XXII: Human Pet:

Page Five Notes:

*Simone*

These are updates to my notes:

The historically best known and most researched mistresses are the royal mistresses of European monarchs during the Renaissance, for example Nell Gwynne and Madame de Pompadour. However, the keeping of a mistress in Europe was not confined to royalty and nobility but permeated down through the social ranks. Anyone who could afford a mistress could have one or more, regardless of social position. A wealthy merchant or a young noble might have a kept woman. Also some popes and other clergy kept mistresses, in violation of the celibacy vows required by the Catholic Church. Being a mistress was typically an occupation for a younger woman who, if she was fortunate, might go on to marrying her lover or someone else. In the courts of Europe, particularly Versailles and Whitehall in the 17th and 18th centuries, a mistress often wielded great power and influence. The mistresses of both Louis XV and Charles II were often considered to exert great influence over their lovers, the relationships being open secrets. While the extremely wealthy might keep a mistress for life even after they were no longer romantically linked, such was not the case for most kept women. In 1736, when George II was newly ascendant, Henry Fielding has his Lord Place say, "...but, miss, every one now keeps and is kept; there are no such things as marriages now-a-days, unless merely Smithfield contracts, and that for the support of families; but then the husband and wife both take into keeping within a fortnight."

During the 19th century when morals became more puritanical, the keeping of a mistress became more circumspect, but conversely the tightening of morality also created a greater desire for a man to have a mistress. When an upper class man married a woman of equal rank, as was the norm, it was likely that she had been strictly brought up to believe that sexual intercourse was firmly for procreation rather than recreation. Some men thus went to a mistress if they wanted a less prudish female companion.

On occasions it is possible that the mistress is in a superior position both financially and socially to her lover. Catherine the Great was known to have been the mistress of several men during her reign; however, like many powerful women of her era, in spite of being a widow free to marry, she chose not to share her power with a husband, preferring to maintain absolute power alone. In literature, D. H. Lawrence's work Lady Chatterley's Lover portrays a situation where a woman becomes the mistress of her husband's gamekeeper. Until recently, a woman's taking a lover socially inferior to herself was considered much more shocking than the reverse situation.

In both John Cleland's Fanny Hill and Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, as well as in countless novels of feminine peril, the distinction between a "kept woman" and a prostitute is all-important. Apologists for the practice of mistresses referred to the practice in the ancient Near East of keeping a concubine and would frequently quote verses from the Old Testament to show that mistress-keeping was an ancient practice that was, if not acceptable, at least understandable. John Dryden, in Annus Mirabilis, even attempted to suggest that the king's keeping of mistresses and making of bastards was a result of his abundance of generosity and spirit. In its more sinister form, the theme of being "kept" is never far from the surface in novels about women as victims in the 18th century in England, whether in the novels of Eliza Haywood or Samuel Richardson. With the Romantics of the early 19th century, the subject of keeping becomes problematized, in that a non-marital sexual union can occasionally be celebrated as a woman's free choice and a noble alternative. Maryann Evans defiantly lived "in sin" with a married man, partially as a sign of her independence of middle class morality, but her independence required that she not be "kept." Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre presents impassioned arguments on both sides of this question, as Rochester, unable to be free of his insane wife, tries to persuade Jane to live with him, which she resists.

Many people exhibit high levels of sexual fetishism, and are sexually stimulated by other stimuli not normally associated with sexual arousal. The degree to which such fetishism exists or has existed in different cultures is controversial. Often the result of a sexual attraction is sexual arousal.

"Sexual Fetishism" must not be confused with the concept of Karl Marx's "commodity fetishism". Here, fetishism names the god-like admiration of objects. Sometimes a society can absorb a fetish into its culture so that it is no longer perceived as a fetish, but merely as a normal sexual desire; for example the commonplace desire for lingerie, or women removing body hair. Sometimes what a culture covers up eroticizes the boundaries of what remains exposed. For example, a woman's ankle was considered erotic in late-Victorian England; in many European countries, women are free to be topless, while in the United States, this is both a taboo and illegal in most states. In this regard, there can be said to be a degree of fetishistic arousal in the average person who responds to particular bodily features as sign of attractiveness. However, fetishistic arousal is generally considered to be a problem only when it interferes with normal sexual or social functioning. Sometimes the term "fetishism" is used only for those cases where non-fetishist sexual arousal is impossible.

In 1886 the French psychologist Alfred Binet proposed a dualism of "spiritual love" and "plastic love" in which to categorize the fetishes. "Spiritual love" occupied the devotion for specific mental phenomena, for example; attitudes, social class, or occupational roles; while "plastic love" referred to the devotion exhibited towards material objects such as body parts, textures or shoes. The existential approach to mental disorders developed in the 1940s and influenced a view that fetishes had complex personal meanings beyond the general categories of psychoanalytical treatment. For instance, the Austrian neurologist and existential therapist Viktor Frankl once noted the case of a man with a sexual fetish involving simultaneously both frogs and glue.

Modern psychology assumes that fetishism either is being conditioned or imprinted or the result of a strong emotional experience. But also physical factors like brain construction and heredity are considered possible explanations. In the following, the most important theories are presented in chronological order: In 1887, psychologist Alfred Binet introduced the term fetishism, suspecting that it was the pathological result of associations. Accidentally simultaneous presentation of a sexual stimulus and an inanimate object, thus his argument, led to the object being permanently connected to sexual arousal. About 1900, sexual psychologist Havelock Ellis brought up the revolutionary idea that already in early childhood erotic feelings emerged and that it was the first experience with its own body that determined a child's sexual orientation. Psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing consented to Binet's theory in 1912, recognizing that it predicted the observed wide variety of fetishes but unsure why these particular associations persisted over the whole of a lifetime while other associations changed or faded. In his eyes, the only possible explanation was that fetishists suffered from pathological sexual degeneration and hypersensitivity.

Flirting is a form of human interaction, usually expressing a sexual or romantic interest in the other person. It can consist of conversation, body language, or brief physical contact. It may be one-sided or reciprocated. The origin of the word flirt is obscure. The Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) associates it with such onomatopoeic words as flit and flick, emphasizing a lack of seriousness; on the other hand, it has been attributed to the old French "Conter fleurette", which means "to (try to) seduce" by the dropping of flower leaves, that is, "to speak sweet nothings". This expression is no longer used in French, but the English Gallicism to flirt has made its way and has now become an Anglicism. Flirting is often used as a means of expressing interest and gauging the other person's interest in courtship, which can continue into long term relationships. Alternatively, it may simply be a prelude to casual sex with no continuing relationship. In other situations, it may be done simply for immediate entertainment, with no intention of developing any further relationship. This type of flirting sometimes faces disapproval from others, either because it can be misinterpreted as more serious, or it may be viewed as "cheating" if the person is already in a romantic relationship with someone else.

People who flirt may speak and act in a way that suggests greater intimacy than is generally considered appropriate to the relationship, without actually saying or doing anything that breaches any serious social norms. One way they accomplish this is to communicate a sense of playfulness or irony. Double entendres, with one meaning more formally appropriate and another more suggestive, may be used. Flirting may consist of stylized gestures, language, body language, postures, and physiologic signs. Among these, at least in Western society, are:

Eye contact, batting eyelashes, etc.

"Protean" signals, such as touching one's hair

Casual touches; such as a woman gently touching a man's arm during conversation

Smiling suggestively

Winking

Sending notes, poems, or small gifts

Flattery

Online chat, is a common modern tactic as well as other one-on-one and direct messaging services

Footsie, the "feet under the table" practice

Teasing

Consistent meeting

While some of the subconscious signs are universal across cultures, flirting etiquette varies significantly across cultures which can lead to misunderstandings. There are differences in how closely people should stand, how long to hold eye contact, and so forth. During World War II, anthropologist Margaret Mead was working in Britain for the British Ministry of Information and later for the U.S. Office of War Information, delivering speeches and writing articles to help the American soldiers better understand the British civilians, and vice versa.

She observed in the flirtations between the American soldiers and British women a pattern of misunderstandings regarding who is supposed to take which initiative. She wrote of the Americans, "The boy learns to make advances and rely upon the girl to repulse them whenever they are inappropriate to the state of feeling between the pair.", as contrasted to the British, where "the girl is reared to depend upon a slight barrier of chilliness... which the boys learn to respect, and for the rest to rely upon the men to approach or advance, as warranted by the situation." This resulted, for example, in British women interpreting an American soldier's gregariousness as something more intimate or serious than he had intended. Communications theorist Paul Watzlawick used this situation, where "both American soldiers and British girls accused one another of being sexually brash", as an example of differences in "punctuation" in interpersonal communications. He wrote that courtship in both cultures used approximately 30 steps from "first eye contact to the ultimate consummation", but that the sequence of the steps was different. For example, kissing might be an early step in the American pattern but a relatively intimate act in the English pattern.

Saint Valentine's Day or Valentine's Day is a holiday on February 14. It is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other; sending Valentine's cards or candy. It is very common to present flowers on Valentine's Day. The holiday is named after two men, both Christian martyrs among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines." Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards. The mid-nineteenth century Valentine's Day trade was a harbinger of further commercialized holidays in the United States to follow. The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association estimates that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.

