomania, gynecomania, hypersexuality, oversexed, promiscuity, sexual addiction, tragolimia.

saudade (Portuguese):

A complex feeling, which consists of a longing for someone who (or something that) is lost to oneself, a hope for that person's (or that thing's) return, and suppression of the knowledge that it might never happen.

See also Bonnie, ex-husband syndrome, ex-wife syndrome, ghosts of relationships past, heartache, left-over desire, left-over love, lost love, lovelorn, love trauma syndrome, miss, missed connection, pine for, post break-up funk, postmarital blues, retrosexual, right of return, TOTGA, yearning.

x Portuguese terms.

"saved in childbearing":

The rendering given in the King James (Authorized) Version of the Bible of a phrase found at 1 Timothy 2:15, which is problematic in the theology of many. The text reads, more fully: "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing [the original Greek reads: sôthêsetai de dia tês teknogonias], if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety" (1 Timothy 2:12-15).

Comments: The theological problem is this: According to Ephesians 2:8 one is saved through (dia) faith. That is thought to be roughly equivalent to being justified by faith (Romans 3:28), which stands in tension with being justified by works (James 2:24). Being saved through (dia) childbearing would seem either to go in the "works" column or to stand by itself bringing about a three-way tension.

There is, of course, also the closely related theological problem, in the same context, of the place of women, this First Timothy text standing in apparent tension with, for instance, Galatians 3:28, which says that "there is neither male nor female ... in Christ Jesus." Solving the meaning of salvation through childbearing is important in helping to solve this other problem.

Among the meanings suggested:

• The passage constitutes an assurance that a woman of faith, agapic love, sanctity, and self-restraint who has a husband with the same qualities will be kept safe when giving birth.
• The main way that a wife in the Israelite tradition participates in the blessings of the earthly aspects of salvation history is through childbearing, especially the bearing of a male child. (This interpretation might have a bearing on the understanding of the "savior of the body" in Ephesians 5:23, if the "savior" is the husband. Cf. 1 Corinthians 7:12-16.)
• A woman will be saved from falling into deceit that leads to transgression by the very fact of her nature in the reproductive process, which prevents her from usurping authority over a husband over the long haul. Note the curse in Genesis 3:16: "In pain you shall bring forth children; Yet your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you" (NASB).
• A woman will be saved from deceit that leads to transgression by focusing on the tried and true aspects of the life of a godly woman, including childbearing.
• Because of Eve, women bear the stigma of leading humankind into sin. The bearing and raising of godly children rescues women from that stigma.
• It is through a woman that a Messiah has been born, a Messiah who will ensure the faithful woman's future salvation (there being a possible allusion to Genesis 3:15); in other words, tês teknogonias, rather than being "the giving of birth," is the Childbirth, in reference to the birth of Jesus.
• Without women the course of salvation history would come to a halt, for even men of the covenant would no longer be born; so women are intimately bound up with salvation history and the blessings appertaining thereto.

My working interpretation at the moment is the second one, but at different times the third and the last will reach preeminence in my mind.

By the way, "woman" (gynaiki) and "man" (andros) in verse 12 would probably be better translated, "wife" and "husband." In verse 15, the subject of the verb, "shall be saved" (sôthêsetai, which is the third person singular future indicative passive of sözö), is "woman" or "wife." And the subjects of "continue" are probably the woman and her husband.

See also "Be fruitful and multiply," blessings of the breasts and of the womb, "head of the wife," household rules, levirate marriage, "neither male nor female," "one flesh," Virgin Mary.

x Greek terms.

scamming:

1. Defrauding; swindling; deceiving for the purpose of theft.

2. Picking up someone to have sex with.

3. Flirting.

4. Making out in a way that involves tongues or heavy petting.

See also casual sex, cruise, flirtation, pick up.

scarlet letter:

1. A sexual stigma, typically the stigma of adultery, that someone bears, indicated by way of allusion to the novel called The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850).

2. In the Hawthorne novel, a piece of scarlet cloth with the shape of the capital letter A, each limb measuring three inches and a quarter in length, that was worn, "surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread," by the main character, Hester Prynne, on her bosom as a Puritan punishment, in the Boston of 1642, for adultery, although the words "adultery" and "adulteress" are conspicuously absent in the novel. Over the course of the novel, perceptions of the significance of the letter "A" vary widely; and the author deliberately employs the scarlet letter symbolically to evoke a wide range of signification.

3. Also in the Hawthorne novel, a child born of adultery.

4. Again in the Hawthorne novel, internal torment from living a lie due to the concealment of a grievous sin and the strong contrast of the stain of sinfulness with an appearance of holiness and respectability, as manifested in the character, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale.

See also adulterer, adulteress, adultery, fortunate fall, label, puritan, sumptuary law, wear a label (which see for a closely related lexical example).

x A.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Idea for the Scarlet Letter, Quoted
The life of a woman, who, by the old colony law, was condemned always to wear the letter A, sewed on her garment, in token of her having committed adultery.
From: The American Notebooks of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1932; written 1835-1853), as selected and reprinted in The Portable Hawthorne, edited, with an introduction and notes, by Malcolm Cowley (New York: Viking Press, 1948): pp. 545-572, specifically p.569. The idea was apparently jotted down in 1844 (cf. pp. 269-271).

Quotations from Nathaniel Hawthorne Illustrating "Scarlet Letter"
[25] My eyes fastened themselves upon the old scarlet letter, and would not be turned aside. Certainly, there was some deep meaning in it, most worthy of interpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic symbol ...
[37] But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer,--so that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they [38] beheld her for the first time,--was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself.
[61] Walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps, in the little world with which she was outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to Hester,--if altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be resisted,--she felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts.
[62] Man had marked this woman's sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself.
[136] The tendency of her [Hester Prynne's] fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,--stern and wild ones,--and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
From: The Scarlet Letter: An Authoritative Text, Essays in Criticism, and Scholarship, edited by Seymour Gross [and others] (3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, c1988; "A Norton critical edition"): pp. 25, 37, 61, 62, 136. The "amiss" is relative to the Puritan views of her day. By the way: Regarding the stigma, see pp. 113, 167, 172, and 177. For the details in definition 2, see pp. 25, 35 note 2, 39 (whence the quotation), and 45. For the scarlet letter as child born of adultery, namely Pearl, see p. 78. For the scarlet letter as Dimmesdale's torment, see especially chapter 23 and the conclusion. And for Hawthorne's historical source, see p. 203.

scent-free dating:

Dating without becoming exposed to or exposing anybody, especially one's date, to products containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that might cause an unpleasant physical reaction, such as a respiratory reaction or a migraine -- products such as perfumes, colognes, and after-shaves, as well as scented conditioners, deodorants, powders, and sprays; however, not just products applied to the body but also such sources of VOCs as scented candles, incense, and air fresheners.

Comments: A significant percentage of the population suffers from respiratory illnesses and sensitivities. Asthma, for instance, has become common. Consequently, scented body products -- that is, those with fragrances as ingredients -- far from being attractants, often not only repell but cause suffering, sometimes severe suffering, and restrict liberties. This does not mean that every person with a sensitivity will have an unpleasant physical reaction to every brand of perfume, say, or to the faintest whiff of cologne; nor does it mean that all fragrances have an equal capacity to cause an unpleasant reaction. However, it does have implications with regard to courtesy, especially in crowded and enclosed spaces, and with regard to what one can safely assume about any person one might wish to date. The safest course is to assume that one's natural scent (which, by the way, is to be distinguished from body odor) is enough.

Sometimes body products cause unpleasant reactions even in the absence of any detectable scent. Thus, in discussions about sensitivities, the terms "scent-free" and "fragrance-free," can be misleading. Some people, in order to be sure to cover all the bases, use the sweeping phrase, "chemical and scent-free," or the term "hypoallergenic." However, it should be pointed out that, in the United States, at least, there are no legal standards that govern the use of these terms by manufacturers.

Since it is impractical for people with chemical sensitivities to test commercially produced perfumes and colognes for reactions, some make their own scented products from materials they know that they themselves, at least, will have no unpleasant reaction to, such as vegetable oil and a favorite spice or two.

See also chemistry of love, date, perfume, sexual etiquette.

x chemical and scent-free dating.

x fragrance-free dating.

schatchen:

See shadkahn.

schicksa:

See shiksa.

schwaggle:

To give attention to one's beloved to the exclusion of everybody else or for beloveds to give such attention to each other.

Comments: As a verb, this is also a slang term for a form of intimate butt-play, so the careful user will want to avoid ambiguity. In slang, "schwaggle" is, in addition, a collective noun for a group of three or more extremely obese persons.

Internet source: pseudodictionary.com.

Printed source: The Dictionary of Love, [by] John Stark, with Will Hopkins and Mary K. Baumann (New York, NY: Avon, c2008): p. 245.

See also loveydovey, religion of two.

scortatory love:

Sex for sex' sake; sexual activity with one or more others merely for sensual pleasure and gratification.

Comment: The term is sometimes contrasted with conjugal love (q.v.).

See also fornication, love.

Quotation from James Joyce Illustrating "Scortatory Love"
Twenty years he dallied there between conjugal love and its chaste delights and scortatory love and its foul pleasures.
From: Ulysses, [by] James Joyce (Revised ed. London: Bodley Head, 1969): p. 258. Ulysses was originally published in Paris by Shakespeare and Company in 1922.

Scotch marriage:

1. A wedding in Scotland and according to its laws.

2. A wedding in Scotland following an elopement from another land, commonly England.

See also elopement, Flagg marriage, go to Gretna Green, go to Scotland, gretna green wedding, wedding.

Scotland:

See go to Scotland.

screen for love:

A person used for misdirection, so that people will think one feels an attachment to that person when one actually feels an attachment to another.

See also beard, decoy, frock, merkin, straight credentials.

x Italian terms.

x love screen.

x schermo di amore.

Quotation from Mark Musa's Translation of Dante Illustrating "Screen for ... Love"
Let me say that during the time that this lady acted as a screen for so great a love on my part, I was seized by a desire to record the name of my most gracious lady ...
From: Dante's Vita Nuova, a translation and an essay by Mark Musa (New ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c1973): p. 9.
The Quotation from Dante in the Original
Dico che in questo tempo, che questa donna era schermo di tanto amore, quanto dalla mia parte, mi venne una volunta di voler ricordare il nome di quella gentilissima ...
Dante, Vita Nuova §6 (for how she became a screen, see §5). Italian text as found in: The Vita Nuova and Canzoniere of Dante Alighieri (With alterations. London: J. M. Dent, 1911, t.p. 1948; in series: The Temple Classics): p. 14. The Italian term here for "screen for love" is schermo di ... amore.

script:

See lovemap.

SCS:

Sperm competition syndrome (q.v.).

scuttle:

A game of depantying: a woman, generally one wearing a skirt or dress, is selected and the men present chase her in order to remove her panties.

Source: Helen Gurley Brown as quoted in Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide, [by] Maureen Dowd (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, c2005): pp. 172-173.

x games.

SD:

Sperm donor (q.v.).

SDR:

Short-distance relationship (q.v.).

seal the deal:

1. Bringing a person to the point where he or she has committed to a course of action, for instance, in sales, to a purchase.

2. In relationships, bringing a person to a point where he or she has committed either to having sex with oneself or to a significant development in the relationship, for instance, to getting married.

Comment: The term is considered by many crass when applied to relationships, in part because it is suggestive of sales tactics.

See also make-want.

search polygyny:

Acquisition by a male of a harem, albeit a dispersed one, which is achieved by finding a receptive female in one location, and then one in a different location, and so on and so on.

Comments: A sailor with "a girl in every port" would be an example.

Said of any harem-gathering species as apropos.

See also female-defense polygyny, girl in every port, harem, male-dominance polygyny, polygyny, resource-defense polygyny.

secondarism:

1. Sexual arousal with a person being heightened because that person has just been engaged in sexual activity with someone else; for instance, feeling an enhanced desire to copulate with one's spouse because he or she has just been swinging.

2. The pursuit of such arousal.

Contrast the Coolidge effect (q.v.). See also swing.

secondary family:

A family (q.v.) that is residing in a non-family member's housing unit -- for example, because of resident employment -- as distinguished from a family with its own housing unit, whether owned or rented.

Contrast primary family (q.v.).

secondary incest:

A sexual connection between two people that is not specifically prohibited in the Bible but that is nevertheless regarded as taboo or immoral due to the presence of a particular kinship relation.

See also first cousin marriage, incest, kinship, sexual connection, sexual taboo.

secondary partner:

A partner (q.v.) in a secondary relationship (q.v.).

See also concubine, male concubine, out-of-marriage lover, pash, polyamorist, primary partner, Sunday husband, tertiary partner.

secondary relationship:

Of three levels of love relationship (q.v.) that an individual might have -- primary, secondary, and tertiary -- the level entailing a medium degree of involvement and personal investment, both relative to other relationships and potential relationships and in terms of a variety of relationship factors (see under "relationship levels").

See also alternate relationship geometries, alternate squeeze, erotic friendship, letter group (phi), lovestyle, primary relationship, satellite relationship, secondary partner, side squeeze, surrogate lover, surrogate sex partner, tertiary relationship.

secondary significant other (SSO):

A secondary partner (q.v.).

See also partner, other significant other, significant other, SSO.

secondary virginity:

1. The state on the part of a non-virgin of living in a period of abstinence from sexual activity that is meant to last until such activity occurs with a marital partner, a state that is based on a commitment to chastity henceforward, typically due to religious conversion or spiritual renewal; living by the commitment, "no more sexual activity with another till married."

2. Abstention from sexual intercourse for a set minimum period of time -- perhaps a month, three months, or a year -- before being wed and after having been sexually active.

Comments: Generally the point of secondary virginity in the first sense is to recover or to adopt an attitude of holiness that embraces one's sexuality, although often the rhetoric has do with recovery from a sense of shame or of having been used.

In the second sense, the main point is sometimes much the same -- to develop a sense of holiness and the "proper" use of sexuality in that context; also to enable the partners to view each other as holy -- although it can also be, for instance, to ensure that other dimensions of a relationship, besides the sexual, develop.

Also called born-again virginity, neo-virginity, new virginity, and retroactive virginity.

The term is often associated with American Christianity.

See also abstinence, born-again virginity, chastity, holy matrimony, premarital sex, revirginization, virginity, virginity pledge.

x neo-virginity.

x new virginity.

x renewed virginity.

x retroactive virginity.

secondary wife:

1. In a polygynous marriage, the wife second in prominence, generally the second woman added, or one of the wives other than the primary wife (q.v.).

2. A man's concubine (q.v.), when he also has a primary wife.

See also junior wife, lesser wife, nirimoua, partner, plural wife, polygynist, second wife, senior wife, sits-beside-him woman, wife.

second-choice husband:

A husband (q.v.) who is not the spouse one first or really wanted; a man one concedes to marry almost as a consolation prize when another is unattainable.

See also consolation marriage, rebound relationship, second-choice spouse, settle for, sloppy seconds.

second-choice spouse:

A husband or wife who is not the marital partner one first or really wanted; a person one concedes to marry almost as a consolation prize when another is unattainable.

See also consolation marriage, rebound relationship, second-choice husband, second-choice wife, settle for, sloppy seconds, spouse, transference.

second-choice wife:

A wife (q.v.) who is not the spouse one first or really wanted; a woman one concedes to marry almost as a consolation prize when another is unattainable.

See also consolation marriage, rebound relationship, second-choice spouse, settle for, sloppy seconds.

second honeymoon:

A romantic get-away for individuals who have long been married to each other, typically around the start of a new period in life, as after their children are grown, or around the start of a fresh period in the relationship, as after a recommitment to each other.

See also honeymoon, remarriage, renew vows.

second honeymoon syndrome:

1. The intense desire to get away with one's spouse for a romantic interlude.

2. The practice of doing so with unusual frequency.

See also honeymoon, second honeymoon.

x syndromes.

second husband:

1. A man who has married a woman who has been monogamously married before but who is divorced or widowed.

2. In a polyandrous or group marriage (q.v.), the second man added.

See also husband, junior husband, partner, polyandrist, serial monogamy, senior husband, serial marriage.

second-husband syndrome, or second husband syndrome:

A distressing or otherwise disturbing awareness of living in the wake of one's wife's previous husband, especially as exacerbated by tougher expectations or by being frequently confused with, compared to, or otherwise reminded of him.