American psychologist Henry Murray (1893-1988) developed a theory of personality that was organized in terms of motives, presses, and needs. According to Murray, these psychogenic needs function mostly on the unconscious level, but play a major role in our personality. Murray classified five affection needs:

Affiliation: Spending time with other people.

Nurturance: Taking care of another person.

Play: Having fun with others.

Rejection: Rejecting other people.

Succorance: Being helped or protected by others

Two obvious methods of experiment on affection have been tried:

The first, introduced by A. Mosso, the Italian psychologist, consists in recording the physical phenomena which are observed to accompany modifications of the affective consciousness. Thus it is found that the action of the heart is accelerated by pleasant, and retarded by unpleasant, stimuli; again, changes of weight and volume are found to accompany modifications of affection-and so on. Apart altogether from the facts that this investigation is still in its infancy and that the conditions of experiment are insufficiently understood, its ultimate success is rendered highly problematical by the essential fact that real scientific results can be achieved only by data recorded in connection with a perfectly normal subject; a conscious or interested subject introduces variable factors which are probably incalculable.

The second is Fechner's method; it consists of recording the changes in feeling-tone produced in a subject by bringing him in contact with a series of conditions, objects or stimuli graduated according to a scientific plan and presented singly in pairs or in groups. The result is a comparative table of likes and dislikes.

Mention should also be made of a third method which has hardly yet been tried, namely, that of endeavouring to isolate one of the three directions by the method of suggestion or even hypnotic trance observations.

Female body shape has a bearing on a wide range of human activities, and there is and has been widely different ideals of it in different cultures over history. The female figure is usually narrower at the waist than at the chest and hips, and usually has one of four basic shapes - banana, pear, apple or hourglass. The chest, waist and hips are called inflection points, and the ratios of their circumferences define these basic shapes. Body shape depends on skeletal structure and the distribution of fat in the body. Some of these body shapes normally occur only in women, although some endocrine conditions or deliberate use of female hormones, such as by transsexuals, can produce them in male bodies. As with most physical traits, there is a wide range of normal female body shapes.

A sex scandal is a scandal involving allegations or information about embarrassing sexual activities, such as adultery, being made public. Sex scandals are often associated with movie stars, politicians, or others in the public eye, and become scandals largely because of the prominence of the person involved. Sex scandals involving politicians can become political scandals, particularly when there is an attempt at a cover-up, or suspicions of illegality.

Ironically, the very eponym of this love, Plato, as well as the fore-mentioned Socrates and Ficino, all belonged to the community of men who desired boys, and they all engaged in erotic pedagogic friendships with youths. The concept of platonic love thus arose within the context of the debate pitting mundane sexually expressed pederasty against the philosophic - or chaste - pederasty elaborated in Plato's writings. Regarding Socrates, John Addington Symonds in his A Problem in Greek Ethics states that he "...avows a fervent admiration for beauty in the persons of young men. At the same time he declares himself upon the side of temperate and generous affection, and strives to utilize the erotic enthusiasm as a motive power in the direction of philosophy." According to Linda Rapp, Ficino, by platonic love, meant "...a relationship that included both the physical and the spiritual. Thus, Ficino's view is that love is the desire for beauty, which is the image of the divine." Because of the common modern definition, platonic love can be seen as paradoxical in light of these philosophers' life experiences and teachings. Plato and his peers did not teach that a man's relationship with a youth should lack an erotic dimension, but rather that the longing for the beauty of the boy is a foundation of the friendship and love between those two. However, having acknowledged that the man's erotic desire for the youth magnetizes and energizes the relationship, they countered that it is wiser for this eros to not be sexually expressed, but instead be redirected into the intellectual and emotional spheres. To resolve this confusion, French scholars found it helpful to distinguish between amour platonique, the concept of non-sexual love, and amour platonicien, love according to Plato. When the term "Platonic love" is used today, it generally does not describe this aspect of Plato's views of love.

If one thinks of romantic love not as simply erotic freedom and expression, but as a breaking of that expression from a prescribed custom, romantic love is modern. There may have been a tension in primitive societies between marriage and the erotic, but this was mostly expressed in taboos regarding the menstrual cycle and birth. Before the 18th century, as now, there were many marriages that were not arranged, and arose out of more or less spontaneous relationships. But also after the 18th century, illicit relationships took on a more independent role. In bourgeois marriage, illicitness may have become more formidable and likely to cause tension. In Ladies of the Leisure Class, Bonnie G. Smith depicts courtship and marriage rituals that may be viewed as oppressive to both men and women. She writes "When the young women of the Nord married, they did so without illusions of love and romance. They acted within a framework of concern for the reproduction of bloodlines according to financial, professional, and sometimes political interests." Subsequent sexual revolution has lessened the conflicts arising out of liberalism, but not eliminated them. Anthropologists such as Claude Levi-Strauss show that there were complex forms of courtship in ancient as well as contemporary primitive societies. But there may not be evidence that members of such societies formed love relationships distinct from their established customs in a way that would parallel modern romance.

Institutional Greek pederasty, which sought to formalize the erotic relationship of an adult male with an adolescent boy, appeared on the Greek mainland, possibly from Crete, as early as the 7th century B.C. Both in Sparta and Athens, the bonding of adult men and adolescent boys was an established cultural and social phenomenon, associated with educational practices and the instilling of high civic and philosophical ideals. Apart from literary evidence - the Socratic dialogues of Plato, for example - there is also evidence from Greek vases displaying that the intimate association of men with boys was represented in a range of emotive and expressive guises. These relationships, however, often transcended the physical or the erotic, the adult being invested with responsibility for the moral and spiritual welfare of the boy: abuse or exploitation of the younger partner was not tolerated.

The term amour courtois ("courtly love") was given its original definition by Gaston Paris in his 1883 article "Etudes sur les romans de la Table Ronde: Lancelot du Lac, II: Le conte de la charrette", a treatise inspecting Chretien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (1177). Paris said amour courtois was an idolization and ennobling discipline. The lover accepts the independence of his mistress and tries to make himself worthy of her by acting bravely and honorably and by doing whatever deeds she might desire. Sexual satisfaction, Paris said, may not have been a goal or even end result, but the love was not entirely Platonic either, as it was based on sexual attraction. The term and Paris's definition were soon widely accepted and adopted. In 1936 C.S. Lewis wrote the influential The Allegory of Love further solidifying courtly love as "love of a highly specialized sort, whose characteristics may be enumerated as Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love".

Some believe defining eroticism may be difficult since perceptions of what is erotic fluctuate. For example, a voluptuous nude painting by Peter Paul Rubens could have been considered erotic or pornographic when it was created for a private patron in the 17th century. Similarly in the United Kingdom and United States, D. H. Lawrence's sexually explicit novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was considered obscene and unfit for publication and circulation in many nations thirty years after it was completed in 1928, but may now be part of standard literary school texts in some areas. In a different context, a sculpture of a phallus in Africa may be considered a traditional symbol of potency though not overtly erotic.

Romantic love is then a relative term within any sexual relationship, but not relative when considered in contrast with custom. Within an existing relationship romantic love can be defined as a temporary freeing or optimizing of intimacy, either in a particularly luxurious manner, or perhaps in greater spirituality, irony, or peril to the relationship. It may seem like a contradiction that romance is opposed to spirituality and yet would be strengthened by it, but the fleeting quality of romance might stand out in greater clarity as a couple explore a higher meaning. The cultural traditions of marriage and betrothal are the most basic customs in conflict with romance; however it is possible that romance and love can exist between the partners within those customs. Shakespeare and Kierkegaard describe similar viewpoints, to the effect that marriage and romance are not harmoniously in tune with each other. In Measure for Measure, for example, "...there has not been, nor is there at this point, any display of affection between Isabella and the Duke, if by affection we mean something concerned with sexual attraction. The two at the end of the play love each other as they love virtue." Isabella, like all women, needs love, and she may reject marriage with the Duke because he seeks to beget an heir with her for her virtues, and she is not happy with the limited kind of love that implies. Shakespeare is arguing that marriage because of its purity can not simply incorporate romance. The extra-marital nature of romance is also clarified by John Updike in his novel Gertrude and Claudius, as well as by Hamlet. It is also found in the film Braveheart, or rather in the life of Isabella of France.

Romance can also be tragic in its conflict with society. Tolstoy also focuses on the romantic limitations of marriage and Anna Karenina prefers death to being married to her fiancee. Furthermore, in the speech about marriage that is given in Kierkegaard's Either/Or, Kierkegaard attempts to show that it is because marriage is lacking in passion fundamentally, that the nature of marriage, unlike romance, is explainable by a man who has experience of neither marriage nor love. In the following excerpt, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo, in saying "all combined, save what thou must combine by holy marriage" implies that it is not marriage with Juliet that he seeks but simply to be joined with her romantically. That "I pray that thou consent to marry us" implies that the marriage means the removal of the social obstacle between the two opposing families, not that marriage is sought by Romeo with Juliet for any other particular reason, as adding to their love or giving it any more meaning.

"Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set On the fair daughter of rich Capulet: As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine; And all combined, save what thou must combine By holy marriage: when and where and how We met, we woo'd and made exchange of vow, I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray, That thou consent to marry us to-day." --Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II --by William Shakespeare

There were several elements of courtly love which were developed at different times during the Middle Ages. The notions of "love for love's sake" and "exaltation of the beloved lady" have been traced back to Arabic literature of the 9th and 10th centuries. The notion of the "ennobling power" of love was developed in the early 11th century by the Persian psychologist and philosopher, Ibn Sina (known as "Avicenna" in Europe), in his treatise Risala fi'l-Ishq (Treatise on Love). The final element of courtly love, the concept of "love as desire never to be fulfilled", was at times implicit in Arabic poetry, but was first developed into a doctrine in European literature, in which all four elements of courtly love were present. The doctrine of courtly love was developed in the castle life of four regions in present-day southern France: Aquitaine, Provence, Champagne and ducal Burgundy, from around the time of the First Crusade (1099). Courtly love found its expression in the lyric poems written by troubadours, such as William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (1071-1126), one of the first troubadour poets.

Romance can also be tragic in its conflict with society. Tolstoy also focuses on the romantic limitations of marriage, and Anna Karenina prefers death to being married to her fiancee. Furthermore, in the speech about marriage that is given in Kierkegaard's Either/Or, Kierkegaard attempts to show that it is because marriage is lacking in passion fundamentally, that the nature of marriage, unlike romance, is explainable by a man who has experience of neither marriage nor love. In the following excerpt, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo, in saying "all combined, save what thou must combine By holy marriage" implies that it is not marriage with Juliet that he seeks but simply to be joined with her romantically. That "I pray That thou consent to marry us" implies that the marriage means the removal of the social obstacle between the two opposing families, not that marriage is sought by Romeo with Juliet for any other particular reason, as adding to their love or giving it any more meaning.

Romantic love, however, may also be classified according to two categories, "popular romance" and "divine" romance. Popular romance may include but is not limited to the following types: idealistic, normal intense, predictable as well as unpredictable, consuming, intense but out of control material and commercial, physical and sexual, and finally grand and demonstrative. Divine romance may include, but is not limited to these following types: realistic, as well as plausible unrealistic, optimistic as well as pessimistic, abiding, non-abiding, predictable as well as unpredictable, self control or lack thereof, emotional and personal, soulful, intimate, and infinite.

In an article presented by Henry Gruenbaum, one argument is that many "therapists mistakenly believe that romantic love is a phenomenon unique to Western cultures and first expressed by the troubadours of the Middle Ages" (referencing Fisher, 1995). He continues stating also that "a recent survey of the anthropological literature by Jankowiak and Fisher (1992) found evidence of romantic love in every culture for which there were adequate data. For instance, an 80-year old Taita man recalled his fourth wife with words that could come from a Valentine card: 'She was the wife of my heart.'" Gruenbaum argues that it was mainly Christian theologians who historically wrote the most material about romantic love (referencing Solomon Higgins, 1991). He states that these particular "philosophers were primarily concerned about" romantic love's "allegedly subversive effects on society and the concomitant need to control such an irrational emotion." According to Gruenbaum, the definition of romantic love identifies three main features: "1. Feelings of longing for the other, including the desire to be intimate with them both sexually and psychologically, and feelings of loss and loneliness during separations. For example, Napoleon wrote to his empress Josephine: 'I have not spent a day without loving you; I have not spent a night without embracing you... ', 2.The experience of the beloved as special, idealized, necessary for one's happiness...,"[eg. "Zelda Fitzgerald asked F. Scott Fitzgerald shortly after they met. 'I feel like you had me ordered - and I was delivered to you.' (quoted in Fraser, 1976, p. 143)], and 3. The preoccupation with and overevaluation of the loved one."

Lust and love are always mixed up together. People think they are the same thing. But sadly, they are not. Love is pure and strong. Lust by definition is any intense desire or craving for self gratification. In the Christian religion, lust is one of the deadly sins. A sin, according to this tradition, is a "habit inclining one to sin". The specific sins to which lust may lead are fornication, adultery, incest, criminal assault, abduction, sodomy, rape, and others. However, "Such guilt as one may have contracted in any case is charged directly to the sinful act, not to the vice;" in other words, it is the specific sins, and not the vice itself, which deprive one's soul of sanctifying grace and make one deserving of God's punishment.

Sexual role-playing is a sexual behavior between two or more people in which they take on erotic roles to carry out a sexual fantasy. The depth of the role-play depends on the couple, and the scenario may be anywhere from simple and makeshift to detailed and elaborate, complete with costumes and a script. Sexual roles can be very general designations of power position, sometimes abstracted to "top" and "bottom," or very specific, detailed fantasies. Nearly any role could become the base material for an erotic experience, and there is no limit to what objects an individual could consider erotic. Many of the most common sexual role-plays involve a power differential.

Sexual role-playing also occurs, albeit rarely, on various forms of online games. This is a generally less accepted type of role-playing in an online community, though opinions about it vary. Social acceptance and attitudes to sexual role-playing differ within various communities, often dependent on the community's genre or purpose. It is also not uncommon for players to form personal attachments or friendships with the player that they role-play with. The above mentioned example is generally better accepted in an online environment than role-playing a character that involves sexual-related content in public or in abovementioned adult-themed role-playing games.

With increasing modernization or westernization in many parts of the world and the continuous shift towards isolated nuclear families, the old support structures are no longer there and the need for relationship counseling is greater than ever. In western society the trend is towards trained relationship counselors; these are often volunteers who wish to help others, and are trained by either the Government or social service institutions to help those who are in need of counseling. Many communities and government departments have their own team of trained voluntary or professional relationship counselors. Similar services are operated by many universities and colleges, often staffed by volunteers from among the student peer group. Some large companies maintain a full-time professional counseling staff to facilitate smoother interactions between corporate employees, to minimize the negative effects that personal difficulties might have on work performance.

The 2006 Ipswich murder investigation began during December 2006 when the bodies of five murdered women were discovered at different locations near Ipswich in Suffolk, England. All the victims were prostitutes working in Ipswich. Suffolk Police have linked the killings in their murder investigation. A forklift truck driver, Steven Gerald James Wright, aged 48, was arrested on suspicion of murder on Tuesday 19 December 2006 and charged with the murders of all five women on Thursday 21 December 2006.

Sex therapy is the treatment of sexual dysfunction, such as non-consummation, premature ejaculation or erectile dysfunction, low libido, unwanted sexual fetishes, sexual addiction, painful sex or lack of sexual confidence, assisting people who are recovering from sexual assault, problems commonly caused by stress, tiredness and other environmental and relationship factors. Sex therapists assist those experiencing problems in overcoming them, in doing so possibly regaining an active sex life.

A virgin is a young woman characterized by absence of sexual experience. Virginity is the state of being a virgin. The word also has extended applications, by relaxing the age, gender or sexual specifics. Hence, more mature women can be virgins, men can be virgins, and potential initiates into many fields can be colloquially termed virgins.

The act of losing one's virginity, that is, of a first sexual experience, is commonly considered within Western culture to be an important life event and a rite of passage. It is highlighted by many mainstream Western movies, particularly films aimed at a teenaged audience. The loss of virginity can be viewed as a milestone to be proud of or as a failure to be ashamed of, depending on cultural perceptions. Historically, these perceptions were heavily influenced by perceived gender roles, such that for a male the association was more often with pride and for a female the association was more often with shame.

Some historians and anthropologists note that many societies that place a high value on virginity before marriage, such as the United States before the sexual revolution, actually have a large amount of premarital sexual activity that does not involve vaginal penetration: for example, oral sex, anal sex and mutual masturbation. This is considered by some people "technical" virginity, as vaginal intercourse has not occurred but the participants are sexually active. This distinction is not identical to the distinction President Bill Clinton made in the Lewinsky scandal, when he said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," but it is closely related to it. Some cynics remarked that "blow jobs don't count," in the Lewinsky matter: the same rule is often applied to both adultery and virginity.

The notion of technical virginity is widely derided by many social commentators. In fact, the traditional theological definition of "virginity" in the Catholic tradition is the absence of any deliberately felt sexual pleasure. Assertions of technical virginity, often made for religious reasons, may be regarded by some as grossly hypocritical and self delusional. The well known advice columnist Dan Savage frequently ridicules such assertions when made by correspondents to his column and podcast Savage Love. His view, shared by many, is that "having sex", explicitly includes sexual activity other than vaginal intercourse, including oral or anal sex, or mutual masturbation. It therefore follows that once an individual has engaged in such sexual activity, they are no longer a virgin in any meaningful sense. Still, many people would admit a somewhat important difference between those acts that merely give sexual pleasure and those that receive it. Though there might be the notion that the recipient of a hand job has lost their virginity, few people would consider the hand that performed it to be therefore deflowered.

Fantasywear is a style of clothing, usually including lingerie, that people wear in the bedroom usually for living out sexual fantasies. Such costumes are exampled by the outfits ensembles, or by the use of materials such as PVC, satin or Rubber. When the partners wear fantasy costumes, they also embrace the different personalities instead of their own. The costumes range from classical attire, as in ancient Greek times, to present day firemen. Many times both partners decide what they want to be, and prepare a rough plot of their locality and shop for their attire and plan for a place and time where they would not be disturbed by others. Sometimes one partner surprises the other by suddenly appearing in a fantasy costume and the rest of the time goes based on their participation. When one partner is more active, usually he or she performs erotic dancing or speaks erotic dialogue as part of the fantasy.

Kink is a term used to refer to a broad range of sexual practices such as spanking, bondage, domination and submission, sadomasochism and sexual fetishism. BDSM is a term that has developed over time to represent the full range of kinky behavior and not just those represented by the acronym. It is important to note that the definition of what is and is not kinky can be quite subjective.

A blood fetish is the sexual fetish for blood and is an anthropological term used to describe the belief within a society or culture that blood in itself possesses powerful and magical properties. Blood fetishists may simply be aroused by the sight of blood, aroused by blood on nude or semi-nude individuals, or in some cases gain sexual pleasure by witnessing various degrees of accidental or intentional cuts or wounding, or blood donating. Blood fetishism may be accompanied by some licking or drinking blood through bloodletting with a razor blade, or by biting however the potential for damage from bruising or infection may be a deterrent to the practice. Blood fetishism may also be considered an expression of intimacy or bonding.

Bloodsports or bloodplay are general terms used for any sexual or BDSM play involving blood. It is considered edgeplay due to its nature of being able to easily spread blood borne diseases. It is also possible, although rare, for the careless to cut the person too deeply and cause them to bleed excessively. Menstrual fetish is a related fetish which focuses on menstruating women, either having their periods without blocking the flow of blood, or even focusing on used tampons. Some enjoy performing cunnilingus on their menstruating partners. The same can be said for the female; the genital area is often more arousable during menstruation and orgasms can be more intense.

Interpersonal attraction is the attraction between people which leads to friendships and romantic relationships. In a colloquial sense, interpersonal attraction is related to how much one likes, loves, dislikes, or hates someone. Interpersonal attraction can be thought of as a force acting between two people tending to draw them together, and resisting their separation. According to a personality psychologists' view, interpersonal attraction is a person's qualities that tend to attract by appealing to another person's desires. When measuring interpersonal attraction, one must refer to the qualities of the attracted as well as the qualities of the attractor to achieve predictive accuracy. The study of interpersonal attraction is a major area of study in social psychology. They suggest that to determine attraction, personality and situation must be taken into account. Repulsion is also a factor in the process of interpersonal attraction, one's conception of "attraction" to another can vary from extreme attraction to extreme repulsion.

A sexual fantasy, also called an erotic fantasy, is a deliberate fantasy or pattern of thoughts with the goal of creating or enhancing sexual feelings; it is mental imagery that an individual considers erotic. The makeup and purpose of fantasies vary: they can be long, drawn-out stories or quick mental flashes of sexual imagery; their purposes range from sexual motivations, such as sexual arousal and reaching orgasm, to simply passing time or helping a person fall asleep. Sexual fantasies are nearly universally experienced and can be positive, negative, or both. A person may not wish to enact their sexual fantasies in real life; some would find their fantasies completely unacceptable - or physically impossible - were they to be transposed into real life.

The content and goal of a sexual fantasy vary greatly between individuals and are subject to personal desires. These fantasies range from the mundane to the bizarre, and a person may have zero to full desire to carry out an imagined act; people often use fantasy to help plan out future sexual encounters. Fantasies occur in all individuals and at any time of the day, although it has been suggested that fantasies are more common among frequent daydreamers. Fantasies are frequently used to escape real-life sexual restraints and to imagine dangerous or illegal scenarios, such as rape, castration, or kidnapping. They allow people to imagine themselves in roles they do not normally have, such as power, innocence, and guilt. Fantasies present enormous influence over sexual behaviour, and can be the sole cause of an orgasm. While there are several common themes in fantasies, any object or act can be eroticized. Sexual fantasy is frequent during masturbation, although this is truer for men than for women.

During sexual contact, some people use their fantasies to "turn off" undesirable aspects of an act. For example, a woman receiving cunnilingus may shut out thoughts about her body's odors or fluids in order to fantasize about her physical or emotional pleasure. Conversely, a person may use fantasy to focus and maintain arousal, such as a man receiving fellatio ignoring a distraction. Men tend to be aware of only parts of themselves during sex- they are more likely to focus on the physical stimulation of one area, and as such, do not see themselves as a "whole."

Conversely, a person may use fantasy to focus and maintain arousal, such as a man receiving fellatio ignoring a distraction. Men tend to be aware of only parts of themselves during sex- they are more likely to focus on the physical stimulation of one area, and as such, do not see themselves as a "whole." Many couples share their fantasies to feel closer and gain more intimacy and trust, or simply to become more aroused or affect a more powerful physical response. Some couples share fantasies as a form of outercourse; this has been offered as an explanation for the rise of BDSM during the 1980s- in order to avoid contracting HIV, people turned to BDSM as a safe outlet for sexual fantasy.

Although fantasies are generally varied, patterns have shown up in demographics, and theories have been developed to explain the results. For example, evolutionary theorists have conjectured that women may be more likely to fantasize about familiar lovers because of the imagery of a protective relationship; however, this suggestion is not consistent with findings of the actual fantasies of married women. Sexual fantasies vary by gender, age, sexual orientation, and society; because of reliance on retrospective recall, response bias and taboo, there is an inherent difficulty in measuring the frequency of types of fantasies. In general, the most common fantasies for men and women are: reliving an exciting sexual experience, imagining sex with a current partner, and imagining sex with a different partner. There is no consistent difference in the popularity of these three categories of fantasies. The next most common fantasies involve oral sex, sex in a romantic location, sexual power or irresistibility, and forced sex.

Social views on sexual fantasy (and sex in general) differ throughout the world. The privacy of a person's fantasy is influenced greatly by social conditions. Because of the taboo status of sexual fantasies in many places around the world, open discussion - or even acknowledgment - is forbidden, forcing fantasies to stay private. In more lax conditions, a person may share their fantasies with close friends, significant others, or a group of people with whom the person is comfortable.

Alfred Charles Kinsey (June 23, 1894 - August 25, 1956) was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology who in 1947 founded the Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, now called the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. Kinsey's research on human sexuality profoundly influenced social and cultural values in the United States and many other countries in the West which went through the sexual revolution starting in the 1960s.

Alfred Kinsey was born on June 23, 1894, in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Alfred Seguine Kinsey and Sarah Ann Charles. Kinsey was the eldest of three children. His mother had received little formal education; his father was a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. His parents were rather poor for most of Kinsey's childhood. Consequently, the family often could not afford proper medical care, which may have led to young Kinsey's receiving inadequate treatment for a variety of diseases including rickets, rheumatic fever, and typhoid fever. This health record indicates that Kinsey received suboptimal exposure to sunlight and lived in unsanitary conditions for at least part of his childhood. Rickets, leading to a curvature of the spine, resulted in a slight stoop that was to prevent Kinsey from being drafted in 1917 for World War I.

The triangular theory of love by Robert Sternberg is based on intimacy, passion, and commitment. Consummate love being the strongest type of love which consists of three aspects: intimacy, passion, and commitment. The idea of this theory is that love can consist of one component alone or any combination of the three parts: intimacy, passion, and commitment. There are many factors taken into account when a relationship turns into love. One big factor is culture. This is a common issue among two people who come from very different cultural backgrounds. In a study done by Phillip Shavers and his colleagues, they interviewed participants from different parts of the world and found that love has "similar and different meanings cross-culturally. The Chinese participants had several different love concepts such as "sorrow-love", "tenderness-pity", and "sorrow-pity". These tie into another study done by Rothbaym and his partner Tsang in 1998, they researched popular love songs from American and Chinese artists. The difference was that the Chinese love songs "had significantly more references to suffering and to negative outcomes than the American love songs." This may be due to beliefs that interpersonal relationships are predestined, and thus no control over love lives.

Some authorities observe infidelity is involved in 90% of first time divorces. A 1997 study with Kristina Gordon found 'more than half of the marriages that experience infidelity ended in divorce'. By contrast John Gottman with his 35 years of research into marriage, is reported as saying "Only 20 percent of divorces are caused by an affair. Most marriages die with a whimper, as people turn away from one another, slowly growing apart." Fifty United Kingdom divorce lawyers were asked to name the most common causes of their cases in 2003. Of those who cited extramarital affairs, 55% said it was usually the husbands and 45% said that it was the wives who cheated. In addition between 10-15% of children are conceived as a result of an affair. Infidelity that does not involve sex or conception may be referred to as a romantic friendship or an emotional affair. Sometimes infidelity at home occurs on-line, where it may be known as virtual sex. On-line infidelity can sometimes signify deeper problems of addiction that may need to be addressed in addition to any marital problems that might emerge from this behavior.

The meaning of intimacy varies from relationship to relationship, and within a given relationship. Intimacy has more to do with shared moments than sexual interactions. Intimate feelings may be connected or confused with sexual arousal. Intimacy is linked with feelings of closeness, safety, trust and transparency among partners in a collaborative relationship. For intimacy to be sustainable and nourishing it also requires trust, transparency and rituals of connection. It is possible to compete over intimacy but that is likely to be self-defeating. Intimacy requires empathy - the ability to stand in the other's shoes.