See also demons of relationships past, ex-husband syndrome, ghosts of relationships past, second-wife syndrome.

x syndromes.

seconds:

See sloppy seconds, take seconds.

second wife:

1. A woman who has married a man who has been monogamously married before but who was divorced or widowed. This term is sometimes used to cover those who are third, fourth, or later wives, as in a second wives' club.

2. In a polygynous or group marriage (q.v.), the second woman added.

See also junior wife, lesser wife, partner, plural wife, polygynist, secondary wife, serial monogamy, senior wife, serial marriage, wife.

second-wife syndrome, or second wife syndrome:

A distressing or otherwise disturbing awareness of living in the wake of one's husband's previous wife, especially as exacerbated by tougher expecations or by being frequently confused with, compared to, or otherwise reminded of her.

See also demons of relationships past, ex-wife syndrome, ghosts of relationships past, second-husband syndrome.

x syndromes.

secret admirer:

A person with a crush on someone else, whose identity has not been revealed to that "someone else."

Comment: A person may be a secret admirer without making any gestures at all, but the term tends to be most used after gestures have been made either anonymously or under a pseudonym.

See also crush, lover.

secret-false:

In the position of concealing one's infidelity (q.v.) from a partner; cheating and letting one's partner think that one isn't cheating.

See also cheat, non-consensual adultery, quiquirigüiqui, unfaithfulness.

Quotation from William Shakespeare Illustrating "Secret-false"
LUCIANA. ... Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted? What simple thief brags of his own attaint? 'Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed, And let her read it in thy looks at board.
From: William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (circa 1592-1594): Act 3, Scene 2, lines 15-18.

secret love:

1. Undisclosed romantic passion.

2. A beloved one has not revealed as such to others.

Comment: Secret love, in the first sense, may be undisclosed to the beloved or it may be shared between the lovers and undisclosed to others.

See also clandestine marriage; Dante Alighieri syndrome; love, as in "love for another"; love, as in "my sweet love"; undeclared love.

Quotation from Andrew R. MacAndrew's translation of Fyodor Dostoevsky Illustrating "Secret Love"
... I once knew a young lady of the old, "romantic" generation who, after several years of secret love for a gentleman whom, please note, she could have peacefully married at any moment she chose, invented insurmountable obstacles for herself and, one stormy night, jumped from a steep, rather cliff-like bank into a fairly deep, rapid river and drowned, all because she fancied herself an Ophelia out of Shakespeare.
From the novel: The Brothers Karamazov [by] Fyodor Dostoevsky; a new translation by Andrew R. MacAndrew; introductory essay by Konstantin Mochulsky (New York: Bantam Books, 1972, c1970): p. 8. The allusion is to William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 7.

Quotation from Cassandra King Illustrating "Secret Love"
[Willowdean Lynch to Augusta Holderfield] "Even though you loved a man who was unattainable, you didn't let it ruin your life. I admired the way you'd never acted on that secret love."
From the novel: The Sunday Wife, [by] Cassandra King (New York: Hyperion, c2002): p. 226.

secret marriage:

A plighting of troth (q.v.) between a man and a woman without witnesses or official recording.

See also clandestine marriage, clandestine wedding, marriage, marriage of conscience, occult marriage, shtille khuppeh, Sixth Commandment of the Church.

secret of a long-lasting relationship:

The key ingredient or one of a set of key ingredients that enables the connections between certain individuals to endure.

The comments under the next entry are apropos here as well.

See also long-term love, long-term relationship, secret of a successful marriage.

secret of a successful marriage:

The key ingredient or one of a set of key ingredients that enables the individuals in a marital union to sustain their relationship over the long haul in such a way that each finds the relationship to have been rewarding.

Comment: Among the common candidates for such an ingredient, which are sometimes listed singly or in some combination, are love, the ongoing cultivation of romance, mutual respect, commitment, and a forgiving attitude. Occasionally some will argue for less conventional candidates, such as sexual experimentation and comarital relationships. Sometimes jocular or half-jocular candidates are also mentioned, such as seeing little of each other or separate bathrooms.

The reason that the word "secret" is used is because for some finding the right ingredient or set of ingredients is elusive.

See also comarital, esteem, forgiveness, love, respect, romance, secret of a long-lasting relationship, sexual nonexclusivity.

x ingredients for a successful marriage.

secrets of the heart:

Feelings and interpersonal intentions and personal history one thinks too imprudent, embarrassing, or precious to reveal, except perhaps in strict confidence, especially such having to do with one's love life, one's infatuations, or one's violations of conscience or mores.

See also heart, infatuation, love life.

seduce:

1. To excite the desire, especially sexual desire, of another in order to overcome his or her good sense.

2. To excite the sexual desire of another for the sake of sexual conquest rather than for the sake of either bonding or the fulfillment of mutual desire on equal terms.

3. To induce, without force, a previously chaste woman to have sexual intercourse with oneself (oneself being male), without the relationship leading to marriage. (A legal sense.)

4. To entice a person to have sexual intercourse with oneself, for example through ambience, allurement, and implicit, if not explicit sexual invitation. The person may be one's own spouse, and the act may be innocent, but the use of the word this way sometimes suggests a touch of playful naughtiness.

For a lexical example, see under "easy lay."

See also abuse, attract, betray, come on to, make-want, macademizar, make a play for, philander, pick up, pull, put the make on, put the mojo on, seducer, seduction, seductress, set (her) cap at him, solicit, vamp.

seducer:

One who seduces.

Comment: When a contrast with a seductress (q.v.) is either presumed by those in communication or made explicit, the term refers to a male; otherwise it is gender neutral.

See also agapet, Casanova, crumpet man, devirginator, Don Juan, fast worker, fribbler, gay deceiver, Lothario, macadam, macadamo, make-out artist, operator, philanderer, pick up artist, player, roué, seduce, seductress, shark, skirt-chaser, wolf, womanizer.

seduction:

1. Exciting the desire, especially sexual desire, of another in order to overcome his or her good sense.

2. Exciting the sexual desire of another for the sake of sexual conquest rather than for the sake of either bonding or the fulfillment of mutual desire on equal terms.

3. The act of a man inducing, without force, a previously chaste woman to have sexual intercourse with him, without the relationship leading to marriage. (A legal sense.)

4. Enticing a person to have sexual intercourse with oneself, for example through ambience, allurement, and implicit, if not explicit sexual invitation. The person may be one's own spouse, and the act may be innocent, but the use of the word this way sometimes suggests a touch of playful naughtiness.

For lexical example, see under "intrigue."

See also approach invitation, betrayal, come-on, comether, consent to sex, criminal conversation, fox paw, heart balm statute, make-want, ruin, seduce, tepee seduction, thelyphthoric, woo.

seductress:

A woman who seduces.

Contrast seducer (q.v.). See also devirginator, Don Juaness, fast worker, gay deceiver, Lolita, lothariette, make-out artist, minx, operator, pick up artist, seduce, shark, she-wolf, slut, tart, vamp, whore.

see, as in "she's seeing him":

To date or otherwise to meet with, especially on repeated occasions; to spend time with; to engage in social activities with (someone) on an informal and friendly basis.

See also date, hang out.

Quotation from John Updike Illustrating "Seeing"
[Foxy] "... I've been seeing another man and Ken [Foxy's husband] doesn't have a clue. A clue." "What other man?" Mrs. Roth asked sharply. "Truly seeing?" "It doesn't matter what other man. A man. Oh, God, yes, seeing to sleep with."
From the novel: Couples, [by] John Updike (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968; "A Borzoi Book"): p. 279.

seeble:

An expression for, "I know what you mean, I think, and I feel sibling-like kinship on that point."

Comment: The term apears to have been coined on the USENET newsgroup, alt.polyamory. There it is often used in discussions about love relationships.

See also affinity, compreciation, connection, kinship, macarism.

seed raising:

A situation wherein a father has sexual intercouse with his underage son's wife and brings up the resulting offspring.

Comment: This is a practice found among some Eskimos.

See also incest.

x Eskimo terms.

seek a blouse:

See choli marg.

see-saw affair:

A situation in which two people take turns at being in love with each other. While one surrenders to love, the other is unresponsive; and when the attentions of the first turn elsewhere, the second finds it safe to surrender to love.

See also affair, in love, unilateralism.

sensual love:

A largely physically based attraction or bond; a passion for the gratification of sight, touch, hearing, smell, or taste by way of the body of another.

See also amour des sens, love.

seneucia:

Widowhood.

See also grief, viduage, viduity, widow.

senior husband:

In a polyandrous or group marriage and relative to either another husband or all husbands, the male partner who has been longer or longest in the marriage or who is the elder or eldest or who is superior in family rank.

See also group marriage, husband, junior husband, partner, polyandrist, second husband.

senior wife:

In a polygynous or group marriage and relative to either another wife or all wives, the female partner who has been longer or longest in the marriage or who is the elder or eldest or who is superior in family rank.

See also group marriage, junior wife, monogyny, nirimoua, partner, polygynist, plural wife, primary wife, secondary wife, second wife, sits-beside-him woman, wife.

sense of betrayal:

See feel betrayed.

sensory deregulation:

See dérèglement de tous les sens.

sentiment:

1. The feeling infused in an attitude, thought, or expression, such as a feeling associated with idealism, nostalgia, an aesthetic sensibility, retribution, or, perhaps most often, tenderness; an emotional tinge.

2. An attitude, thought, or expression insofar as it is permeated or prompted by an emotion.

See also affection, feeling for, sentimental, tenderness.

Quotation from Susan Ferrier Illustrating "Sentiment"
Sir Edmund Audley and Alicia Malcolm proved examples of this observation. The affection of childhood had so gradually ripened into a warmer sentiment, that neither were conscious of the nature of that sentiment till after it had attained strength to cast a material influence on their after-lives. The familiarity of near relatives, associating constantly together, produced a warm sentiment of affection, cemented by similarity of pursuits, and enlived by diversity of character; while the perfect tranquility of their lives afforded no event that could withdraw the veil of ignorance from their eyes.... Sir Edmund completed his nineteenth year, and Alicia entered her eighteenth, when this happy state of unconscious security was destroyed by a circumstance which rent the veil from her eyes, and disclosed his sentiments in all their energy and warmth.
From: Marriage, [by] Susan Ferrier; with a new introduction by Rosemary Ashton (New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books; [London]: Virago Press, 1986): chapter 14, pp. 82-83. Originally published anonymously: Edinburgh: Wm. Blackwood, 1818.

sentimental:

1. Pertaining to or characterized by sentiment.

2. Influenced by emotional considerations.

3. Characterized by an appeal to romantic feelings.

See also loving, romantic, sentiment.

separate:

To cease marital cohabitation.

See also banish (a person one's) bed and company, break up, dump, E&E, EwE, flush, get the mitten, get the sack, get the shaft, give the mitten, jilt, leave, let go, reject, sack, separated, separation, split up, walk out.

separated:

1. Not together.

2. Not cohabiting, especially as a legal status; said of individuals married to each other.

3. Legally married to but not cohabiting with one's spouse, especially as a legal status.

Comment: The word "separated" connotes to some availability.

See also demi-relict, estranged, ever-married, formerly married, marital status, mizpah, previously married, separate, separation, widow-bewitched, zoo daddy.

separate finances:

With regard to a relationship, the result of handling the assets of the partners, especially their money, not as common property but with each partner controlling his or her own, separate bank accounts being one of the common features of such an arrangement.

Contrast joint finances (q.v.). See also financially independent, pre-nuptial agreement, société d'acquets.

separate vacations:

1. A situation in which spouses, lovers, or companions spend time apart (typically days or weeks) for the purpose, on the part of each, of rest, recreation, or travel for pleasure, although not necessarily at the same time.

2. A situation in which people who ordinarily spend days, weeks, or months together for the purpose of rest, recreation, or travel for pleasure instead do so apart.

See also break, grass-widow, grass-widower, holiday from marriage, hundred-mile rule, marriage sabbatical, pi supuhui, summer lover, vacation from marriage.

separation:

Cessation of marital cohabitation either as a step towards divorce (q.v.), as a temporary break in the conjugal relationship, or as a permanent status with a marriage still officially intact.

Comment: Sometimes separation is a period when one or more other sexual partners are sought and considered for suitability.

See also break, diremption, displaced homemaker, E&E, estrangement, EwE, fribusculum, give up on a marriage, grass widow, grass widower, judicial separation, last time, separate, separated, surfeit response.

separation of marriage and state:

A slogan representing the position that a government should be involved in neither:

• the definition of marriage;
• the establishment and maintenance of the institution of marriage; nor,
• legislation and enforcement of laws regarding marriage, apart from:
  • the protection and support of the members of each family;
  • the support of consensual relationships and self-constituted family units, also their protection from outside forces; and,
  • the employment of judges for the disposition of children and property in the event of divorce.

Comments: The slogan is modeled on the phrase, "the separation of church and state," which is said to derive from a remark by Thomas Jefferson.

The position is often nested into a more comprehensive view, for instance, one or more of these:

• Persons and their personal relationships are more fundamental than the state and should not be rendered susceptible to being cogs in a socio-economic machine, which is what governments are wont to do. (Personalism)
• Personal matters are no business of the state, and marriage is primarily a personal matter. (Libertarianism)
• Coercion of any sort is entirely inappropriate when it comes to sexuality, relationships, and marriage, except to counter coercion and violence.
• Religion is none of the business of a government where there is no state estabishment of religion; there should be no state establishment of religion; and, since religions have always been much involved in the definition of marriage, a state that involves itself in the control of marriage will find itself either offending one or more religions, seldom all equally, or discriminating against those whom the religions discriminate against; and a government should never be complicit in discrimination, whether between religions, between religion and no religion, or with regard to those against whom one or more religions discriminate.

One implication of the position is that government would no longer be prohibiting such things as group marriage and gay marriage, but instead would be trying to foster a peaceful environment for all sorts of relationships and a fair playing field for the people in them.

Various alternatives to the governmental control of marriage are suggested, for instance:

• Marriage in any formal sense should be abolished.
• Marriage and the form it takes should be by contract between consenting parties, perhaps even a contract to be periodically renogotiated.
• Marriage should be a matter worked out between the families of the parties.
• Marriage should be defined and regulated by the institutions, for instance the religious institutions, to which the parties voluntarily belong. And,
• A combination of the last three: Marriages should be contractual but marriage as such should be institutionalized by families and voluntary religious groups.

Reference

"To Nehemiah Dodge and Others, A Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut," Washington, January 1, 1802. I am consulting The Portable Jefferson, edited and with an introduction by Merrill D. Peterson (New York: Viking Press, c1975): pp. [303]-304. There Jefferson's phrase is, "a wall of separation between Church and State." He ties it directly to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

See also civil marriage, family sovereignty, heart balm statute, libertarianism, liberty, marriage, marriage license, public character of sex, relationship choice, relationship freedom, separation of sex and power, separation of sex and state, sexual autonomy, sexual freedom, statism, sumptuary law.

x slogans.

separation of sex and love:

See loveless sex, sexless love.

separation of sex and power:

A slogan representing the position that sexual behavior and relationships should be free of either coercion or control (apart from self-control and control voluntarily ceded for a time), be it on the part of government, of institutions, of businesses, of families, or of individuals, including partners, and that sexual behavior should be entirely a matter of genuine, unpressured consent on the part of all participants and witnesses; a summary statement of the view that any forceful involvement in the sex life of another person is on the same continuum as rape and that every effort should be made to keep the sex lives of people free of force and pressure, other than the ordinary pressures of (a) the expression of emotions and (b) of facing the relational consequences, purely relational, of the violation of negotiated agreements.

See also "an it harm none, do what ye will," antinomianism, bedroom politics, bodily integrity, boundary, consent to sex, consexuality, free female sexuality, free male sexuality, get government out of the bedroom, libertarianism, liberty, moral code, new morality, power exchange, radical love, relationship choice, relationship freedom, right to sex, separation of marriage and state, separation of sex and state, sexosophy, sexual autonomy, sexual ethics, sexual freedom, sexual morality, sexual toleration, unwanted sex, unwelcome admixture with sexuality.

x slogans.

separation of sex and state:

1. A slogan representing opposition to sumptuary laws bearing on sexual behavior and relationships; a verbal encapsulation of the view that, except for protecting people from coercion and certain other unwelcome admixtures with sexuality, government (at any level) should take a minimalist approach with regard to the restriction of human sexual behavior and relationships, for instance, that:

• it should not be involved in restricting or otherwise regulating sexual relations between consenting sexually mature persons (or, some would say, adults) where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy;
• it should not be involved in censoring words, images, or other materials that have the potential to arouse sexually;
• it should accommodate both partial and full nudity in public, for instance by allowing breast feeding in public and by having nude sections of beaches;
• it should accommodate public sexuality, for instance by allowing sex clubs; and/or,
  
• it should allow prostitution, so long as it is voluntary and health risks are managed.
  

2. A slogan equivalent either to "the separation of marriage and state" (q.v.) or that plus definition 1 above.

3. A slogan representing opposition to sex education in public schools, at least insofar as such education entails values formation. Some of the opposition is from the right, which doesn't want "toleration of sexual sin" either taught or implied; and some of the opposition is from the left, which may want taught, among other things, toleration of the various sexualities and the importance of consent to sex and contraceptive techniques and avoidance of sexually transmitted diseases and what constitute unwelcome admixtures with sex but doesn't want public schools to propagate restrictive sexual mores. More properly, this should be expressed as "separation of sexual education and state."

4. A slogan representing the position that the sex lives per se of politicians in a democracy are none of either the government's business or the public's business.

Comment: The separation of sex and state is often seen as either overlapping with or a part of the separation of church and state, since the roots of sexual restrictions by the state can often be traced back to one or more religions.

Per some social theory, sexual repression is an indispensible tool of state oppression, which, if so, would mean that the separation of sex and state (in the first sense) is not about just sexual freedom but freedom generally.

See also antinomianism, bedroom politics, free love, get government out of the bedroom, libertarianism, liberty, public character of sex, relationship freedom, right to sex, separation of marriage and state, separation of sex and power, sexual freedom, sexual toleration, statism, sumptuary law, unwelcome admixture with sexuality.

x slogans.

sequential marriage:

See serial marriage, serial monogamy.

seraglio:

1. A large harem, in either sense: the place or the people.

2. A place where people go for sexual pleasure.

Pronunciation note: The "g" in "seraglio" is silent.

See also harem, imbroglio of polyamours, serai, Turkish marriage, zenana.

serai:

The part of a dwelling where a harem (q.v.) is kept.

See also haremlik, seraglio, zenana.

serial cenogamy:

Participation as a partner in more than one group marriage (q.v.) or group love relationship (q.v.), but one sequential to another rather than at the same time.

Coined by me on analogy with "serial monandry." But perhaps it already exists.

See also cenogamy, group switching.

serial heartbreaker:

A person who enters into and then leaves behind one love relationship after another; a person who either inspires or deliberately incites one person after another to fall in love with him or her and who keeps moving on.

See also heart, heartbreaker, lovertine, serial monogamy.

serial marriage:

The practice of having two or more ostensibly monogamous marital unions in the course of one's lifetime, especially when one or more such unions are ended by divorce; the alternating pattern: marriage, divorce, marriage, etc.

Comment: This has also been called consecutive polygamy, progressive monogamy, sequential marriage, and serial polygamy.

See also digamy, dyad, marriage, monogamy, multiple marriage, polykoity, reiterated marriage, remarriage, second husband, second wife, serial marriage, serial mate, serial monandry, serial monogamy, serial monogyny, trigamy.

x consecutive polygamy.

x progressive monogamy.

x sequential marriage.

x serial polygamy.

serial mate:

One in a sequence of partners in serial monogamy.

See also mate, serial marriage, serial monogamy.

Quotation from Gail Sheehy Illustrating "Serial Mates"
[199] Added together [the average lengthof first plus second marriages, for women, that end in divorce], that's a married life [200] span of only fourteen years for those who choose two serial mates and disengage from both of them.
From: Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life, [by] Gail Sheehy (New York: Random House, c2006): pp. 199-200.

serial monandry:

Having more than one male mate on the part of a woman, but one sequential to another rather than at the same time. Any of the male mates may be either monogynous or polygynous.

Contrast serial monogyny (q.v.). See also group switching, monogyny, polygyny, serial marriage, serial monogamy.

serial monogamy:

The practice of being part of more than one couple, but not at the same time, over the course of a lifetime, especially when any of the partnerships is ended by divorce (q.v.) in the case of a marriage or by break-up (q.v.) in the case of a different type of relationship.

Comments: This has also been called consecutive polygamy, progressive monogamy, sequential marriage, and serial polygamy.

To be serial, such relationships must be non-contemporaneous, but in practice they sometimes overlap and so, for those overlapping periods, would not be considered monogamous or would be considered monogamous only in a formal way.

See also digamy, dyad, lovestyle, monamory, monoamory, monogamy, multiphilia, polykoity, reiterated marriage, remarriage, second husband, second wife, serial heart-breaker, serial marriage, serial mate, serial monandry, serial monogyny, trigamy, walk-in marriage.

x consecutive polygamy.

x progressive monogamy.

x sequential marriage.

x serial polygamy.

serial monogyny:

Having more than one female mate on the part of a man, but one sequential to another rather than at the same time. Any of the female mates may be either monandrous or polyandrous.

Coined by me on analogy with "serial monandry." But perhaps it already exists.

Contrast serial monandry (q.v.). See also group switching, monandry, polyandry, serial marriage, serial monogamy.

serial philandering:

1. A man's engaging in sexual activity frivolously or casually with one woman after another at different times; male promiscuity with women.

2. Seductive flirtation, on the part of a man, with one woman after another without any intent of exploring the possibility of a long-term relationship.

Comment: Generally "philandering" is used as a pejorative term.

See also agapet, Casanova complex, crumpet man, Don Juanism, gay deceiver, indiscriminate sex, libertinism, Lothario, philanderer, pick up artist, promiscuity, put it about, queaning, queanry, rabbit, rake, roué, sex maniac, sexual varietism, shark, sleep around, womanize, womanizer.

serial polygamy:

See serial marriage, serial monogamy.

serious, as in "they are getting serious" or "they are serious":

1. Deeply involved with each other emotionally.

2. At the point of contemplating and not just fantasizing about becoming long-term mates.

3. Committed or ready to be committed to a monogamous relationship for the long haul.

4. Pertaining to or characterized by any of the preceding, or by causing one to grow in important ways, or by being otherwise life-changing, as in "a serious relationship."

See also go steady, going together, long-term relationship, monogamous, pinning, serious-relationship myth.

x serious relationship.

seriously married:

Committed to making a marital union work and not wanting to risk it, for instance by having an extramarital affair.

See also happily married, intrinsic marriage, married, more "married" than.

Quotation from Erica Jong Illustrating "Seriously Married"
Did he really think he could waltz back in here and rekindle the flame with a few confessions of fault? Was he insane? I was a different person. I knew his jive. I was married, seriously married to a serious person I loved, a person I could count on, a person who could count on me.
From: Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life, [by] Erica Jong (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, c2006): p. 103.

serious relationship:

See serious.

serious-relationship myth:

The (supposedly) false notion that a relationship (q.v.) must be both monogamous and long-term to be serious.

Comment: This "notion" has been identified as a myth by various sex radicals, many of whom reject both criteria. However, obviously, identifying it as a myth is controversial. I have provided a name for the supposed myth, without, for now, weighing in on the controversy, except to say that many a term, like "serious," has more than one definition in common usage (October 14, 2006).

See also monogamy, long-term relationship, love-ends-interest-in-others myth, serious.

x myths.

serve two studs:

To have two men one has sex with.

See also have two strings to (one's) bow, milk two cows, sexual non-exclusivity, share (one's) favors, stud.

Quotations from John Updike Illustrating "Serve Two Studs"
"They're feasting off you, Jan-Jan," he [Freddy Thorne] told her [Janet Appleby]. "You're serving two studs [Frank Appleby and Harold little-Smith] and Marcia [little-Smith]'s in the saddle."
From the novel: Couples, [by] John Updike (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968; "A Borzoi Book"): p. 164.

service:

See sex service.

set (her) cap at him:

To attempt to catch a man as a sweetheart or husband.

Brewer explains: "The lady puts on the most becoming of her caps, to attract the attention and admiration of the favored gentleman."

Reference
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Giving the Derivation, Source, or Origin of Common Phrases, Allusions, and Words That Have a Tale to Tell, by E. Cobham Brewer (New edition, revised, corrected, and enlarged; to which is added a concise bibliography of English literature. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, c1898): p. 211, s.v. "Cap," sub-entry, "Setting her cap at him."

See also attract, cap-setting, comether, draw to, make a play for, make-want, pull, put the mojo on, seduce.

settle down:

1. To bring flitting about, as from one place to another or one lover to another, to a halt.

2. To establish stable conditions for the purpose of raising a family, which undertaking commonly entails finding a way to make a steady living, establishing a household, and marrying.

3. To become established for the purpose of making a living.

4. To establish roots in a community.

5. To take up one's abode in a place that had previously been uncolonized; to begin to reside as a settler.

6. To become calm or quiet, especially for the sake of being attentive or of going to sleep.

See also family, household, marry.

settle for:

In the context of the topic of relationships:

1. Rather than to aspire to a lover or mate who would fulfill one's desires, to accept someone who doesn't but who happens to be available.

2. To accept a person for a lover or mate when one can do better; for instance:

• to accept a person as a lover or mate who grates one in a number of ways, when one can find a person who doesn't; or,
• to accept a person as a lover or mate who is inferior socially, when one can find a person who isn't.

3. To give up on one's first choice for a lover or mate and to accept somebody else with a measure of disappointment.

4. To accept a nonconventional relationship when one's preference is for a conventional type of relationship, or vice versa.

5. To accept inadequacy with regard to romantic or sexual attention.

Comment: The usual opposite is "to refuse to settle for."

See also catch (someone) on the rebound, consolation marriage, hypogamy, marry down, rebound relationship, rich man/biker paradox, second-choice husband, second-choice spouse, second-choice wife.

x refuse to settle for.

Seventh Commandment:

In the biblical account, the fourth from the last of the ten divine imperatives delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai for the Israelites. In the King James (Authorized) Version, it reads: "Thou shalt not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14 = 20:13 in some editions; cf. Deuteronomy 5:18 = 5:17 in some editions).

Comments: In some enumerations of the Ten Commandments, the prohibition of adultery is listed as the Sixth Commandment. (See quotation below.)

Among the issues raised by this Commandment: What precisely does adultery mean? If the prohibition is universal (as seems to be presumed by the Apostle Paul in Romans 13:9), is the definition subject to cultural or rational determination?

Among the arguments that this Commandment has universal force for all of humankind:

• It follows inevitably from the divine precepts that Noah and his descendants were expected to follow (Genesis 9:7).
• It embodies a principle of natural law.
• As a moral law revealed to the Israelites, it was never superseded and everyone is expected to follow the moral law revealed to the Israelites.

Regarding the biblical definition of adultery for (at least) Israelites, see under "adultery."

See also "All's fair ...," apodictic law, commit adultery, Holiness Code, Lasterkatalog, Law and gospel, law of love, love commandments, moral code, moral law, moral precept, sexual immorality, sexual sin, steal, Tenth Commandment.

x commandment.

x Sixth Commandment (of the Ten Commandments).

x Ten Commandments.

Quotation from The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647) Illustrating "Seventh Commandment"
Ques. 70. Which is the seventh commandment? Ans. The seventh commandment is, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Ques. 71. What is required in the seventh commandment? Ans. The seventh commandment requireth the preservation of our own and our neighbor's chastity, in heart, speech, and behavior. Ques. 72. What is forbidden in the seventh commandment? Ans. The seventh commandment forbiddeth all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions.
The edition being quoted from here is that found in: Bibliotheca Symbolica Ecclesiæ Universalis = The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes, by Philp Schaff. Volume III, The Evangelical Protestant Creeds, with Translations (4th ed., revised and enlarged. New York: Harper, c1919): pp. 676-704, specifically pp. 691-692.

Quotation from John A. Hardon Illustrating "Sixth and Ninth Commandments" in an Alternative Enumeration
It has been customary since apostolic times to relate the Sixth and Ninth Commandments of God as two aspects of the same divine mandate. They forbid respectively the external and internal sins against chastity.
From: The Catholic Catechism, [by] John A. Hardon (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, c1975): p. 351. In this enumeration, the Seventh and Tenth Commandments become prohibitions of the external sin of theft and the corresponding internal sin of greed (cf. p. 383).

seven-year itch:

1. The circumstance that in some countries, including the United States, the median duration of marriages that end in divorce tends to be about seven years; in other words, 50% are of less duration and 50% are of greater duration.

2. A period in a marriage, which many associate with its seventh year, when a spouse becomes sexually bored and feels the urge to have an affair.

See also affair, divorce, four-year itch, repent being married, surfeit response.

x statistics.

sex:

Regarding human beings (disregarding other species or interactions between a human being and a member of another species):

1. One's classification, relative to the propagation of the species homo sapiens, as male, female, or, in some usage, other (the last being suscepible to further delineation) -- speaking in terms of natural methods: a male being a person who, if reproductively healthy, is capable at some point in his life of impregnating an ovum produced by a human female and a female being a person who, if reproductively healthy, is capable at some point in her life of being impregnated by sperm produced by a human male.

2. One's personal identification with maleness, femaleness, or a different category either on the same continuum with maleness and femaleness or closely related, usually as culturally framed in a way corresponding to one's reproductive biology, but sometimes in distinct discordance with either cultural categories or the more obvious features of one's reproductive biology or both.

3. A set of distinguishing properties selected by which a determination as to the above classification or identification is made, such as one's hormonal mix, one's chromosomes (hence "chromosomal sex"), one's reproductive organs (hence "gonadal sex"), one's external organs related to reproduction (hence "morphological sex"), and/or one's emotional comfort or discomfort with one's classification as or identification with being a male, female, or something else (hence "psychosocial sex," also called "gender identity") -- discomfort in its strong form being called "dysphoria."

4. in the above-mentioned classification, any one group taken collectively, hence, for instance, the set of all males or the set of all females.

5. The interactions between a male and a female that would have the potential to lead to procreation, given fertility and the absence of contraception.

6. The generation of arousal, especially genital arousal, by way of mental and physical stimulation in interaction between human beings, generally including stimulation in erogenous zones.

7. Intercourse of the penis-in-vagina sort; for instance, the second use of the term in "Oral sex is not sex."

8. Arousal, especially to orgasm, as in "solo sex" ("solo sex" being masturbation or autoeroticism).

9. The manifestations of the libido, or drive to mate, in their totality; everything particularly associated with the above, as in "having an interest in sex."

Comments: By using the term "identification" and referring to the term "gender identity" in the above definitions, I do not mean to predispose or tip a hat to any philosophies of self-identity. Above, the term "identification" should be read as generically as possible, as a term defaulted to because alternatives, like "association," wouldn't do.

Speaking of gender identity, it used to be a truism that "sex" refers to male or female and that "gender" refers to a grammatical category; however, now "gender" is frequently used synonymously (a) with "sex" in the first sense above, often to avoid the sex/sexual activity ambiguity, or (b) with "sex" in the second or third sense above in order to lay stress upon the psychological or cultural aspects over against the physical, which is represented by the first sense.

The delimiting of the classification to just two sexes, male and female, is called "sexual dimorphism," as is the view that the classification should be limited to two sexes.

Sometimes included among "other" sexes are eunuchs, homosexuals (or some subcategory or -categories thereof), hermaphrodites (the intersex), transsexuals, hijras (of India), berdaches (of North American Indian groups), and the asexual, that is, those who lack a sex drive -- which is just to begin the list.