Physical intimacy is sensual proximity and/or touching. It can be enjoyed by itself and/or be an expression of feelings such as close friendship, love, and/or sexual attraction which people have for one another. Examples of physical intimacy include being inside someone's personal space, holding hands, hugging, kissing, caressing, and sexual activity. The forms of physical intimacy, in order of increasing degree of intimacy, but not necessarily in order of increasing enjoyment, with each form generally including those preceding it, are: physical closeness, touching (especially tenderly), touching intimate parts including outercourse, and sexual penetration.

Since at least 1450, the pejorative words slut, harlot, tramp, whore describe a sexually promiscuous woman. In great contrast to the glamour of rake for men, slut is unglamorous and also historically refers to an unhygienic woman who is personally dirty and unkempt. According to a study, New Zealand women are the most promiscuous in the world with an average of 20.4 sexual partners.

Slut is a pejorative term for a person, usually female, who is deemed sexually promiscuous. The term has traditionally been applied to women and is generally used as an insult or offensive term of disparagement. Slut has also been reclaimed as a slang term in the BDSM, polyamorous and gay and bisexual communities. It may be used by the person concerned as an expression of pride in their status, or as an expression of enviousness in the "success rate" of others. The term is not interchangeable with whore or prostitute as those terms denote a person who engages in sex for money.

Isis is a goddess in Egyptian mythology. She was most prominent mythological as the wife and sister of Osiris and mother of Horus, and was worshipped as the archetypal wife and mother. Her name literally means "female of throne", that is, "Queen of the throne", which was portrayed by the emblem worn on her head, that of a throne. However, the hieroglyph of her name originally meant "female of flesh", i.e. mortal, and she may simply have represented deified, historical queens.

Krishna is a deity worshipped across many traditions of Hinduism. He is usually depicted as a young cowherd boy playing a flute or a youthful prince giving philosophical direction. Most commonly within Hinduism, Krishna is worshipped as an avatar of Vishnu, who is considered the Supreme God by the Vaishnava schools. Within Gaudiya Vaishnavism Krishna is worshipped as the source of all other avatars. Krishna and the stories associated with him appear across a broad spectrum of Hindu philosophical and theological traditions. Though they sometimes differ in details reflecting the concerns of a particular tradition, some core features are shared by all. These include a divine incarnation, a pastoral childhood and youth, and life as a heroic warrior and teacher.

In Greek mythology, Peitho is the goddess who personifies persuasion and seduction. Her Roman name is Suadela. Although this goddess did not have much power, she is a figure of some significance in Classical Greece. Peitho, in her role as an attendant or companion of Aphrodite, was intimately connected to the goddess of love and beauty. Ancient artists and poets explored this connection in their works. The connection is even deeper in the context of Ancient Greek marriage because a suitor had to negotiate with the father of a young woman for her hand in marriage and offer a bridal price in return for her. The most desirable women drew many prospective suitors, and persuasive skill often determined their success. Aphrodite and Peitho were sometimes conflated to a certain extent, with the name Peitho appearing in conjunction with, or as an epithet of, Aphrodite's name. This helps to demonstrate how the relationship between persuasion and love was important in Greek culture. Peitho's ancestry is somewhat unclear. According to Hesiod in the Theogony, Peitho was the daughter of the Titans Tethys and Oceanus, which would make her an Oceanid and therefore sister of such notable goddesses as Tyche, Doris, Metis, and Calypso. However, Hesiod's classification of Peitho as an Oceanid is contradicted by other sources.

Group sex is sexual behaviour involving more than two participants at the same time. The main focus of this page is group sex among humans; however, group sex also exists with other species in the animal kingdom - e.g., bighorn sheep and bonobos. Any and all sexual behaviour performed by two people can be a part of group sex, as well as a number of behaviors only possible with more than two people. Group sex involving one participant being penetrated by multiple people is sometimes termed a gang bang. Group sex can occur amongst people of all sexual orientations and genders.

The word womanizer, playboy, philanderer, player, ladies' man, man-whore, ladykiller and rake refer to a man who has love affairs with women he either cannot or will not marry or commit himself. Typically, the love affairs are sexually motivated, with slight emotional connection and attachment. The names of real and fictional seducers have become eponyms for such promiscuous men. The most famous are the historical Casanova (1725-1798), the fictional Don Juan, who first appeared in the 17th century, and Lothario from Nicholas Rowe's 1703 play The Fair Penitent. During the English Restoration period (1660-1688), the words rake hell and rake were used glamorously: the Restoration rake is a carefree, witty, sexually irresistible aristocrat typified by Charles II's courtiers, the Earl of Rochester and the Earl of Dorset, who combined riotous living with intellectual pursuits and patronage of the arts. The Restoration rake is celebrated in the Restoration comedy of the 1660s and the 1670s. After the reign of Charles II, and especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the rake was perceived as negative and became the butt of moralistic tales in which his typical fate was debtor's prison, permanent venereal disease, and, in the case of William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, venereally-caused insanity and internment to Bedlam.

The Joy of Sex was a ground-breaking illustrated sex manual by Alex Comfort, M.D., Ph.D., first published in 1972. It was the first illustrated, serious such manual to gain wide distribution-at least in modern America. Earlier works, such as the 1966 Human Sexual Response by William H. Masters & Virginia E. Johnson, were more circumspect and clinical. Conversely, The Joy of Sex is rather circumspect and clinical in comparison to The Guide to Getting it On, published 20 years later. The Joy of Sex spent eleven weeks at the top of the New York Times bestseller list and more than 70 weeks in the top five (1972-1974). The original intention was to use the same mainstream approach as such books as The Joy of Cooking, hence section titles include "starters" and "main courses". The book features sexual practices such as oral sex and various sex positions as well as bringing "farther out" practices as sexual bondage and swinging to the attention of the general public.

Love triangles can either be relatively balanced, in which the two candidates each have a fair chance of ending up with the protagonist, or they can be lopsided, in which the hero or heroine has an obvious romantic interest in one of the candidates, and considers the other candidate as "just a friend," but withholds a confession to avoid hurting his or her feelings. A less permanent love triangle can also occur when a former lover of the main character makes an unexpected appearance to win back his or her heart, provoking feelings of jealousy from the main character's steady partner. However, this situation is usually not considered an actual love triangle since there is little possibility of the main character breaking up with his or her longtime partner to pursue a just-introduced character, and it is often used as only a test of the true depth of the main character's devotion to his or her partner.

Love rectangle is a somewhat facetious term to describe a romantic relationship that involves four people, analogous to the typically three-sided love triangle. Many people use this term for a romantic relationship between two people that is complicated by the romantic attentions of two other people, but it is more frequently reserved for relationships where there are more connections. Minimally, both male characters usually have some current or past association with both female characters. These relationships need not be sexual; they can be friendships or familial relations. Both males and/or both females can also be friends, family members or sworn enemies. Love rectangles tend to be more complicated than love triangles, often using their tangled relationships as a source of comedic humor, like in Manga.

An example of a love rectangle in classic literature is in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, between the characters Lysander, Demetrius, Helena, and Hermia. Demetrius is granted Hermia's hand in marriage by her father, but Hermia loves Lysander, and the two flee, intending to elope. Demetrius pursues the couple, and Helena pursues Demetrius, whom she has always loved. The fairy Puck, in trying to use magic to resolve the situation, temporarily transfers both men's affections to Helena. Further tampering restores Lysander's love for Hermia. Demetrius, now in love with Helena, withdraws his claim on Hermia, and both couples are wed.

Another love rectangle happens in Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, where female characters Dorabella and Flordiligli are Ferrando and Gugliemo's girlfriends respectively, and by the end of the opera they "accidentally" swap their boyfriends. For additional terms, the word "love" can be added to the front of other shapes to reflect romantic relationships involving more people, e.g. "love pentagon".

Commitment means to duty or pledge to some thing or someone, and can refer to. Personal commitment is the act or quality of voluntarily taking on or fulfilling obligations. What makes personal commitment "personal" is the voluntary aspect. In particular, it is not necessary that a personal commitment relate to personal interests. Commitment is one of the important to love and relationships.

Younger generations soon began to rebel against the conservative norms of the time. This created a counter-culture that eventually turned into a social revolution throughout much of the western world. It began in the United States as a reaction against the conservative social norms of the 1950s, the political conservatism of the Cold War period, and the US government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam. The main group from the movement was called hippies. Together they created a new liberated stance for society, including the Sexual Revolution, questioning authority and government, and demanding more freedoms and rights for women, gays, and minorities. The movement was marked by drug use and psychedelic music.

Family is a Western term used to have denote a domestic group of people, or a number of domestic groups linked through descent from a common ancestor, marriage or adoption. A family may be defined specifically as a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, and co-residence. Although the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by blood, many anthropologists argue that the notion of "blood" must be understood metaphorically; some argue that there are many non-Western societies where family is understood through other concepts rather than "blood"

In biology, mating is the pairing of opposite-sex or hermaphroditic internal fertilization animals for copulation and, in social animals, also to raise their offspring. Mating methods include random mating, disassortative mating, assortative mating, or a mating pool. In some birds, for example, it includes nest-building and feeding offspring. The human practice of making domesticated animals mate and of artificially inseminating them is part of animal husbandry. Copulation is the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproducing animals for insemination and subsequent internal fertilization. The two individuals may be of opposite sexes or hermaphroditic, as is the case with, for example, snails. Newly evolved prehistoric animals initially lived only in water and reproduced by external fertilization in the water. About 450 million years ago, during the Late Ordovician, some animals started migrating from oceans to the land, necessitating internal fertilization to maintain gametes in a liquid medium.