See also consensual sex, consent to sex, consequences of sex outside of marriage, desex, desexed, devalue sex, extramarital sex, function of sex (which see for further comment bearing on the meaning of "sex"), indiscriminate sex, intermarital sex, loveless sex, metasex, nonmarital sex, no sex outside of marriage, oversexed, postmarital sex, precondition for sex, premarital sex, public character of sex, recreational sex, right to sex, sacred sex, sexed, sexology, sexploit, sexual, sexuality, stranger sex, unbridle sex, undersexed, withhold sex.

x gender.

sex addict:

A person who suffers from sexual addiction.

See also erotomaniac, multimitus, nookie junkie, nymphomaniac, oversexed, porn addict, satyr, sexaholic, sex fiend, sex maniac, sexual addiction, smellsmock.

x addict.

Quotation from Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt Illustrating "Sex Addict"
More recently we hear about sex addicts and avoidance of intimacy.... Sex can be misused as a substitute for connection, emotional relationship or a solid sense of internal security based on knowing your own worth. Some sexual abuse survivors become what is called "sexualized" in a childhood where the closest approximation to adult attention, validation and affection they had was molestation. Such survivors may need to expand their options and learn other ways to get their needs met. On the other hand, "sex addict" seems to be the latest incarnation of cultural judgment about sluts...
From: The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities, [by] Dossie Easton & Catherine A. Liszt (San Francisco, CA: Greenery Press, c1997): p. 28.

sex addiction:

See sexual addiction.

sexaholic:

A person whose mind and energies and activities are dominated by sexual lust and consumed by the drive towards sexual gratification, all of this to such a point that other vital aspects of life are encroached upon; a person who is hooked on sex per se and who is unable or scarcely able to bring his or her absorption with sex under control.

Comment: Patterned after the word "alcoholic."

See also erotomaniac, multimitus, nookie junkie, nymphomaniac, oversexed, satyr, sex addict, sexaholism, sex fiend, sex maniac, sexual sobriety, smellsmock.

sexaholism:

Sexual addiction.

Comment: Patterned after the word "alcoholism."

See also sexaholic, sexual addiction.

sex-alive:

Exuding one's sexual nature while being neither jaded not psychologically burdened in such a way as to inhibit ordinate sexual expression.

Contrast jaded (q.v.). See also sexy.

sex and love:

See loveless sex, sexless love.

sex appeal, or sex-appeal:

One's ability to attract others in such a way as to engage their sexual desire; sexual charisma.

See also arm candy, attraction, attractive, erotic capital, eye candy, it, je ne sais quoi, kavorka, kuzbu, magnetism, objectification, pull, sex kitten, sex object, sexy, shiksappeal, waist-to-hip ratio, X-appeal, x-factor, za za zoo.

sex as a weapon:

See use sex as a weapon.

sex buddy:

A person with whom one engages in sexual activity from time to time even though the relationship is unlikely to turn serious, for instance, after an attempt at a serious relationship with that person has already failed.

See also casual sex, cuddle buddy, erotic friend, friend with benefits, friendship-with-sex, f*** buddy, partner, slump buster, umfriend.

x buddy.

sexcapade:

1. Sexual escapade; an erotic adventure.

2. A sex scandal; an erotic misadventure.

See also philander, promiscuity, sex scandal.

sex cheat:

A person who engages in sexual activity with one or more people without the consent of his or her love relationship partner(s) and contrary to the relationship understanding, whether tacit or explicit.

See also adulterer, adulteress, bedswerver, cheat (noun and verb), half-worker, pornos, spousebreach, spousebreaker, two-timer, whore.

sex club:

1. A group that meets from time to time for recreational sex (q.v.).

2. An establishment that is hosting such a group.

See also group sex, key club, notional sex club, sex party, swap club, swing club, switch club.

x club.

sex-deprived, or sexually deprived, or deprived sexually:

Characterized by the absence of satisfying sexual activity with another person for a period of time difficult to endure, especially in circumstances where either:

• sexual inactivity is the pattern in one's life, at least for a period, even though one feels a need for sexual intimacy; or,
• sexual exclusivity is enjoined by a partner, one's commitments, one's belief system, or the powers that be but sexual activity within the exclusive relationship is not to be had.

See also blue balls, desperate, double-deprivation theory, lover's nut, sex-starved, sexual deprivation.

x deprived sexually.

x sexually deprived.

sex drive:

The recurring impetus arising from within (although susceptible to being enflamed from without) to seek gratification of the bodily systems associated with mating and reproduction, typically by means of copulation or masturbation, this impetus being understood, at least in part, relative to variable frequency and variable degrees of intensity.

Comments: The exact nature of the sex drive in human beings is still being unraveled scientifically, but it is clear that hormones, such as testosterone, play a huge role.

The elements of gratification are likewise still being unraveled. Consider, for instance, intimate touch as a psychological need; pleasure in part as a vital counterbalance to anxiety and pain; release of sexual tension; and, in males, the discharge of building seminal urgency due to the ongoing generation of new sperm.

See also asexual (adjective), asexual (noun), autosexual, chemistry of love, erotomania, horniness, hypersexuality, hyposexual, inner slut, libido, oversexed, romance drive, sex on the brain, sexual, sexual desire, sexuality, silent epidemic.

sexed:

1. Characterized by having been endowed with some degree of sexual drive and some form of sexual orientation; characterized by being a sexual being.

2. Characterized by having a gender.

See also desexed, oversexed, sex, sexuality, undersexed.

sex fiend:

A person with a devilishly insatiable appetite for sexual activity or for sexual promiscuity; a person who is obsessed by and whose life is consumed by sex; a person posessed by (not just in possession of) sexual desire and ever repeated attempts at its fulfillment.

See also multimitus, nookie junkie, nymphomaniac, promiscuity, rabbit, satyr, sex addict, sexaholic, sex maniac, smellsmock.

sex god:

1. A male deity who represents fertility.

2. A man who is adored, at least in part, for evoking in one or more other people a vision of uninhibited sexuality or of perfect sexual complementarity or of unbounded sexual attraction; a sexually exciting man who is adored, at least in part, for being so.

3. A man whose physical attractiveness excites adoration.

4. A sexy or extremely attractive man whom one deems unattainable, as in the phrase.

5. The inner aspect of a man that is blooming sexually and that finds expression in sexiness and enhanced attractiveness.

See also adoration-lust, amoretto, androlatry, cherub, Cupid's golden arrow, Cupid's torch, fox, God's gift to women, heartthrob, hierogamy, husband worship, pedastalism, place on a pedastal, sacred sex, temple of love, theogamy, tottie, Valentino, worship one's spouse.

sex goddess:

1. A female deity who represents fertility.

2. A woman who is adored, at least in part, for evoking in one or more other people a vision of uninhibited sexuality or of perfect sexual complementarity or of unbounded sexual attraction; a sexually exciting woman who is adored, at least in part, for being so.

3. A woman whose physical attractiveness excites adoration.

4. A sexy or extremely attractive woman whom one deems unattainable, as in the phrase, "Hollywood sex goddess."

5. The inner aspect of a woman that is blooming sexually and that finds expression in sexiness and enhanced attractiveness.

See also adoration-lust, Aphrodite's girdle, cherub, fox, Frauendienst, girdle of Venus, God's gift to men, gyniolatry, heartthrob, hierogamy, Mae West, mea Iuno, pedastalism, place on a pedastal, sacred sex, salvatore feminus, temple of love, theogamy, tottie, wife worship, worship one's spouse.

sex hospitality:

1. Seeing to the sexual needs and sleeping comfort of a guest by offering the guest a temporary sex and sleeping partner, whether it be oneself or a mate or a member of one's family or somebody else, especially when this is according to custom. In some cases, for the guest to refuse or to perform poorly might be taken as bad manners, even an affront. In other cases, hospitality extends to not taking umbrage if a guest declines without intending any offense.

2. Enabling a guest, for instance a hotel guest, to see to his or her own sexual needs and desires, for instance, by providing contacts whereby temporary sex partners might be found and access to erotic materials.

See also adultery, bundling, temporary wife, wife lending.

x hospitality sex.

x sexual hospitality.

sexile, as in "a sexile":

A sexual exile, that is:

1. A person forced to leave home, culture, or country for a reason related to sexuality.

2. Someone excluded from sexual activities, especially presently occurring sexual activities in that person's own territory; a person who has been displaced so that his or her roommate can have privacy with a sex partner.

Comment: In the latter sense, sometimes called a sexilee, especially in contrast to a sexiler.

Contrast sexiler (q.v.).

x sexilee.

sexile, as in "to sexile":

To displace a person from his or her room or lodgings for the sake of someone else's sexual privacy.

See also couch duty, sexile system.

sexilee:

See sexile.

sexiler:

One who displaces a person from his or her own room or lodgings for the sake of sexual privacy.

Constrast sexile (q.v.).

sexile system:

A set of plans and arrangements to avoid intruding upon a roommate who is entertaining a sex partner.

See also sexile.

sexism:

1. Treatment of one sex as being inferior to another.

2. A view that rationalizes the treatment of one sex as inferior to another.

See also active-passive split, double standard, female chauvinism, feminism, free female sexuality, free male sexuality, "goose and gander" theory, "head of the wife," Madonna-whore complex, male chauvinism, monosexism, patriarchalism, sexual chauvinism.

sex-joy:

A delight in life due to erotic play or delight in erotic play itself.

See also erotophilia, erotopositive, kuzbu, sex-positive stance, sexually positive.

Quotation from the Gardner-Maier translation of the Gilgamesh Epic Illustrating "Sex-Joy"
Come, Enkidu, to Uruk of the Sheepfold, where ... the holy courtesans beautify their forms, radiating sexual prowess [kuzbu], filled with sex-joy [rishatum].
The Epic of Gilgamesh, tablet 1, column 5, lines 6-7, 10-11, using the English rendering found in: Gilgamesh, translated from the Sîn-leqi-unninnï version [by] John Gardner, John Maier; with the assistance of Richard A. Henshaw (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984; "A Borzoi Book"): p. 81. For the Akkadian words kuzbu and rishatum, see p. 83. The above definition of "sex-joy" is not meant as a definition of the Akkadian word.

sex kitten:

A person, usually a sexually active one, with sex appeal, especially a young woman.

Comments: When the term is used of a man, it is usually qualified, as in "male sex kitten."

For lexical example, see under "inner slut."

See also minx, rabbit, sex appeal, she-wolf, shark, wild.

sexless love:

1. A type of love that finds expression in other than sexual activity.

2. Affection that never or hardly ever finds sexual expression.

3. Romantic attachment either before sexual relations have begun or after they have, for some reason, ceased.

Comment: For many the ideal is that matured love and sex go together, yet in real life they are often apart. Sexless love is one of the broad categoreiss of separation. The other is loveless sex (q.v.).

See also accubitus, agapêtê, agapêtos, agapic love, bed death, desexed, friendship, give up on love, hetero-asexual, homo-asexual, love, sexless marriage, storgic love, subintroducta, syneisaktism, syneisaktos.

x love and sex.

x separation of sex and love.

x sex and love.

sexless marriage:

1. A marriage (q.v.) in which physical intimacies, especially sexual intercourse, either have always been or have become chronically absent.

2. In professional literature, a marriage in which the spouses engage in sexual intercourse together ten times or less per year.

See also accubitus, agenobiosis, celibate marriage, diastunia, intramarital chastity, involuntary celibacy, low-sex marriage, mariage blanc, mystic betrothal, no-sex marriage, sexless love, sex-starved marriage, spiritual marriage, white marriage.

sex life:

The nature, quality, and quantity -- even the absence -- of one's reproductive and erotic activities, both alone and with another or others, all considered together within a given time-frame; or else an aspect thereof.

For lexical example, see under "sexy."

See also ask-and-tell eroticism, compartmentalization, erotic journal, fantasy life, lifestyle, love life, lovestyle, moveable feast, romantic resumé, sexuality, sexways, tell all.

Quotation from D. H. Lawrence Illustrating "Sex Life"
[Ursula Brangwen to Rupert Birkin regarding Hermione Roddice] "... Social passion -- what social passion has she? -- show it me! -- where is it? She wants petty, immediate power, she wants the illusion that she is a great woman, that is all. In her soul she's a devilish unbeliever, common as dirt. That's what she is at the bottom. And all the rest is pretence -- but you love it. You love the sham spirituality, it's your food. And why? Because of the dirt underneath. Do you think I don't know the foulness of your sex life -- and hers? -- I do. And it's that foulness you want, you liar..."
From the novel: Women in Love, [by] D. H. Lawrence; with a foreword by the author and an introduction by Richard Aldington (New York: Viking Press, 1960): chapter 23, p. 299. Early editions: New York: Privately printed for subscribers only, 1920. London: Martin Secker, 1921.

Quotation from J. D. Salinger Illustrating "Sex Life"
[Holden Caulfield to old Luce] "No kidding, how's your sex life?" I asked him. "You still going around with that same babe you used to at Whooton? The one with the terrific --"
From the novel: The Catcher in the Rye, [by] J. D. Salinger (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951): chapter 19, p. 188; cf. 187.

sex maniac:

1. A person who cannot control his or her libidinous impulses.

2. A person with a strong sex drive, either in general or at a given moment.

3. A person who, due to his or her sex drive or level of arousal, is capable of a wide array of erotic acts.

4. A sexually promiscuous person.

See also agapet, andromania, box of assorted creams, Cassanova complex, Catherine the Great complex, Don Juanism, erotomaniac, gynecomania, lothariette, Lothario, lovertine, Messalina complex, multicipara, multimitus, nookie junkie, nymphomaniac, oversexed, philanderer, pick up artist, promiscuity, punch board, punchbroad, rabbit, rake, roué, satyr, serial philandering, sex addict, sexaholic, sex fiend, Sherfey syndrome, slut, smellsmock, stud, whore, womanizer.

Quotation from J. D. Salinger Illustrating "Sex Maniac"
[Holden Caulfield narrating] In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw. Sometimes I can think of very crumby stuff I wouldn't mind doing if the opportunity came up.
From the novel: The Catcher in the Rye, [by] J. D. Salinger (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951): chapter 9, p. 81. Italics his.

sex-negative posture:

See sex-negative stance.

sex-negative stance, or sex-negative posture:

1. The view that human sexuality or at least one's own is degrading except, perhaps, as redeemed for the purpose of procreation in the context of marriage. In theological terms, human sexuality, at least as oriented to anything but procreation in the context of marriage, is seen as a result of the Fall of humankind into sin.

2. Belief in restricting sexual expression or, at least, moderate sexual expression, said especially of some social and religious institutions.

Comment: A sex-negative stance is not to be confused with sexual negativism, which is a lack of interest in sex.

See also anhedonic, aterpism, dirty, erotophobia, Junior Anti-Sex League, objectify, prudery, sexosophy, sexual counterrevolution, sexually negative, sexual morality, sexual positivity, traditional morality.

x negative stance on sexuality.

x sex-negative posture.

x sexual negativism.

Quotation from Sol Gordon and Craig W. Snyder Illustrating "Sex-Negative Posture"

Most religious educators and theologians agree that in the area of sexuality, organized religions have traditionally assumed a sex-negative posture. Historically sex has been seen as a necessary evil despite the fact that Old Testament scholars have maintained that the Bible presents the basis for joyous acceptance of sex.

From: Personal Issues in Human Sexuality: A Guidebook for Better Sexual Health, [by] Sol Gordon [and] Craig W. Snyder (2nd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, c1989): p. 92.

sex object:

A human being looked upon in terms of his or her capability to excite desire or capacity to bring about sexual gratification.

See also attraction, objectify, sex appeal.

Quotation from Helen Gurley Brown Illustrating "Sex Object"
"I was accused of hurting the cause [of feminism] because I was still talking about women as though they were sex objects. But to be a sex object is a wonderful thing, and you're to be pitied if you aren't one."
As quoted in: Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide, [by] Maureen Dowd (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, c2005): p. 172. Brown was the editor of the magazine, Cosmo.

sexogamy:

Marriage founded on sexual attraction alone.

Comment: I suspect coinage as a witticism.

See also attraction, -gamy, geneclexis, mate selection.

sexology:

The scientific discipline concerned with sex and sexual love as phenomena, inclusive of their biology, their psychological aspects (not to oppose biology to psychology), and their cultural manifestations.

See also limerence, love, sex, sexual love.

Quotation from Magnus Hirschfeld Illustrating "Sexology"
Sex and love are as old as mankind, but the science of sex and love, sexology, is the youngest of all sciences.
Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) as quoted in: Encyclopaedia Sexualis: A Comprehensive Encyclopaedia-Dictionary of the Sexual Sciences, edited by Victor Robinson (New York: Dingwall-Rock, in collaboration with Medical Review of Reviews, 1936): p. [iii].

sex on the brain:

1. Thoughts of attractive persons and of intimate relations, especially frequently or obsessively occurring thoughts.

2. A singular intent to engage in sexual relations as a result of one's own horniness.

3. Proneness to interpret ambiguous images and signals or even much of life in erotic ways.

See also erotomania, horniness, horny, libido, lust, pansexualism, sex drive, sexual desire, urge to merge.

sexosophy (John Money):

Philosophy, principles, values, and awareness regarding sexuality and love relationships.

See also "All's fair ...," "an it harm none, do what ye will," biblical sexual morality, code, compartmentalization, consent to sex, consequences of sex outside of marriage, judgmentalism, moral code, moral equivalence, new morality, next-tier sexual ethics, nonjudgmental, no sex outside of marriage, objectification, pankoitism, prudery, relationalism, romantic theology, rules of adultery, rules of love, separation of sex and power, sex-negative stance, sex-positive stance, sexual avant-garde, sexual ethics, sexual etiquette, sexual justice, sexual morality, sexual mores, sexual permissiveness, spiritual polyamory, theology of marriage, theology of romantic love, theology of sex, third way in sexual ethics, sexual toleration, Three Ways, traditional morality.

sex partner, or sexual partner:

1. A person with whom one engages in sexual activity.

2. A person with whom one shares the mutuality of addressing or helping to address each other's sexual needs and desires, however temporarily or durably.

Comment: On occasion there is a distinction to be made between "sex partner" and "sexual partner," as when by "a sexual partner" is meant someone in contradistinction from an asexual partner.

See also amari, bedmate, catamite, copemate, date, domestic partner, gallant, genicon, gugusse, illicit lover, letter group, love-companion, lover, lover material, mate, mating rituals, MLTR, monogamy, paracoita, paracoitus, paramour, partner, play-fellow, rerun, sexual non-monogamy, surrogate sex partner, sexual field, umfriend.

x sexual partner.

sex party:

A gathering of people for the purpose of at least some of them indulging their sexual appetites together.

See also bacchanalia, chicken party, doused lights, group sex, hooky party, key party, open party, orgy, Mandingo party, partouse, rainbow party, Roman culture, sex club, swing, tart party, vicars and tarts party.

Related term beyond the scope of this glossary: balum rancum.

x party.

sexploit:

An erotic adventure; a sexual feat.

Comment: A combination of sex + exploit.

Usually seen in the plural: sexploits.

See also sex.

sex-positive posture:

See sex-positive stance.

sex-positive stance, or sex-positive posture:

1. The view that human sexuality, including one's own, is delightful in itself, even apart from procreation. In theological terms, human sexuality in its generality is seen as preceding the Fall of humankind into sin and is viewed as a divine gift. A sex-positive stance does not preclude a morality of sexuality; nor does it preclude the social channeling of sexuality.

2. Belief that healthy sexual expression should be encouraged in a wide range of contexts. Within a sex-positive stance in this sense, there is much room for debate as to what is healthy for the individual and for society, so long as human sexuality is not seen as degrading in and of itself.

Comment: The term "sex-positive" is attributed to sex educators at the National Sex Forum (San Francisco, California) in 1968 or 1969.

See also "an it harm none, do what ye will," "Be fruitful and multiply," "blessings of the breasts and of the womb," bodily integrity, erotophilia, ethical hedonism, new morality, sex-joy, sex-negative stance, sexosophy, sexual justice, sexual liberation, sexually positive, sexual morality, sexual revolution, unwelcome admixture with sexuality.

x positive stance on sexuality.

x sex-positive posture.

sex radical:

A person who promotes a philosophy, having to do with human sexuality and sexual behavior, that conflicts with the conventional mores of the day and the religious teachings of the past that influence the beliefs of the day; a person who advocates change in mores and beliefs regarding sexuality or, at least, experimentation with a view to changing those mores and beliefs.

Comment: Radicals are often thought to be extremists. However, some radicals reject that association, point out that the word "radical" comes from the Latin word radix, which means "root," and say that they are trying to make change at the root level.

Note the book title: The Sex Radicals: Free Love in High Victorian America, [by] Hal D. Sears (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, c1977).

See also apolygist, eleutherophilist, free lover, libertarian, libertine, non-monogamist, pankoitist, polyactivist, polygamophile, radical love.

x Latin terms.

sex rule:

1. A restriction or requirement regarding sexual conduct, generally in the context of a legal or moral system or of social mores.

2. A self-imposed restriction or requirement regarding one's sexual feelings or behavior, for instance, "I won't have sex by myself if I have an available sex partner" or "I will have sex with a person only if I love that person" or " I'll never be just a tease and leave a person aroused and unsatisfied" or "I won't have sex with someone till the third date."

See also rules of adultery, rules of love, sexual morality, sexual mores.

x rules.

Quotation from J. D. Salinger Illustrating "Sex Rules"
[Holden Caulfield narrating] I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it -- the same night, as a matter of fact. I spent the whole night necking with a terrible phony named Anne Louise Sherman. Sex is something I just don't understand.
From the novel: The Catcher in the Rye, [by] J. D. Salinger (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951): chapter 9, p. 82. Italics his.

sex scandal:

Publicly alleged sexual behavior (often involving an unwelcome admixture with sex) that offends standards of morality or propriety or that is suggestive of hypocrisy.

Comments: The word "scandal" ultimately derives from the Greek word skadalon, meaning "trap; stumblingblock; offence."

See also adultery, affair, bedroom politics, criminal conversation, illicit love, illicit relationship, indiscretion, intrigue, irregular connection, peccadillo, porneia, sexcapade, sexual immorality, unwelcome admixture with sexuality, venereal transgression.

x scandal.

sex service:

The biological and cultural role played dominantly by one of the sexes with regard to procreation of the human species and family welfare, used especially of women with regard to childbearing and rearing.

Comment: In English-speaking countries, the term has largely fallen into disuse as the place of the individual has been elevated over gender roles and as the word "gender" has come increasingly to displace the word "sex" in reference to male or female.

See also feminism.

x service.

sex-starved, or sexually starved, or starved sexually:

In a state in which one feels desperate for physical intimacies with another person, due to too long an absence of such intimacies and one's need for them.

Comment: This is a powerful motivation for seeking contact with a person of complementary sexual orientation.

See also blue balls, desperate, lover's nut, sex-deprived, sexual starvation, single, starvation economy, unhappily single.

x sexually starved.

x starved sexually.

sex-starved marriage:

A marriage (q.v.) adversely affected by insufficiency of physical intimacies.

See also low-sex marriage, sexless marriage.

sex surrogate, or sexual surrogate:

A person professionally trained and employed to assist in sex therapy by temporarily serving as a sex partner.

See also Coolidge effect, sex partner, surrogate sex partner.

x sexual surrogate.

x surrogate.

sext:

To flirt, be sexually suggestive, or sexually explicit online by way of text messaging and/or the sending of digital photographs.

Comment: The verb formations are regular, thus the past tense is the somewhat awkward "sexted."

See also sexting.

sextet:

A love relationship consisting of six people.

See also hexad, InSix, letter group (E, H, xi), pentamory, polygon, synergamy.

sex texting:

See sexting.

sexting:

The act of sending flirtatious, sexually suggestive, or sexually explicit text messages and/or photographs online, as through a cellphone.

Comment: Also known as sex texting and sext messaging.

See also chat cheat, cyberflirtation, cybersex partner, erotographomania, instant messaging, Internet affair, love at first text message, obscene language, obscene words, online affair, sexual correspondence, text messaging relationship, toothing, virtual affair, wink.

x sex texting.

x sext messaging.

x texting sexy messages and photos.

sext messaging:

See sexting.

sexual, as in "a sexual":

A person with both a sex drive and an (at least) occasional interest in sexual interaction, as distinguished from an asexual, who lacks one or the other or both.

See also asexual, autosexual, sex drive.

sexual, as in "a sexual encounter" or "a sexual person":

1. Characterized by or pertaining to sex, sexual activity, or sexuality.

2. Possessed of a sex drive; from time to time inclined to desire coition.

See comment under "erotic."

See also erotic, love-performing, sex, -sexual, sexuality.

-sexual:

1. Suffix indicating a relation to one's sexual nature, one's pattern of sexual practices, or one's sexual views.

2. Suffix inviting comparison of traits to or contrast of traits with those common in a particular sexual community, as in the case of "metrosexual" (metrosexuals being compared to many a homosexual) and one sense of "retrosexual" (that sense reflecting a reaction to metrosexuals and thus indirectly inviting a contrast with many a homosexual).

See also asexual, autosexual, bisexual, faumosexual, hetero-asexual, heterosexual, homosexual, hypersexual, hyposexual, monosexual, omnisexual, pansexual, pomosexual, regretrosexual, retrosexual, sexual.

sexual addiction:

Psychological inability to keep one's sex life from damaging or destroying one's relationships or from impairing other important aspects of one's life, when sexual activity, especially sexual activity of a particular type, is repetitively, frequently, and perpetually engaged in, this not for pleasure or for the release of sexual tension or for the sake of relationships but in order to relieve anxiety or feelings of worthlessness.

Comment: Sexual addiction is a controversial concept and all the more so when it is confused with sexual attachments or lack of moderation in sexuality.

See also andromania, Casanova complex, Catherine the Great complex, damaged goods, Don Juanism, dysfunctional family, erotomania, f*ck-happy, gynecomania, hypersexuality, love addiction, lovertine, Marilyn syndrome, Messalina complex, nymphomania, obscenity-purity complex, oversexed, porn addiction, relationship addiction, relationship parasite, satyriasis, sex addict, sexaholism, sexual sobriety.

x addiction to sex.

x sex addiction.

sexual autonomy:

Free choice as to whether to have sex and when, with whom, and how to have it -- especially considered as a right.

Comments: Sexual autonomy does not automatically imply any of the following:

• promiscuity (q.v.), for one may freely choose and continue to choose to limit oneself by agreement in the context of a committed relationship;
• attending only to one's own sexual needs and desires;
• a right of encroachment of the most intimate aspects of sexuality upon the public sphere; or,
• a right of encroachment of the commercial sphere upon the most intimate aspects of sexuality, as in prostitution.

It does, however, imply the supremacy of the individual's volition with regard to the sexual exercise of his or her body and the absence of any right of coercion with regard to the sexual use of the individual's body, whether on the part of a government, an institution, a business, or an individual.

See also bodily integrity, boundary, compartmentalization, consensual sex, consent to sex, consexuality, free female sexuality, free love, free male sexuality, libertarianism, libertinism, liberty, moral equivalence, new morality, open-minded, public character of sex, relationship choice, relationship freedom, separation of marriage and state, separation of sex and power, sexual ethics, sexual freedom, sexual justice, sexual liberation, sexual morality, sexual mores, sexual permissiveness.

sexual avant-garde:

1. Those, collectively considered, who within a culture or class are at the leading edge of style changes with regard to erotic practices and mating behavior; a (usually) amorphous group of trend-setters with regard to erotic practices and mating behavior; the comparatively few who are in the vanguard of what may become far more widespread amatory behavior or libidinously sensual practices.

2. Those, collectively considered, who are on the cutting edge of developing and employing new forms of eroticism or new means of mating, for example, through technological or imaginary means (with regard to the latter, as in science fiction).

3. Those, collectively considered, who are leading the way in changing -- in usual usage, loosening -- social mores with regard to erotic practices and mating behavior.

4. Often, some combination of any of the preceding.

See also alternative lifestyle, bohemianism, next-tier sexual ethics, sexosophy, sexual avant-gardist, sexual mores.

x avant-garde.

sexual avant-gardist:

A member of the sexual avant-garde (q.v.).

Quotation from David Brooks Illustrating "Sexual Avant-Gardists"
But if you look around upscale America, it's not all chaos and amoralism, even among the sexual avant-gardists ... What they are doing is weird and may be disgusting, but it has its own set of disciplines.
From: Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, [by] David Brooks (New York: Simon & Schuster, c2000): chapter 5, p. 196.

sexual blackmail:

1. Extortion involving a threat to reveal information about one's sex life, information that would be likely to be either highly embarrassing, damaging to one's relationships, or detrimental to one's livelihood.

2. The withholding of sex within a relationship in order to obtain something from one's partner.

See also unwelcome admixture with sexuality, use sex as a weapon.

x blackmail of the sexual sort.

sexual chauvinism:

1. A view that asserts either a generally natural superiority of one sex over another or a formal superordination of one sex over another.

2. Acting out of a belief in the superiority or formally higher status of one's own sex relative to someone else's or acting as though one believed in it.

See also active-passive split, barefoot and pregnant, bedroom politics, doll's house marriage, doll's house relationship, double standard, female chauvinism, feminism, free female sexuality, free male sexuality, "goose and gander" theory, "head of the wife," male chauvinism, moral equivalence, patriarchalism, sexism, union of equals.

x chauvinism.

sexual circle:

1. The people with whom one has an understanding that one can turn to for free sexual relations under mutually acceptable conditions.

2. The people with whom one has had sexual relations.

Comment: For lexical example, see the last quotation under "zipless f***."

See also closed circle of f*** buddies, intimate network, non-monogamy, polyeros, poly web, recreational sex, safe sex circle, sexual non-monogamy, sexual varietism.

x circles.

sexual communism:

Condition of a society, community, or group where promiscuity is the general practice, there being no internal social boundaries as to who may have sex with whom, particularly as to what men may have sex with what women. This condition is sometimes postulated as having been the original state of humankind, out of which marital and kinship systems eventually developed.

See also boundary, cenogamy, free-sex colony, hetairism, indiscriminate sex, promiscuity, sexual utopia, sexual varietism, tribal marriage.

sexual compatibility:

Adequately matched in terms of values bearing on sexuality, genitalia, libido, sexual preferences, sexual desire for each other, and the meeting of each other's sexual needs and desires, especially in a context where monogamy or, at least, togetherness for all non-solo sex is the expectation.

See also compatibility, cybersex, made for each other, sexual connection, sexual correspondence.

sexual configuration:

See sexuality.

sexual connection:

1. The temporary physical link formed between two individuals through copulation.

2. The persistent abstract link formed by way of a consummated marriage.

3. Indirect linkage by way of a chain or series of copulations. Thus John and Tom would be sexually connected by virtue of each having had sex with Jane. Generally such linkage is abstract; but it can be concrete, as when a sexually transmitted disease is involved.

4. Sometimes when used indefinitely, any combination of the above.

5. An erotic connection.

6. A sense on the part of two or more individuals that they are right for one another as mates.

Comments: With regard to the first sense, a sexual connection may imply to some much more than a temporary linkage:

• It may imply some relation to an ideal (see, for example, under "one flesh").
• It may imply a bond.
• It may, at least given the right conditions, imply marriage (see, for example, under "consummation").
• It may imply the creation of a set of kinship relations (see, for example, under "qatang") or involvment in a network of linkages (see, for example, under "Langdon chart").
• It may imply relative social positions (see, for example, under "as with womankind").
• It may imply a wrong or right relation depending on whom the connection is with (see, for example, under "Holiness Code").
• It may even imply a conscious rejection of all the aforementioned possible implications (see quotation below).

Similarly with regard to the second sense, a sexual connection will often imply much more, for example (to mention something additional), participation in an institution that is defined, at least in part, socially.

A sexual connection in the first sense can be had across species (see under "bestiality") or between members of the same sex (see under "homosexuality"), even though at root the term "sexual" pertains to a male and a female of the same species.