Many theorists, including Anna Freud, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Karen Horney, Otto Rank, Erik Erikson, Melanie Klein, and Heinz Kohut, built upon Freud's fundamental ideas and often formed their own differentiating systems of psychotherapy. These were all later termed under a broader label of psychodynamic, meaning anything that involved the psyche's conscious/unconscious influence on external relationships and the self. Sessions tended to number into the hundreds over several years. Behaviorism developed in the 1920s, and behavior modification as a therapy became popularized in the 1950s and 1960s. Notable contributors were Joseph Wolpe in South Africa, M.B. Shipiro and Hans Eysenck in Britain, and B.F. Skinner in the United States. Behavioral therapy approaches relied on principles of operant conditioning, classical conditioning and social learning theory to bring about therapeutic change in observable symptoms. The approach became commonly used for phobias, as well as other disorders.

Courtship is the traditional dating period before engagement and marriage. During a courtship a couple dates to get to know each other and decide if there will be an engagement. Usually courtship is a public affair, done in public and with family approval. It includes activities such as dating where couple go together for a dinner, a movie, dance parties, a picnic, shopping or general "hanging out", along with other forms of activity. Acts such as meeting on the internet or virtual dating, chatting on-line, sending text messages or picture messages, conversing over the phone, writing each other letters, and sending each other flowers, songs, and gifts constitute wooing.

In BDSM, a top is a partner who takes the active, dominant role in sexual play. The top performs acts such as these upon the bottom. A top filling the dominant role is not necessarily a dominant, and vice versa. The top may sometimes even be the partner who is following instructions, i.e., he tops when, and in the manner, requested by the bottom. A person who applies sensation or control to a bottom, but does so to the bottom's explicit instruction is a service top. Topping from the bottom is a related BDSM term, meaning a person who wants to be dominated but simultaneously direct the top to do it according to their wishes. Topping from the bottom is often considered poor practice amongst lifestyle BDSM devotees, although fairly common amongst the "BDSM curious" or newcomers who have had submissive fantasies but lack experience with a sexual dominant.

In the terms of BDSM scenes or interactions, a bottom refers to the person who takes on the submissive role for the duration of a scene. This term is associated with being on the receiving end of bondage, discipline, and sadism. They may be involved in such acts as bondage, flogging, humiliation, or servitude from the top. The term originates from a more general use of the word, especially among the gay male community, to mean receptive partner. A bottom is not necessarily submissive, and vice versa. At one end of the continuum is a submissive who enjoys taking orders from a dominant but does not receive any physical stimulation. At the other is a bottom who enjoys the intense physical and psychological stimulation but does not submit to the person delivering them.

Contrast this with the pure dominant, who might give orders to a submissive, or otherwise employ physical or psychological techniques of control, but might instruct the submissive to perform the act on him. Also, a top in BDSM need not be the 'insertive' sex partner; for example, a female dominant may command her submissive to penetrate her. Note that in BDSM sex, some people like to switch roles from one encounter to the other, or even during a single encounter, depending on mood and preference.

It should be noted that for bottoms who are not submissive, the bottom is most often the partner who is giving instructions-the top typically tops when, and in the manner, requested by the bottom. Failure to choose a trustworthy top can be very dangerous, and even a trustworthy but overzealous top can inflict severe pain or injury by failing to pay attention to the bottom. In BDSM sex, some partners switch roles from one encounter to the other, depending on mood and preference, a practice known as switching.

In BDSM, servitude is performing tasks and following orders as an aspect of being submissive. Some submissives gain pleasure and satisfaction from performing services for their dominants, such as serving as a butler, waitress, chauffeur, maid, or houseboy. In workplace BDSM, the submissive may somehow secretly contrive that a work colleague, of same or opposite gender to the submissive, unwittingly finds oneself with imagined or real work related disciplinary power status over the submissive. The created dominant may never realize they are bringing secret pleasure and satisfaction to the submissive, in the giving of orders or else in rebuking the submissive for supposed performance failings at the workplace, such as "laziness".

The BDSM form of sexual slavery is a type of sexual role-play where one partner, generally referred to as the submissive, agrees to perform sex acts as directed by their Dominant. It is considered an expression of D/s. The power to control one's own sexual activity is deeply held in most cultures, and to offer this power to another has strong erotic overtones. It can be a very powerful and exciting exchange, but can also be hazardous if not enacted carefully. It is very different from commercial or social sexual slavery in that the activity is completely consensual and can be ended by the submissive at any time. A sex slave in BDSM adopts the role of a sex slave, but is not actually owned. The BDSM community does not accept non-consensual slavery as a valid concept. Sex slaves are a specific form of BDSM submissive, and not all submissives are sex slaves. Many submissives have no sexual component to their role at all. Others have specific limits as to the sexual activity that can be required of them. Sex slaves can be of any gender or sexual identity. The types of activities entered into are usually well defined in advance and sometimes spelled out in a "Slave contract", a non-legally binding document that outlines the desires and limits of the partners. Sex slaves can be limited to performing sex with only their Dominant or with others the Dominant specifies. Others are kept as "party toys" and are required to perform any act requested of them by a large group. Some sex slaves are not allowed to have sex at all and are kept in chastity devices as virtual eunuchs.

Play piercing should always be carried out using new sterile hypodermic needles or acupuncture needles, and preferably on skin which has been cleaned with an antiseptic such as alcohol or povidone iodine, by people who have been properly trained. Improper technique can result in the transmission of blood borne diseases or puncture wounds, but if done correctly there is far less danger of injury or infection than from being scratched by a cat due to the depth of insertion being controlled and the use of a sterilized needle. Needles may be arranged in aesthetically pleasing configurations such as a smiley face, may be laced together like a corset, or may be used to sew on temporary decorations such as bells using sterile thread. Twisting of the needle(s) or pulling them away from the skin will also result a different type of sensation.

Medical fetishism is a neologism used to describe the context in which medical environments, practices and objects are eroticized. Typical scenarios of interest include intimate examinations such as rectal examination, gynecological examination, rectal temperature taking, catheterization, enemas, injections, the insertion of suppositories, menstrual cups and prostatic massage. Dentistry and teeth are also subject to fetishes while a person is sexually aroused or stimulated by the sight, brushing, or feel of dental braces, retainers and headgear. Other medical devices are also fetishized, such as orthopedic casts and orthopedic braces in abasiophilia. Another form of medical fetishism is surgical fetishism, which eroticizes the idea of either performing surgery or having surgery performed on one's self. Even more specific is anesthesia fetishism which involves the procedures and devices used to administer general anesthesia, especially the mask used to administer gaseous anesthesia to a patient. These can be related to hypnofetishism or balloon fetishism.

Female submission describes BDSM activities in which the submissive partner is female. Usually the woman is dominated by a dominant man, but sometimes by another woman. It is a popular female fantasy that often appears in erotic literature. A large number of these books are written exclusively by women for a mainly female readership.

Sex slaves are a specific form of BDSM submissive, and not all submissives are sex slaves. Many submissives have no sexual component to their role at all. Others have specific limits as to the sexual activity that can be required of them. Sex slaves can be of any gender or sexual identity. The types of activities entered into are usually well defined in advance and sometimes spelled out in a "Slave contract", a non-legally binding document that outlines the desires and limits of the partners. Sex slaves can be limited to performing sex with only their Dominant or with others the Dominant specifies. Others are kept as "party toys" and are required to perform any act requested of them by a large group. Some sex slaves are not allowed to have sex at all and are kept in chastity devices as virtual eunuchs.

Submissiveness is the incidence or trait of yielding to the expressed will of another person or some display of force. It can be found in everyday human interaction. Submissiveness can be a benign aspect of the social fabric, or it may be part of other problems that a person experiences. Within human relationships there may be a submissive partner. This partner may be trying to appease the other (s) through agreeing to their command. If they are otherwise healthy this partner may be content. If one or both of the people are experiencing chronic, pervasive emotional distress then the relationship or individuals may require reevaluation.

Femdom, or female dominance, refers to BDSM activities where the dominant partner is female; the submissive partner may be of either sex. A female dominant is sometimes called a domme, femdomme, domina, or dominatrix. In the English speaking world, "mistress" is by far the most common dominatrix title, while in most of continental Europe, the most common titles are, and some are etymologically related, maitresse, maid, maidress, matress, mother, mate, madre, or "momina."The most common dominatrix title in the Spanish language is "ama." The equivalent Japanese term is joo-sama. Femdom activities may draw on all areas of BDSM. Feminization and strap-on dildo play are common activities, as well as panty fetishism and boot worship. Cuckolding is also an area of female dominance. Erotic humiliation can focus on the inadequacy of a male's penis, demoting it to a plaything for the dominatrix, over which the male has no real control. Related femdom activities include ballbusting, cock and ball torture, verbal humiliation, forced chastity, orgasm denial, and forced homosexuality, in which a dominant female forces a heterosexual male to engage in homosexual acts for her amusement, or as part of feminization.

This agreement may however leave considerable range to the Dominant, and allow for great freedom to explore limits. It is frequently limited to private, or limited party situation, however not always. Also the parties will generally see the contract as morally binding. In cases where relationship or contract extends to public venue it may include the right of the Dominant to select clothing, demand nudity, require public service, and many things that might would be seen as deeply humiliating, denigrating or even objectifying for those in vanilla relationships. Such public requirements could include require very revealing clothes, leash and collar, mild forms of torture such as breast bondage or even all of the above at once.

Vampire fetish is a sexual condition where a person is attracted to the idea of being bitten by a vampire. Unlike blood fetishism and bite fetishism, vampire fetishism does not focus on the biting itself but rather the power exchange that happens during the biting. Vampire fetishists describe the attraction as excitement of submission and fear.

Nephilim are beings who appear in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Genesis, and are also mentioned in other biblical texts and in some non-canonical Jewish writings. The Hebrew of "nephilim" means "those causing others to fall". Abraham ibn Ezra proposes that they were called this because men's hearts would fail at the sight of them. Some have compared it to the usage in Job 1:15 "And the Sabeans fell upon them" in which Naphal means to take in battle, describing the warlike nature of the Nephilim. Alternatively, Shadal understands it as deriving from the Hebrew word Pela which means wondrous. The nephilim come from a union between "sons of God" and "daughters of man". In Aramaic culture, the term Nephila specifically referred to the constellation of Orion, and thus Nephilim to Orion's semi-divine descendants; the implication being that this also is the origin of the Biblical Nephilim. Some commentators have suggested that the Nephilim were believed to have been fathered by members of a proto-Hebrew pantheon and are a brief glimpse of early Hebrew religion, most of the details of which were later edited out from the Torah, and that this passage may have offered monotheistic Hebrews a way to fit semi-divine pagan heroes into their cosmogony.

A femme fatale is an alluring and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetypal character of literature and art. The phrase is French for "fatal woman." A femme fatale tries to achieve her hidden purpose by using feminine wiles such as beauty, charm, and sexual allure. Typically, she is exceptionally well-endowed with these qualities. In some situations, she uses lying or coercion rather than charm. She may also be a victim, caught in a situation from which she cannot escape; the Lady from Shanghai giving one such example. Her characteristic weapon, if needed, is frequently poison, which also serves as a metaphor for her charms. Her ability to entrance and hypnotize her male victim was in the earliest stories seen as being literally supernatural, hence the most prosaic femme fatale today is still described as having a power akin to an enchantress, vampire, female monster or demon. The ideas involved are closely tied to fears of the female witch. Although typically villainous, femmes fatales have also appeared as anti-heroines in some stories, and some even repent and become heroines by the end of the tale. In social life, the femme fatale tortures her lover in an asymmetrical relationship, denying confirmation of her affection. She usually drives him to the point of obsession and exhaustion so that he is incapable of making rational decisions.

The femme fatale archetype exists, in one form or another, in the folklore and myth of nearly every culture in every century. The early examples are Ishtar, the Sumerian goddess, and Lilith, Delilah, and Salome from the Judaeo-Christian Bible. In ancient Greek literature, the femme fatale is incarnated by the Siren, the Sphinx, Scylla, Circe, Lamia, Helen of Troy, and Clytemnestra. Beside them is the historical figure Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, with her ability to seduce the powerful men of Rome. Roman propaganda attacked Cleopatra as a femme fatale; in result, she became the legendary archetype of the attractions and the dangers inherent to the powerful, exotic woman. In the Middle Ages, the idea of the dangers of female sexuality, typified by Eve, was commonly expressed in medieval romances as a wicked, seductive enchantress, the prime example being Morgan la Fay.

The femme fatale flourished in the Romantic period in the works of John Keats, notably La Belle Dame sans Merci and Lamia. Along with them, there rose the gothic novel, The Monk featuring Matilda, a very potent femme fatale. This led to her appearing in the work of Edgar Allan Poe, and as the vampiress, notably in Carmilla and Brides of Dracula. The Monk was greatly admired by the Marquis de Sade, for whom the femme fatale symbolized not evil, but all the best qualities of Women, with Juliette being perhaps the earliest novel wherein the femme fatale triumphs. Pre-Raphaelite painters frequently used the classic personifications of the femme fatale as a subject.

In the Western Culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the femme fatale became a more fashionable trope, and is found in the paintings of the artists Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, Gustave Moreau, and the novels of the Frenchman Joris-Karl Huysmans. In A rebours are these fevered imaginings about an image of Salome in a Moreau painting:

No longer was she merely the dancing-girl who extorts a cry of lust and concupiscence from an old man by the lascivious contortions of her body; who breaks the will, masters the mind of a King by the spectacle of her quivering bosoms, heaving belly and tossing thighs; she was now revealed in a sense as the symbolic incarnation of world-old Vice, the goddess of immortal Hysteria, the Curse of Beauty supreme above all other beauties by the cataleptic spasm that stirs her flesh and steels her muscles, - a monstrous Beast of the Apocalypse, indifferent, irresponsible, insensible, poisoning.

In fin-de-siecle decadence, Oscar Wilde re-invented the femme fatale in the play 'Salome': she manipulates her lust-crazed uncle, King Herod, with her enticing Dance of the Seven Veils to agree to her imperious demand: bring me the head of John the Baptist. Later, Salome was the subject of an opera by Strauss, was popularized on stage, screen, and peep-show booth in countless reincarnations. Femme Fatale has also existed in the east. In Chinese myths, stories and history, certain concubines have been accused as being responsible in part for the weakening and downfall of dynasties, by seducing her lover into neglecting their duties or twisting him to her will. Another enduring icon of womanly glamour, seduction, and the presumed moral turpitude of the early twentieth century, was Mata Hari, an alluring oriental dancer, accused of German espionage and put to death by a French firing squad. As such, she realized the femme fatale archetype, and, after her death, became the subject of much fantastical imagining and many sensational films and books.

The femme fatale has been portrayed as a sexual vampiress; her charms leach the virility and independence of lovers, leaving them shells of themselves. Rudyard Kipling was inspired by a vampiress painted by Philip Burne-Jones, an image typical of the era in 1897, to write his poem 'The Vampire'. Like much of Kipling's verse it was incredibly popular, and its refrain: A fool there was . . . , describing a seduced man, became the title of the popular film A Fool There Was that made Theda Bara a star, the poem was used in its publicity. On this account, in early American slang the femme fatale was called vamps, short for vampiress. Jules et Jim falls in love with the same woman Jeanne Moreau in a classic French film by Francois Truffaut from 1962. From the American film audience perspective, the femme fatale often was foreign, usually either of an indeterminate Eastern European or Asian ancestry. She was the sexual counterpart to wholesome actresses such as Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford. Notable silent cinema vamps were Theda Bara (who started the vamp craze), Louise Glaum, Musidora, Nita Naldi, Pola Negri, and in her early appearances, Myrna Loy.

During the film noir era of the 1940s and 1950s, the femme fatale flourished in American cinema. Examples, the over possessive narcissistic wife Ellen Brent Harland as portrayed by Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven (1945), who will stop at nothing to keep her husband's affections. The cabaret singer as portrayed by Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), who sexually manipulates her husband and his best friend. Another quintessential noir femme fatale is Phyllis Dietrichson as played by Barbara Stanwyck, who seduces a hapless insurance salesman and persuades him to kill her husband in Double Indemnity (1944). Other American cultural examples of such a deadly woman are in espionage thrillers and juvenile adventure comic strips, such as The Spirit, by Will Eisner, and Terry and the Pirates, by Milton Caniff. Today, she remains the key character in films such as Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct.

A classically portrayed literary femme fatale is the "Justine" heroine of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. In opera, the femme fatale is usually played by a dramatic mezzo-soprano. More often in musical theater, the femme fatale is played by an alto. The femme fatale is sometimes the foil or the enemy of the ingenue or the damsel in distress. Despite usually being portrayed in religion as symbolic of corruption and moral turpitude to justify societal misogyny, in contemporary times the femme fatale is symbolic of women of free will and unrestrained passion. She survives as heroine and anti-heroine, in Nikita and Moulin Rouge!, and video games and comic books. Elektra, a character from Marvel Comics, Catwoman from the Batman stories, and EVA from Metal Gear Solid 3. The woman ninja (the Kunoichi) is legendary for being a trained seductress and a martial artist. The protagonists of the American television program Desperate Housewives use sexual allure to get what and whom they want. A modern example of the archetypal femme fatale is Xenia Onatopp, the character from Goldeneye who seduced men and then murdered them by crushing them between her thighs.

The Velvet Underground band sing a song titled "Femme Fatale" in the The Velvet Underground and Nico album. Alice Cooper's song Poison is about a femme fatale, and includes the lyrics "I wanna love you but I dare not touch (don't touch)/I wanna hold you but my senses tell me so much (so much)"Men who are fatal include Don Juan, Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, most of the heroes in Lord Byron's books, as well as such diverse characters as Billy Budd, Count Dracula, Tadzio in Death in Venice, Harthouse in Charles Dickens' Hard Times, Georges Querelle in Jean Genet's Querelle of Brest, James Bond, and Tom Ripley in Patricia Highsmith's "Ripley" novels.