See also bond, chains of affection, connection, distal partner, erotic connection, irregular connection, relationship, sexual relationship; adultery, arsenokoitës, incest, irregular connection, lesbianism, malakos, porneia, secondary incest, sodomite, unnatural; marriage; alternative relationship geometries, cycling, intimate network, letter group, lover-in-law, poly connected, polyrelationship, sexual geometry, sexual network, take seconds, TOCOTOX; affinity, compatibility, connaturality, good match, kinship, Miss Right, Mister Right, Ms. Right, physical relationship, poly web, sexual compatibility, soul mate, spiritual husband, spiritual marriage, spiritual wife, vibe.

x sexually connected.

Quotation from D. H. Lawrence Illustrating "Sexual Connections"
It's what endures through one's life that matters; my own life matters to me, in its long continuance and development. But what do the occasional connections matter? And the occasional sexual connections specially. If people don't exaggerate them ridiculously, they pass like the mating of birds. And so they should. What does it matter?
From: Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D. H. Lawrence; with an introduction by Mark Schorer (New York: Grove Press, c1959): pp. 49. "This edition is the third manuscript version, first published by Giuseppe Orioli, Florence, 1928." For continuation of the quotation, see under "habit of each other." By the way, as the story develops, it becomes evident that sexual connections do matter, at least in some cases.

sexual conquest:

See conquest.

sexual-conventionality myth of love:

The (supposedly) false notion that participation in any sexual practice that is kinky or unusual cannot be an authentic expression of genuine affection.

Comment: I have provided a name for the supposed myth, without, for now, weighing in on any controversy that might surround it (October 17, 2006).

See also love-ends-interest-in-others myth.

x conventionality myth of love.

x myths.

sexual correspondence:

1. Coition; sexual intercourse.

2. Complementarity with respect to the sexes or to individuals relative to each other's sexuality; complementarity with respect to the sexual organs or with respect to mental eroticism.

3. Written communication of an erotic nature.

See also love-making, moment of coition; affinity, compatibility, eroticism, sexual compatibility, sexuality; cyber relationship, cybersex partner, discourse of desire, erotographomania, instant messaging, love letter, obscene language, obscene words, sexting.

sexual counterrevolution, or sexual counter-revolution:

A backlash against or active opposition of another sort to a sexual revolution, or active cultivation of a traditionalist alternative to a sexual revolution, often the sexual revolution referred to being that of the 1960s and '70s, which evolved in various ways subsequently, along with the various movements, many of them religious, in opposition to it.

Comment: Sometimes expressed as "counter sexual revolution."

See also abstinence pledge, sex-negative stance, sexual revolution, traditional morality, virginity pledge.

sexual degradation:

1. A loss or perceived loss of human dignity by way of activity that involves a person's genitalia or other erogenous zones.

2. The fall of the sexual activity of one or more persons from what is regarded by the speaker as a high estate, for example, a sole use for reproduction within marriage.

3. The mixing of sexual activity with unwelcome admixtures, such as taunting, coercion, or commercialism.

For discussion, see under "degrading sex."

See also bodily integrity, perversion, prudery, rape, sexual ethics, sexual immorality, stupration, unwelcome admixture with sexuality.

sexual deprivation:

1. The condition of being sex-deprived (q.v.).

2. The act, whether deliberate or not, of causing someone to be sex-deprived.

See also cruelty, double-deprivation theory, frigidity, passion paradox, sexual starvation.

sexual desire:

1. The yearning to mate physically, or the set of both innate and developmental factors, especially psychological factors and factors related to the reproductive system, that coalesce to generate such yearning.

2. An internal urge to seek pleasuring of one's erogenous zones or the release of tension that has built up, in large part, in the genital region.

Comments: This term is generally used neutrally, unlike the word "lust," which is often used pejoratively.

Sexual desire, in the first sense, can have a particular object; or it can be indefinite.

Disorders of sexual desire are common.

See also amour-physique, aphanisis, ardor, attraction, bream, carnal love, chemistry of love, clicket, cupidity, danger myth of sexual desire, desire, discourse of desire, eassin, erotic love, erotomania, go to his towrus, horniness, inner slut, kama, kate, libido, longing, lovemap, love's lust, love-passion, lust, mulierosity, passion, pull, sex drive, sex on the brain, sexuality, sexual love, sexual orientation, sexualove, template, urge to merge, yearning.

x desire.

sexual elite:

1. Those in a society generally considered the most attractive or otherwise most sexually desirable.

2. Those in a society most knowledgeable about human sexuality and most skilled at a wide variety of sexual practices.

See also attractive, sexual intelligence, sexually experienced.

sexual encounter:

A meeting where two or more people engage in sexual activity together.

See also partner.

sexual ethics:

1. The study and critique of types of sexual behavior and relationships and of sexual mores and morality, all relative to ideas of goodness and badness or better and worse.

2. One's personal code of sexual behavior.

See also "All's fair ...," "an it harm none, do what ye will," bodily integrity, compartmentalization, consent to sex, consexuality, contextualism, degrading sex, devalue sex, erotic deontology, ethical hedonism, ethical non-monogamy, ethical relativism, ethical slut, ethical subjectivism, ethics (which see for comment), function of sex, geosexual ethics, Hauerwas's Law, hedonism, let-'em-aloner, "love the sinner, hate the sin," moral absolutism, moral code, moral equivalence, moral law, moral precept, new morality, next-tier sexual ethics, Noachian laws, ontically disordered, personalism, pragmatism, public character of sex, RACK, relationalism, relationship choice, relationship freedom, romantic theology, separation of sex and power, sexosophy, sexual autonomy, sexual degradation, sexual immorality, sexual justice, sexual liberation, sexual mores, sexual morality, sexual toleration, situation ethics, SSC, theology of marriage, theology of sex, third way in sexual ethics, Three Ways, traditional morality, YKINOK, YKINOKism, YKIOK,IJNMK.

sexual etiquette:

1. Politeness that takes into account differences between the sexes or differences in the treatment of the sexes within a given culture or subculture.

2. The set of protocols that govern social interactions between the sexes in a given culture or subculture.

3. Politeness with regard to the sexuality of others.

4. The set of protocols and courtesies that might generally be expected with regard to the sexuality of others.

5. Politeness both with regard to any attempts at lovemaking and in successful lovemaking, including both the lead-up to it and its aftermath.

6. The set of protocols and courtesies that might generally be expected both with regard to attempts at lovemaking and in successful lovemaking, including both the lead-up to it and its aftermath.

See also absolute code, break-up rules, code, code of silence, homorality, law of love, love-making, rules of adultery, rules of love, scent-free dating, sexosophy, sexual mores, swingers' moral code, three-date rule, three-day rule, unwelcome admixture with sexuality.

x etiquette.

sexual exclusivity:

1. A norm or a policy, whether one's own or agreed upon within a relationship, that prohibits one from engaging in sexual activity with anyone other than either a given sex partner or a pre-defined set of sex partners.

2. A norm or a policy whereby members of a sexual relationship are prohibited from engaging in sexual activity with others outside of that relationship.

3. Engagement in sexual activity with no one other than either a given sex partner or a pre-defined set of sex partners.

4. Confinement of sexual activity to the members of a particular relationship.

Contrast nonexclusive monogamy (q.v.), sexual nonexclusivity (q.v.), and sexual non-monogamy (q.v.). See also caging, closed group marriage, closed marriage, closed relationship, conjugal rights, emotional fidelity, exclusivity, faithfulness, fidelity, genetic monogamy, infidelity, married, married all over, monogamy, off-the-rack marriage, open couple, open marriage, open relationship, pairing family, sexually exclusive, sexual monogamy, toujours perdrix, traditional monogamy, unfaithfulness.

sexual field:

Any social arena that can be analyzed sociologically in terms of how people exercise their erotic capital in vying for desirable sex partners and for social advantage.

Comment: For the sociological idea of fields more generally, from which the concept of the sexual field was later derived, see: The Logic of Practice, [by] Pierre Bourdieu; translated by Richard Nice (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990). Translation of: Le Sens pratique (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, c1980; in series: Le Sens commun).

See also erotic capital, sex partner.

sexual freedom:

1. Autonomous control over one's own erotic expression and over one's own participation in erotic activity, to the degree that the liberty of others is respected.

2. The degree of absence or disregard of restrictions and inculcated inhibitions upon erotic behavior that is without either coercion or similar unwelcome admixtures -- regarding erotic behavior: especially with whom one might have mutually consensual sex and what erotic activities might be engaged in.

3. The set of societal conditions that allow for erotic publications, a full range of erotic behaviors in fully consensual settings, a wide latitude with regard to display of the human body and displays of affection in public, and toleration of human sexuality as a topic in public discourse.

See also "an it harm none, do what ye will," antinomianism, bodily integrity, eleutherophilism, free female sexuality, free love, free male sexuality, get government out of the bedroom, heart balm statute, libertarianism, libertinism, liberty, new morality, pankoitism, relationship choice, relationship freedom, right to sex, separation of marriage and state, separation of sex and power, separation of sex and state, sexual autonomy, sexual liberation, sexual permissiveness, sexual revolution, sexual toleration, unbridle sex, universal permanent availability.

x freedom.

Quotation from Ruth Dickson Illustrating "Sexual Freedom"
They had no sexual inhibitions, God knows. But they were insisting that their children be kept from all the knowledge they had accumulated after years of struggling against the chains their parents had forged on their libidos... Instead of showing them the joy they themselves had found in sexual freedom, they were shackling them with the ignorance they had inherited from their own grandparents.
From: Married Men Make the Best Lovers, by Ruth Dickson (Los Angeles, Calif: Sherbourne Press, c1967): p. 103.

sexual geometry:

1. The imaginary lines drawn between people who are connected directly or indirectly by sexual relationships, especially as those relationships are subsets of a larger relationship defined by mutual awareness each of each other.

2. The actual configuration of any sexual relationship represented by such lines.

See also alternate relationship geometries, double love triangle, group marriage, letter group, lovestyle, polyfidelity, polygon, relationship orientation, sexual connection, sexual network, Z.

sexual golden age:

1. The myth of a time when relations between the sexes were ideal and when social conditions were at an optimum for the physical satisfaction of love and even just libidinous desire.

2. The dream of a time when relations between the sexes will be ideal and when social conditions will be at an optimum for the physical satisfaction of love and even just libidinous desire.

3. The period between the widespread use of the Pill and the onset of the AIDS epidemic; in other words, the 1960s and '70s in the West, when (also because of the availability of effective antibiotics) a person could engage in "unprotected" sexual activity with other people without the fear of serious consequences.

4. A countervailing image to any of the above, such as one that envisions a time when a certain code of sexual morality was or will be maximally fulfilled.

See also free affection; free-sex colony; letter group (omega); love generation; more evolved; new morality; panfidelity; pankoitism; paradisal marriage; post-pill, pre-AIDS era; prelapsarian sexuality; sexual liberation; sexual revolution; sexual utopia; Summer of Love; utopian swinging.

x golden age of sex.

Quotation from Eugene R. Cunnar Illustrating "Sexual Golden Age"
The myth of a sexual Golden Age originates in the early legends of the Golden Age in Homer, Hesiod, and the Greek pastoral tradition. In addition to invoking a place -- Elysium or another Edenic garden -- where life is peaceful, harmonious, and ideal, these early writers associated the Golden Age as a place and time when there was no conflict in love or when lovers who have been separated will be reunited. For example, Homer suggests that Helen and Menelaus will be reunited in Elysium.
From: "Fantasizing a Sexual Golden Age in Seventeenth-Century Poetry," [by] Eugene R. Cunnar, in: Renaissance Discourses of Desire, edited by Claude J. Summer and Ted-Larry Pebworth (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, c1993): pp. 179-205, specifically 183. For Homer, see Odyssey 4:561-569.

sexual healing:

Copulation with a lover -- this as opposed to abstinence or masturbation -- as a healthy answer to such afflictions as an unsatisfied sex drive, a loss of emotional stability, feeling blue, loneliness, and a burning passion, or as part of the answer to loss and grief; the process of emotional recovery, release of tension, or sexual fufillment insofar as aided by sexual intercourse.

Comment: The term became especially popular through the soul song, "Sexual Healing," written by David Ritz, Odell Brown, and Marvin Gaye and sung by Marvin Gaye (record released, 1982).

See also grief, loneliness, love trauma syndrome.

x healing.

sexual hospitality:

See sex hospitality.

sexual immorality:

1. A violation of standards of propriety regarding any of the following:

• marriage, especially regarding:
  • the criteria that are to be met for a marriage to exist;
  • whom one is eligible to marry;
  • how many spouses one may have at a time and under what conditions;
  • intimate contact between the partners;
  • intimate contact of a married person with someone other than a spouse;
  • divorce; and,
  • remarriage;
• with whom -- by category of potential sex partners -- and under what conditions one may have erotic contact;
• erogenous sensuality, that is, particular erotic behaviors whether alone or with one or more others;
• processes that lead to or prevent pregnancy;
• admixtures with erotic behavior with others -- admixtures such as coercion or endangerment;
• the aggrieving of others' sexuality or of their dignity in relation to their sexuality;
• the handling of the emotions of others that are or would be a response to one's erotic activity and relationships;
• the cultivation of the inner life with respect to eroticism;
• the cultivation of the inner life with respect to attraction and emotional attachments;
• laxness with regard to the erotic behavior of others that affects one's sphere of responsibility;
• enticement or encouragement, whether active or passive, for others to violate standards of propriety regarding any of the above;
• the following of a defective code for marriage and eroticism.

2. The class of such violations.

Comments: One obvious question is, immoral by what standards? Among the positions:

• Some people believe in universal standards for human beings, standards as revealed by God or determined by reason.
• Some would supplement universal standards by cultural standards,that is, positive law and mores.
• Some would use cultural standards alone, but would regard them as having no absolute claim upon the individual, apart from whatever enforcement power might be brought to bear by other human beings;
• Some would take an intermediate position (between the first and third positions), arguing that cultural standards are the "rules of the game" (so to speak), that the smooth functioning of a society is a transcendent value, and that violation of the rules disrupts the society.
• Some embrace a simple principle such as "choose a loving way" or "any sexual activity is okay so long as no harm is done" or "so long as it's between consenting adults."

The standards used can make a considerable difference, for example, in determining whether or not a marriage has been constituted. Of course, that determination makes a considerable difference with regard, for instance, to issues of adultery and divorce.

Various standards differ considerably as to types of content. Furthermore, the lines are not as sharply drawn as the list in the above definition might suggest. To give some examples:

• Some people would regard abuse of a sex partner, even when no sexual activity is involved at the time of the abuse, as a form of sexual immorality.
• Some would consider all matters having to do with human reproduction -- such as abortion, cloning, and embryonic research -- to fit in the above list; although they are more often classed as matters of reproductive and medical ethics;
• Some would consider legislation regarding marriage and sexuality to fit in tha above list; although the relation of such legislation to morality is usually treated under the philosophy of law.

See also abomination, adultery, apodictic law, arsenokoitês, "as with womankind," bestiality, bigamy, casuistic law, compartmentalization, consequences of sex outside of marriage, criminal conversation, deceased wife's sister question, degrading sex, divorce, devalue sex, double standard, easy virtue, extramarital sex, father's wife, first-cousin marriage, forbidden love, fornication, function of marriage, Holiness Code, illegitimate spouse, illicit love, illicit relationship, immorality, inappropriate relationship, incest, indiscretion, infidelity, irregular connection, klepsigamy, Lasterkatalog, Law and gospel, libertinism, licentiousness, love's lust, lust, malakos, menstruant as forbidden, mock marriage, mulierosity, nonmarital sex, pansexualism, peccadillo, perversion, polygamy, porneia, premarital sex, promiscuity, rival, run astray, Seventh Commandment, sex scandal, sexual degradation, sexual ethics, sexual morality, sexual mores, sexual permissiveness, sexual sin, Sixth Commandment of the Church, stigmatic guilt, stupration, Tenth Commandment, trigamy, unbridle sex, unfaithfulness, unnatural, unwelcome admixtures with sexuality, venereal transgression, zipper morals.

sexual imprinting:

The formation and shaping of those elements of the psyche that affect both what one looks for in a mate and one's ultimate selection of a mate or of mates.

Comments: In the view of some, such shaping takes place entirely during childhood, so that childhood formation becomes for them part of the definition. However, in the experience of many, this shaping occurs throughout life, sometimes continuously -- a point which raises both issues and hopes, for instance: On the one hand, ongoing shaping would seem to introduce gradual conflict into attempts at lifelong monogamy. On the other hand, it may help enable spouses to accept each other as they change over time; and it may even allow for imprinting and mate to come increasing into line with each other, even if the mate changes but little.

In the view of some, sexual imprinting results in a single image of an ideal mate. However, sometimes such images are internally contradictory, sometimes the images are multiple, and sometimes they are diffuse. So a definition of sexual imprinting should not be understood to imply automatically a single ideal.

An element of sexual imprinting not incorporated in the above definition is its force, its impetus towards satisfaction, an impetus which might generally exist where the imprinting exists, albeit it in varying degrees at different times of life and within different people.

See also human beauty, ideal, lovemap, mate selection, native lovemap, negative sexual imprinting, sexuality, template (for a lover), type.

sexual intelligence:

1. A collection of reports on sexuality in current events; news about sex.

2. Breadth and depth of awareness about sexuality, including its history and biology; customs, mores, and ethical issues related to it; the variety of sexual attitudes, orientations, and practices; and sensitivity to the erotic desires of others.

See also love quotient, marital aptitude, relational intelligence, sexual elite, sexually experienced.

sexuality:

1. All of that which both is internal and goes into and flows out of the urge to mate (q.v.), usually entailing at least psyche, mind, emotions, and reproductive organs. (Note well the use of the phrase, "urge to mate," instead of, "drive to procreate." Sexuality can be blind to the drive to procreate, since that drive takes place at the level of gametes. However, a desire to procreate can be conscious and linked to sexuality.)

2. One's particular configuration of desires, practices, and frustrations entailed in the urge to mate. Sexuality is often broken down into these subsets: heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality. However, it is actually far more complicated than this simple breakdown suggests (see box).

Sexual Configuration

Regarding sexual configuration and the sex variables involved, consider that: Physically there are males, females, and hermaphrodites (also called intersexed persons), some of the last artificially induced through hormonal treatment; and there are also those who have been surgically changed, such as eunuchs and individuals who have undergone a sex change operation. Sexual drive can range from nil to intense, and it can vary from situation to situation. Self-identity can be masculine, feminine, sexless, androgynous (simply a sexual individual), hermaphroditic (partially masculine and partially feminine), or new; and it can be closely, loosely, or not at all tied to one's reproductive biology. Desired ways of making sexual contact can be or might not be influenced by one's reproductive biology and generally entail either social or individual invention or both. Preference with regard to sex of partner can be consistent, temporary, or occasional. Preference with regard to particular kinds of sexual acts can be consistent, temporary, or occasional. Choice of sexual partner or of sexual acts can be either according to or against one's orientation. Attitudes towards various manifestations of sexuality can range from disgust to joy; mental climate can range from hurt, fear, and rebellion to wholesomeness; and interior twists can be unleashed destructively, repressed, untwisted, or creatively and harmlessly employed. Roles desired can be active, passive, reciprocal, or alternating; they can be dominant, subordinate, or equal; and they can change with different partners or at different times. A person can be monogamous, polygamous, promiscuous, abstinent, celibate, or a combination thereof, according to preference or not, perhaps during different periods of life or perhaps with regard to certain kinds of practices, passions, or orientations. A person may have a desire for a particular number of partners either all of one sex or another or in a particular combination of sexes; and a person may have a desire for the partner or partners to have a particular number of other partners of either one or more than one sex, or even for a partner to be connected to or disconnected from a network of love-making. As for orientation: It can be: to or against a particular sex; to or against the opposite sex from one's own (thinking dimorphically); to or against any sex (or at least more than one of the physical possibilities) that is different from one's own; to or against one's own sex; or, without consideration as to sex -- in any of these cases, even if one were to change sex. It can be to one or more sexual identities on the part of one's partner(s), or without any regard as to such. It can also be to one or more ways that a prospective partner may seek sexual contact. It can be to others with either a connecting or non-connecting type of orientation. It can be to one or more particular individuals, to certain types of individuals, or to a combination thereof, either evenly or unevenly distributed across the sexes. Desirable partners can be alike or unlike in any number of ways. Orientation can be weak or strong. Orientation can be less integral to the personality or more integral. Underlying sexual choices may be genes, hormones, social conditioning, situational limitations, libido, awakening to sensuality, personality attraction, neurosis, psycho pathology, or (as I suppose is almost always the case) some combination thereof. Even this sketch is oversimplified; because, for a start: Human sexuality has many more dimensions, vastly complicated examples that may interact with some of the above categories being autoeroticism, pornography, and special attractions or detractions, such as beauty, age, particular physical attributes, power, fame, and wealth; Location and timing can loom large as elements of sexual preference, for example, outside or inside, when most awake and alert or when sleepy; Interpersonal dimensions are far more inclusive than a simple focus on sexuality might suggest; Romantic and domestic love have transcendent and transformational aspects; Cultural context is in continual interplay with sexuality and relationships, and it shapes much of their definition; Keeping in mind that the larger part of sexual practice is mental, many sexual customs and practices are learned behaviors or acquired tastes and are in a continual process of development, in both individuals and culture at large; and Permutations of types of relationships are endless. A careful classification of sexuality must take all of the above into account.

See also asexuality, bisexuality, desex, desexed, erotocism, free female sexuality, free male sexuality, generation, heterocentrism, heterosexism, heterosexuality, homosexuality, hypersexuality, hyposexuality, inner slut, kinky, label, lesbianism, libido, love, love life, lovemap, "love the sinner, hate the sin," marriage, monosexism, monosexuality, new sexuality, online relationship, ontically disordered, open-minded, oversexed, pansexuality, pomosexuality, practice love, practice of love, put it about, queer, romantic resumé, sex, sex drive, sexed, sex life, sexual, sexual correspondence, sexual desire, sexual imprinting, sexual orientation, sexualove, silent epidemic, stigmatic guilt, template (for a lover), undersexed, wear a label, wired.

x sexual configuration.

sexual justice:

Right relations in sexual relationships and sexual encounters reckoned in terms of the proper involvment and proper non-involvement of power, power not just on the part of the participants but on the part of society as a whole and each of its segments.

See also "an it harm none, do what ye will," consent to sex, consexuality, erotic deontology, libertarianism, liberty, new morality, public character of sex, radical love, relationship choice, relationship freedom, right to sex, sexosophy, sex-positive stance, sexual autonomy, sexual ethics, sexual liberation, sexual morality, third way in sexual ethics, Three Ways, unwelcome admixtures with sexuality.

x erotic justice.

Quotation from Marvin M. Ellison Illustrating "Sexual Justice"
[2] Sexuality, as I define it here, includes genital sex but refers more broadly to our embodied capacity for intimate connection. Erotic desire seeks physical, emotional, and spiritual embrace of others, the world, and God, the sacred Source of life. By justice I refer to the ongoing, never-ending journey to remake community by strengthening relationship. Justice-making attends to how people's well-being is enhanced or diminished by prevailing patterns of social power and powerlessness. A commitment to justice means correcting whatever harms people, other earth creatures, and the earth itself. A justice-centered sexual ethic is grounded in a theological vision of an inclusive, participatory social order ... Sexual justice honors sexual well-being as a significant dimension of the good of persons. A just society fosters the moral right of all persons, without distinction, to love and be loved and to freely express their desire for intimate, respectful connection.... [3] Soul-satisfying pleasure is found in pursuing justice as right-relatedness in all our connections, from the most intimate to the most public.
From: Erotic Justice: A Liberating Ethic of Sexuality, [by] Marvin M. Ellison (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, c1996): pp. 2-3.

sexual liberation:

1. A mental attitude whereby one is set free, or feels free, from guilt for erotic activities, whatever they are (leaving aside unwelcome admixtures) and with whomever they are (nonconsenting persons excepted; close relatives or a crossing of the adult/minor line possibly excepted).

2. Free or set free from control of one's sex life -- control by any powers that be, whether custom, law, social pressure, or something else.

3. A process of loosening social mores pertaining to erotic and reproductive activity and to relational bonds between people of complementary sexuality.

4. Being given over to licentiousness and promiscuity; enslavement to sexual urges. This is an ironic sense of the term.

5. The quest or the achievement of the quest for a maximization, by both inner cultivation and social means, of happiness with respect to peoples' love lives, happiness that is free of irrational traditions, procrustean approaches (i.e. pressure to conform), and enslavement to passion.

6. Self-fulfillment, respect for personal dignitiy, and, overall, social betterment, by regulating one's own sexuality, in relation to other people, towards those ends.

See also "an it harm none, do what ye will," antinomianism, compartmentalization, ethical hedonism, free female sexuality, free love, free male sexuality, libertininism, more evolved, new morality, new sexuality, open-minded, pansexualism, promiscuity, radical love, separation of sex and power, sex-positive stance, sexual autonomy, sexual ethics, sexual golden age, sexual justice, sexually liberated, sexual mores, sexual permissiveness, sexual revolution, sexual utopia, unbridle sex, unwelcome admixtures with sexuality.

sexual love:

1. Love between members of different sexes.

2. Romantic love (q.v.).

3. Eroticism with somebody.

See also amour, carnal love, courtly love, erotic love, love, romantic theology, sexology, sexual desire, sexualove, theology of romantic love.

sexually connected:

See sexual connection.

sexually deprived:

See sex-deprived.

sexually exclusive:

1. Characterized by a norm or a policy, whether one's own or agreed upon within a relationship, that prohibits one from engaging in sexual activity with anyone other than either a given sex partner or a pre-defined set of sex partners.

2. Characterized by a norm or a policy whereby members of a sexual relationship are prohibited from engaging in sexual activity with others outside of that relationship.

3. Characterized by engagement in sexual activity with no one other than either a given sex partner or a pre-defined set of sex partners.

4. Characterized by confinement of sexual activity to the members of a particular relationship.

Contrast sexally nonexclusive (q.v.). See also exclusivity, married, sexual exclusivity, sexually monogamous.

x exclusive sexually.

sexually experienced:

1. Not a virgin, or non-virginal.

2. Characterized by first-hand knowledge of how to please a sex partner or, sometimes more specifically, one's sex partner.

3. Characterized by having a long history of engaging in sexual relations.

4. Characterized by having widely explored, first-hand, variety in physical love-making.

5. Characterized by having had a variety of sex partners or, with regard to a group, by each member having had a variety of sex partners.

6. As, perhaps, a euphemism, characterized by having sex work as part of one's personal history.

Contrast virginal (q.v.). See also promiscuous, sexual elite, sexual intelligence, sexual varietism.

x experienced.

sexually liberated:

Characterized by having experienced sexual liberation (q.v.).

sexually marginalized:

Pertaining to those people or groups whose libidinous needs are generally neglected, given social mores and dynamics, or whose sexual behaviors due to orientation are generally deemed improper or abnormal within society at large.

Comment: The term is often used substantively, as in "the sexually marginalized"; and it is often used with particular reference to some or all of these groups: homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender persons, sex workers, and the mentally disabled.

See also bisexual, bohemianism, queer, sexual underground.

x marginalized sexually.

sexually monogamous:

1. Pertaining to or characterized by a dyadic relationship in which the partners copulate with each other and no others.

2. Actually having had sexual relations with one's current relationship partner and no others, at least during the duration of that relationship up to a certain point.

3. Given to having sexual relations with one's current relationship partner and no others, at least for a period.

Contrast sexually non-monogamous (q.v.). See also sexual monogamy.

sexually negative:

1. Characterized by the view that human sexuality or at least one's own is degrading except, perhaps, as redeemed for the purpose of procreation in the context of marriage.

2. Characterized by belief in restricting sexual expression or, at least moderate sexual expression.

Comment: This is not to be confused with "sexually negativistic," which means, "characterized by a general lack of sexual interest."

See also prudery, romance-intolerant, sex-negative stance.

x sexually negativistic.

sexually negativistic:

See under "sexually negative."

sexually nonexclusive:

1. Characterized by a norm or a policy, whether one's own or agreed upon within a relationship, that allows one to engage in sexual activity with one or more people besides either a given sex partner or a pre-defined set of sex partners; personal sexual openness.

2. Characterized by a norm or a policy whereby members of a sexual relationship are allowed to engage in sexual activity with others outside of that relationship; openness in sexual relationships.

3. Characterized by engagement in sexual activity with one or more people besides either a given sex partner or a pre-defined set of sex partners.

4. Characterized by sexual activity with one or more people outside a relationship by one or more members of that relationship.

Contrast sexually exclusive (q.v.). See also loose, promiscuous, sexually non-monogamous, sexual nonexclusivity, syndyasmian.

x nonexclusive sexually.

sexually non-monogamous:

Pertaining to or characterized by having multiple sex partnerships, insofar as the durations of these partnerships overlap.

Contrast sexually monogamous (q.v.). See also easy, loose, polyamorous, sexually nonexclusive, sexual non-monogamy, slutty, wild.

sexually permissive:

Characterized by sexual permissiveness.

See also open-minded, sexual permissiveness.

sexually positive:

1. Characterized by the view that human sexuality, including one's own, is delightful in itself, even apart from procreation.

2. Characterized by the belief that healthy sexual expression should be encouraged in a wide range of contexts.

See also erotophilous, erotopositive, sex-joy, sex-positive stance.

sexually starved:

See sex-starved.

sexual maturity:

1. A stage in life when an organism, if healthy, is fully functional for purposes of reproduction, in humans puberty being the transition to that stage.

2. Sufficient development psychologically so as not either (a) to be threatened with arrested development with regard to the expression of one's libido, should anything untoward happen to affect it, or (b) to suffer from arrested development of that sort.

3. A stage of socialization and moral development characterized by:

• self-control sufficient for one to be able to observe sexual mores and to avoid violating the bodily integrity of other persons;
• fellow-feeling, that is, sensitivity to and respect for the situations, emotions, and volition of other people with regard to their sexualities;
  
• adoption and internalization of a religious or rational code of character in sexual matters, one that is relationally centered rather than self-centered;
  
• knowledge of how sex works, how to please a sex partner, and how to prevent unwanted consequences, such as sexually transmitted diseases;
• a readiness to know what one wants sexually and relationally and to ask for it or otherwise cultivate it;
• a readiness to acknowledge and the ability to appreciate and to meet responsibly the consequences of one's sexual behaviors;
  
• a readiness and willingness to make good decisions with regard to one's sexual behaviors and relationships; and,
• sufficient strength of character to resist pressure from any source to behave sexually or relationally against one's better judgment.
  

4. A point reached in life or any time past it when one is of sufficient age to be able to evaluate meaningfully and either to appreciate or to reject, as appropriate, sexual information and eroticism.

5. Any point in life as an adult when one is well experienced and proficient in love-making.

Comments: The above definitions represent end points, so to speak; but sexual maturity is also often spoken of in terms of degrees or levels along the way towards those end points.

Much debate about sexual maturity centers on adolescence, which has often been regarded sociologically as a modern invention -- typically a period between the onset of puberty and when in modern Western culture one is considered ready for the responsibilities of marriage and a family, a readiness which takes years to achieve due to the demands and complexities of modern society. The wait places great sexual strain upon young people, especially males, who are often at their sexual peak during those years. Therefore, not only are sexual mores that have been passed down from earlier cultures readily violated, but those mores themselves crumble under pressure in favor of the invention of new mores that seem more applicable to the current scene, for example, mores that regard adolescence as a practice period for sexual behavior and relationships. So, at least, goes some of the theorizing. This view is complicated by scientific findings that show that brain development in human beings is not complete until the twenties and that the optimal period for women to give birth is in their twenties. In other words, it's possible to develop a theory of adolescence from developmental biology alone. The debate gives rise to newly suggested definitions of "sexual maturity," such as, "post-adolescent sexuality."

Another debate has to do with the cultural relativity of ideas of sexual maturity, a debate one side of which calls into question whether there is any substance to sexual maturity at all, other than cultural attitudes.

See also sexual mores.

x maturity.

sexual monogamy:

1. A dyadic relationship in which the partners copulate with each other and no others.

2. The practice of participating as a partner in such a relationship.

Comments: The term "sexual monogamy" is generally contrasted with "social monogamy," the point being that sexual monogamy precludes in practice extra-pair copulation (q.v.), whereas social monogamy does not.

Sexual monogamy may be conceived of as a component of a more extensive monogamy entailing also emotional fidelity. Other times the term may be used to imply that only sexual monogamy and not emotional fidelity is meant.

Contrast sexual nonexclusivity (q.v.) and sexual non-monogamy (q.v.). See also dyad, emotional fidelity, genetic monogamy, monogamy, nonexclusive monogamy, sexual exclusivity, sexually monogamous, social monogamy.

sexual morality:

The set of ideas or rules about what are to be considered right and wrong sexual behaviors and sexual relationships, including marital relationships; plus the set of ideas about good and bad interactions between partners; plus the set of ideas about what related virtues are to be cultivated -- all as determined, however imperfectly, by supposed universal principles as applied to a particular culture or group.

Comment: Sexual morality may be embedded in sexual mores (q.v.), but it can also be a standard against which to measure mores. Sexual morality is critiqued in the context of sexual ethics (q.v.).

Historical remarks: In the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, almost all sexual morality has to do with (a) types of relationships relative to both the patriarchal culture of the Hebrews and cultic purity, and (b) the state of one's heart relative to the system of forbidden relationships. (See especially Exodus 20:14, 17 = Deuteronomy 5:18, 21; Leviticus 18-21; Matthew 5:27-32 and parallel passages; 15:17-20; Acts 15:20, 29; 1 Corinthians 5-7.)

In the postbiblical period, especially in the Christian tradition, the prohibitions of the Bible were reinforced with and some of their rationale was replaced by a body-negative theology, in which the concern was not with the impulse to rebellion against a cultic system but with the body's will to self-gratification, especially when the appetites were stirred, and with the instability of the social system unless those appetites were under strong authoritarian control.

In more recent times in Europe and North America, at least, a shift has been made by many in the Jewish and Christian traditions to:

• a body-positive and sexuality-affirming ideology;
• a de-emphasis upon types of relationships and a corresponding emphasis upon personal growth, relationship dynamics, and the cultivation of love within relationships;
• the use of science to inform value judgments about sexuality;
• keeping out unwelcome admixtures with sexuality, like violence; and,
• taking individual responsibility for conception and contraception and for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

Meanwhile a separate tradition of sexual morality has made enormous inroads, its credo being that any sexual behavior or relationship is okay so long as no one is directly harmed. That credo is advocated within, for instance, many neopagan circles.

See also adultery, "All's fair ...," "an it harm none, do what ye will," apodictic law, aterpism, biblical sexual morality, bodily integrity, boundary, casuistic law, chastity, compartmentalization, consent to sex, consequences of sex outside of marriage, consexuality, contextualism, devalue sex, double standard, erotic deontology, erotogenesis of religion, ethical hedonism, ethical non-monogamy, ethical relativism, ethical slut, ethical subjectivism, fornication, function of marriage, Hauerwas's Law, heteronormative, homosexuality, hot and cool sex, incest, judgmentalism, Law and gospel, "love the sinner, hate the sin," lust, klepsigamy, moral absolutism, moral code, moral equivalence, morality, morality fallacy, moral law, moral precept, new morality, new paradigm relating, next-tier sexual ethics, Noachian laws, nonjudgmental, no sex outside of marriage, objectification, old paradigm relating, online relationship, ontically disordered, pankoitism, pansexualism, passion, periodization, personalism, pragmatism, prudery, public character of sex, relationalism, separation of sex and power, sex-negative stance, sexosophy, sex-positive stance, sex rule, sexual autonomy, sexual immorality, sexual justice, sexual nomad, sexual purity, situation ethics, stigmatic guilt, swingers' moral code, theology of marriage, theology of sex, third way in sexual ethics, Three Ways, traditional morality, unwelcome admixture with sexuality, utopian swinging, virtual community, virtue, zina, zipper morals.

sexual mores:

The prevailing attitudes within a society or some subset of a society about what sexual behaviors and relationships are acceptable or proper.

Comments: Sexual mores may incorporate sexual morality (q.v.) but are not necessarily coterminus with sexual morality.

There may be conflicting sets of mores within a single society, particularly if that society embraces multiple traditions or if there have been one or more revolts against prevailing mores.

See also active-passive split, alternative lifestyle, alternative sexual relationship, bodily integrity, bohemianism, boundary, break-up rules, Californication, code, code of silence, compartmentalization, consent to sex, degrading sex, double standard, ethical relativism, geosexual, heteronormative, holiday from marriage, illicit love, illicit relationship, inappropriate relationship, indecent proposal, irregular connection, law of love, lust, moral code, mores, new sexuality, next-tier sexual ethics, open-minded, pankoitism, peccadillo, perversion, pornification, prudery, rules of adultery, rules of love, run astray, sexosophy, sex rule, sexual autonomy, sexual avant-garde, sexual etiquette, sexual ethics, sexual immorality, sexual liberation, sexual maturity, sexual nomad, sexual permissiveness, sexual revolution, sexual taboo, sexways, sow (one's) wild oats, statism, stigmatic guilt, three-date rule, three-day rule, traditional morality, utopian swinging, traditional ways.

sexual negativism:

See under "sex-negative stance."

sexual network:

The people who are abstractly linked together, whether directly or indirectly, through sexual activity, past and present, as in a sociological diagram of relationships that have occurred.

Example: If John has had sex with Jill and Jill with Charlie and Charlie with Susan, they are all part of the same sexual network.

See also alternate relationship geometries, boyfriend in common, bukis, chains of affection, cycling, dating chain, diagramming a love relationship, distal partner, genogram, girlfriend in common, intimate network, Langdon chart, poly web, romantic network, sexual connection, sexual geometry, take seconds.

x network.

sexual nomad:

• A person who wanders from sexual relationship to sexual relationship.
• A person who is fluid sexually, such as, in some cases, a pansexual.
• A person who rejects sexual mores and sexual morality.
• A person who has become transcultural with regard to sexual mores.

See also bisexual, libertine, non-monogamist, omnisexual, pankoitist, pansexual, promiscuous, sexual morality, sexual mores, try-sexual.

sexual nonexclusivity:

1. A norm or a policy, whether one's own or agreed upon within a relationship, that allows one to engage in sexual activity with one or more people besides either a given sex partner or a pre-defined set of sex partners; personal sexual openness.

2. A norm or a policy whereby members of a sexual relationship are allowed to engage in sexual activity with others outside of that relationship; openness in sexual relationships.

3. The practice of engaging in sexual activity with one or more people besides either a given sex partner or a pre-defined set of sex partners.

4. Sexual activity with one or more people outside a relationship by one or more members of that relationship.

Contrast sexual exclusivity (q.v.) and sexual monogamy (q.v.). See also adultery-toleration pact, arrangement, comarital, consensual adultery, extra-pair copulation, flexible monogamy, hundred-mile rule, keep safe what [one is] to [somebody], the lifestyle, milk two cows, more evolved, multilateral sexuality, new adultery, nonexclusive monogamy, non-monogamy, open couple, open group marriage, open marriage, open relationship, pankoity, polyamory, polyfuckery, polykoity, promiscuity, put it about, secret of a successful marriage, serve two studs, sexual varietism, sexually nonexclusive, sexual non-monogamy, sexual permissiveness, sleep around, swing, syndyasmian family.

sexual non-monogamy:

Having multiple sex partnerships, insofar as the durations of these partnerships overlap.

Coined by me on analogy with "sexual monogamy." But perhaps it already exists.

Contrast sexual exclusivity (q.v.) and sexual monogamy (q.v.). See also genetic monogamy, non-monogamy, pankoity, polyerocist, polyeros, polyfuckery, polykoity, sex partner, sexual circle, sexual nonexclusivity, sexually non-monogamous, swing.

sexual orientation:

An individual's pattern of sexual attraction as discerned on the basis of the sex of that individual relative to the sex or sexes of those to whom he or she is attracted. If that individual is attracted chiefly to members of a different sex, the orientation is heterosexual; if chiefly to members of the same sex, homosexual; and if to members of each sex roughly in balance, bisexual.

Comments: For many uses, this threefold classification is inadequate, since:

• Factors that influence sexual orientation may cluster in ways that are quite different from a threefold classification.
• This classification tends to assume sexual dimorphism (the view that all human beings are either male or female), which, at least in some views, is inadequate as a universal account of the human sexes. What if, for instance, one is attracted primarily to intersexed persons?
• This classification tends to reduce orientation to biological factors when attraction and partnering are far more complex processes.
• For some, the sex of a potential partner isn't a factor that affects attraction or that is considered important, and thus a supposed pattern may be entirely accidental.
• Some people may be attracted to a particular sex regardless of their own sex. Thus a man who is attracted to women may imagine himself as a woman still being attracted to women or may undergo a sex change and continue to be attracted to women.
• Some barely, if at all, register sexual attraction to anybody whatsoever.
• This classification represents a continuum with no clear lines of demarcation, and thus it is subject to politics, subjectivism, and widely varied definitions, especially of the term "bisexuality."

The definition of sexual orientation is itself subject to debate, since some maintain that sexual orientation encompasses non-sexual variables, such as one's choices as to whom to socialize with, and since some define it in terms of falling in love or choice of sex partners.

The formation of sexual orientation is still far from being fully understood. The interaction of a person's genes with that person's environment and experiences may be one of the factors that play a role. Hormonal development in interaction with the environment may be another factor. Psychological development may be yet another.

Since many traditions have regarded sexual activity between people of the same sex to be immoral, a debate rages as to whether non-heterosexuals can change their sexual orientation to heterosexuality. It would appear that some can and some cannot.

Various scales have been devised to rate sexual orientation, the most famous being the Kinsey Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale (KHHS) and, its extension, the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (KSOG).

The Kinsey Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale
Based on both psychologic reactions and overt experience, individuals rate as follows: 0. Exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual 1. Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual 2. Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual 3. Equally heterosexual and homosexual 4. Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual 5. Predominantly homosexual, but incidentally heterosexual 6. Exclusively homosexual
From: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, [by] Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1948): p. 638.

Klein Sexual Orientation Guide
Variable	Past	Present	Ideal
A. Sexual Attraction	-	-	-
B. Sexual Behavior	-	-	-
C. Sexual Fantasies	-	-	-
D. Emotional Preference	-	-	-
E. Social Preference	-	-	-
F. Self Identification	-	-	-
G. Straight/Gay Lifestyle	-	-	-
For A-E 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Other sex only Other sex mostly Other sex somewhat more Both sexes equally Same sex somewhat more Same sex mostly Same sex only
For F-G 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Hetero only Hetero mostly Hetero somewhat more Hetero/gay equally Gay somewhat more Gay mostly Gay only
From: "Sexual Orientation: A Multivariable Dynamic Process," [by] Fritz Klein, Barry Sepekoff, Timothy J. Wolf, in: Bisexuality: A Reader and Sourcebook, edited by Thomas Geller (Ojai, Calif.: Times Change Press, c1990): pp. 64-81, specifically figures 1-3 on pp. 69, 71, 72. (I've provided headings for the last two figures.) Reprinted from The Journal of Homosexuality; v. 11, 1/2 (1985). To correlate the Klein grid to the Kinsey scale, divide the sum of the answers by the number of answers given -- 21 if the answers are replete -- and subtract 1 to adjust for the difference in the number scales.

See also androphilia, asexuality, bearding, bisexuality, convert, ecosexuality, gynophilia, heterosexuality, homosexuality, label, lovemap, mixed-orientation marriage, sexual desire, sexuality, shysexuality, template for a lover, vegansexuality, wear a label, wired.

x Kinsey Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale.

x Klein Sexual Orientation Grid.

sexualove:

A synergistic fusion (or non-separation) of love (q.v.) and sexuality (q.v.) for intimate relationship.

See also amorist, carnal love, eromance, erotosexual, love-passion, lover, love's lust, romance, romantic love, sexual desire, sexual love.

sexual partner:

See sex partner.

sexual partnering:

Satisfying or helping to satisfy each other's libidinous needs and desires on an ongoing basis as the result of a conscious choice to do so.

Comments: The above definition is minimalist: it represents the lowest common denominator. Sexual partnering has a number of variable elements, and they can be occasions of miscommunication. To give some examples:

• First, there is a wide scale of affinity. For some, true sexual partnering means having similar sex drives, sharing similar sexual tastes or at least appreciating each other's differences in taste, and becoming aroused when the other is aroused, anything less being an uncomfortable, perhaps even unsustainable, form of inequality. For others, some set of accommodations is necessary to sexual partnering.
• Second, there is a wide scale of intensity, which means that one might use the term with great seriousness and be taken lightly, or vice versa. Thus, for one person, sexual parnering might mean that differences in sex drive or in the horniness of the moment are to be overridden; while, for another, it might mean little more than having sex together once in a while.
• Third, there is a wide scale of expectations with regard to exclusivity, from total exclusivity of sex partners to each other, perhaps disallowing even autoeroticism, to the procurement of additional sex partners for each other. Where monogamy is the cultural default, exclusivity is often connoted by the term "sexual partnering."
• Fourth, there is a wide scale as to how sexual partnering is modeled. For some it is a mutual completion in each other, for others it is a merger of equals, for yet others it is one being submerged in the other, and for yet others it is independent beings sharing something they like.

Sexual partnering is often conceptualized as an element in a marriage or love relationship. However, it is also sometimes conceptualized as complementing a marriage or love relationship, especially where there are yet felt needs to be met.

See also partner, partner sexually, romantic partnering, sexual partnership, withhold sex.

sexual partnership:

An association -- in some usage, specifically between a male and a female -- that is characterized, at least in part, by love-making on a cooperative basis.

See also alliance of bodies, partner, partner sexually, romantic partnering, sexual partnering, sexual relationship.

Quotation from Science News Illustrating "Sexual Partnership"
People usually form long-term sexual partnerships. Men thus tend to look for women's physical signs of youth, which signal childbearing potential for years to come, the researchers [Martin N. Muller and his colleagues] hold. In contrast, adult chimps of both sexes mate with many partners. For male chimps, say the researchers, old females may be particularly alluring because of their demonstrated success at surviving and, in most cases, raising offspring.
From: "Age Becomes Her: Male Chimpanzees Favor Old Females As Mates," in: Science News; v. 170, no. 22 (November 25, 2006): p. 341.

sexual permissiveness:

1. Said of a culture or group: A general looseness in behavioral expectations relative either to sexual restrictions and requirements of the past or to a strict sexual code; comparatively lax, by custom, regarding erotic behavior.

2. Said of a person or group of persons responsible for others:

• Laxity either in setting rules regarding sexual behavior or in enforcing such rules; or,
• Exhibition of an attitude that the breaking of a code of sexual behavior matters but little.

3. Said of a partner in a sexual relationship:

• Allowance afforded a husband, wife, or lover with regard to erotic activity apart from oneself; or,
• Allowance afforded a husband, wife, or lover to engage in erotic activity with one or more others; or,
• Indulgence of one's partner in erotic activity together apart from penis-in-vagina intercourse or, more restrictively, the missionary position.

4. Said of someone who is a date: A granting of sexual liberties (note the element of implied passivity).

5. Said of a code of behavior:

• In one's view, not restrictive enough or not requiring enough with regard to human sexual behavior, perhaps behavior inclusive even of fantasizing, feeling stirred, and emoting; or,
• Not in compliance with a certain set of traditional norms for sexual behavior.

See also adultery-toleration pact, "an it harm none, do what ye will," antinomianism, arrangement, condone, consensual adultery, easy virtue, eleutherophilism, ethical hedonism, free love, hot and cool sex, libertarianism, libertinism, liberty, licentiousness, malakos, moral code, new adultery, new morality, open marriage, pansexualism, relationship choice, relationship freedom, sexosophy, sexual autonomy, sexual freedom, sexual immorality, sexual liberation, sexually permissive, sexual mores, sexual nonexclusivity, sexual toleration, traditional morality, universal permanent availability, wittolry.