Religious prostitution, sacred prostitution, temple prostitution or harlotry is the practice of having sexual intercourse for a religious or sacred purpose. A woman engaged in such practices is sometimes called a temple prostitute or hierodule, though modern connotations of the term prostitute render the signification of these phrases opaque.

Bipolar disorder is not a single disorder, but a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated mood, clinically referred to as mania. Individuals who experience manic episodes also commonly experience depressive episodes or symptoms, or mixed episodes which present with features of both mania and depression. These episodes are normally separated by periods of normal mood, but in some patients, depression and mania may rapidly alternate, known as rapid cycling. The disorder has been subdivided into bipolar I, bipolar II and cyclothymia based on the type and severity of mood episodes experienced. Also called bipolar affective disorder until recently, the current name is of fairly recent origin and refers to the cycling between high and low episodes; it has replaced the older term manic-depressive illness coined by Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) in the late nineteenth century. The new term is designed to be neutral, to avoid the stigma in the non-mental health community that comes from conflating "manic" and "depression."

Confession of sins is part of the Christian faith and practice. The meaning is essentially the same as the criminal one - to admit one's guilt. Confession of one's sins, or at least of one's sinfulness, is seen by most churches as a pre-requisite for becoming a Christian. In Roman Catholic teaching, the Roman Catholic sacrament of Penance is the method given by Christ to the Roman Catholic Church by which individual men and women may confess sins committed after baptism and have them absolved by a priest. This sacrament is known by many names, including penance, reconciliation and confession. While official Church publications always refer to the sacrament as "Penance", "Reconciliation" or "Penance and Reconciliation", many lay Roman Catholics continue to use the term "confession" in reference to the sacrament.

In Western medieval legend, a succubus, plural succubi, or succuba, plural succubae, is a demon who takes the form of a beautiful woman to seduce men in dreams to have sexual intercourse. They draw energy from the men to sustain themselves, often until the point of exhaustion or death of the victim. From mythology and fantasy, Lilith and the Lilin and Lilitu are in redactive Christian fables considered succubi.

In Western medieval legend, a succubus, plural succubi, or succuba, plural succubae, is a demon who takes the form of a beautiful woman to seduce men in dreams to have sexual intercourse. They draw energy from the men to sustain themselves, often until the point of exhaustion or death of the victim. From mythology and fantasy, Lilith and the Lilin and Lilitu are in redactive Christian fables, considered succubi. According to the Malleus Maleficarum, or "Witches' Hammer", published against the recommendation of the Catholic Church in 1487 and officially banned in 1490, succubi would collect semen from the men they slept with, which incubi would then use to impregnate women thus explaining how demons could apparently sire children in spite of the traditional belief that demons were incapable of reproduction through generative or gestative means. Children so begotten were supposed to be more susceptible to the influence of demons.

Some authorities observe infidelity is involved in 90% of first time divorces. A 1997 study with Kristina Gordon found 'more than half of the marriages that experience infidelity ended in divorce'. By contrast John Gottman with his 35 years of research into marriage is reported as saying "Only 20 percent of divorces are caused by an affair. Most marriages die with a whimper, as people turn away from one another, slowly growing apart." Fifty United Kingdom divorce lawyers were asked to name the most common causes of their cases in 2003. Of those who cited extramarital affairs, 55% said it was usually the husbands and 45% said that it was the wives who cheated. In addition between 10-15% of children are conceived as a result of an affair. Infidelity that does not involve sex or conception may be referred to as a romantic friendship or an emotional affair. Sometimes infidelity at home occurs on-line, where it may be known as virtual sex. On-line infidelity can sometimes signify deeper problems of addiction that may need to be addressed in addition to any marital problems that might emerge from this behavior.

Transsexualism is a condition in which a person identifies with a physical sex different from the one that they were born with or assigned in cases where ambiguity of the child's sex organs led to assigning them a physical sex. Transsexualism is considered a taboo subject in many parts of the world and has become more widely known in Western nations in the late 20th century due to the sexual revolution, but remains a highly controversial topic. Negativism and discrimination about transsexualism may stem from religious beliefs or cultural norms however many cultures around the world and throughout time have not only held a place for transsexuals within their societies or even culturally sanction them, for example, the so-called two-spirit people in native American tribes.

Some places, such MI in the USA do not use the term "rape" at all in criminal codes. MI uses the term "criminal sexual conduct" for acts which colloquially would be referred to as "rape" or "sexual assault". The rape of women by men is the most frequent form of the assault, with an estimated 91% of rape victims being female and 9% being male while 99% of offenders are male. In almost every legal jurisdiction, children are considered unable to consent to sex with adults and thus the sexual abuse of children is considered to be a form of rape.

Histoire d'O (English title: Story of O) is an erotic novel published in 1954 about sadomasochism by French author Anne Desclos under the pen name Pauline Reage. Desclos did not reveal herself to be the author until four years before her death, forty years after its initial publication. Desclos said that she had written the novel as a series of love letters to her lover Jean Paulhan, who had admired the work of the Marquis de Sade.

Published in French by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, editeur, it is a story of female submission about a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer, O, who is blindfolded, chained, whipped, branded, pierced, made to wear a mask, and taught to be constantly available for oral, vaginal, and anal intercourse. Despite her harsh treatment, O grants permission beforehand for everything that occurs, and her permission is constantly sought. While her friend and lover, Jacqueline, is repulsed by O's chains and scars, O herself is proud of her condition as a willing slave.

O's lover, Rene, brings her to the chateau of Roissy, where she is trained to serve the men of an elite group. After the training is finished, Rene hands O to Sir Stephen, an even more dominant master. O falls in love with him. As final proof of her love O decides to move to Samois, an old mansion solely inhabited by women for advanced training. There she agrees to receive a branding and a labia piercing with rings as a final sign of dedication to her lifestyle. At the climax, O appears as a slave, nude but for an owl-like mask, before a large party of guests.

When individuals use the framework of dating for purposes other than assessing their date's suitability for them, misunderstandings can arise. One or both partners may initiate or accept dating invitations due to peer pressure, attention, a desire to escape from a social environment which they find stifling, a desire for acceptance, or a desire to humiliate; these motives can be strong enough to cause the person to deceive themselves and others when challenged, claiming and believing that they are mainly acting in good faith. This can lead to being "stood up". Many kids have short relationships because they are not mature enough to handle the responsibility.

The sexual revolution refers to the well documented changes in sexual behavior throughout the Western world that continue to evolve. In general use, the sexual revolution is attributed to the changing trends in social thought, witnessed from the 1960s into the early 1970s. Although the term has been used at least since the late 1920s. During the 1960s and 1970s fundamental changes were made on how society viewed its sexuality, heralding a period of de-conditioning away from old world antecedents, and developing new codes of sexual behavior many of which are now integrated into the mainstream. The 1960s and 1970s heralded a new culture of "free love" with millions of young people embracing the hippie ethos and preaching the power of love and the beauty of sex as a natural part of ordinary life. Hippies believed that sex was a natural biological phenomenon which should not be denied or regressed.

Before the 1960s, dating as we know it did not exist. Those who dated did so with the intent of finding a future marriage partner. Today this is referred to as courting. After the women's movement, the men's movement, the sexual revolution, and other movements that have shaped modern Western culture, this "old-fashioned" form of dating waned in popularity, giving way to what became known as "hanging out" and "hooking up". Formal dating, where one person contacts another person to arrange a date became replaced with more casual encounters, including casual sexual encounters. In recent years, a number of college newspapers have featured editorials where students decry the lack of "dating" on their campuses. This may be a result of a highly-publicized 2001 study and campaign sponsored by the conservative American women's group Independent Women's Forum, which promotes "traditional" dating.

Monogamy is the custom or condition of having only one mate in a relationship, thus forming a couple. The word monogamy comes from the Greek word monos, which means one or alone, and the Greek word gamos, which means marriage or union. Serial monogamy is having no more than one sexual partner at a time but allows for multiple partners in a lifetime. In western culture serial monogamy is common with individuals before they start a family, due to divorce rates.

Courtship is the traditional dating period before engagement and marriage. During a courtship a couple dates to get to know each other and decide if there will be an engagement. Usually courtship is a public affair, done in public and with family approval. It includes activities such as dating where couple go together for a dinner, a movie, dance parties, a picnic, shopping or general "hanging out", along with other forms of activity. Acts such as meeting on the internet or virtual dating, chatting on-line, sending text messages or picture messages, conversing over the telephone, writing each other letters, and sending each other flowers, songs, and gifts constitute wooing.

An engagement is a promise to marry, and also refers to the time between proposal and marriage. During this period, a couple is said to be affianced, engaged to be married, or simply engaged. The concept of an engagement period may have begun in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council, headed by Pope Innocent III, which decreed that "marriages are to be ... announced publicly in the churches by the priests during a suitable and fixed time, so that if legitimate impediments exist, they may be made known." Such a formal church announcement of the intent to marry is known as banns. In some jurisdictions, reading the banns may be part of one type of legal marriage. The modern Western form of the practice of giving or exchanging engagement rings is traditionally thought to have begun in 1477 when Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor gave Mary of Burgundy a diamond ring as an engagement present.

How do two friends fall in love with each other? They meet, befriend each other, hang around a few years, and eventually fall in love. But does it last? Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. But who can say if it always works out? Humans do not have the gift of foresight. So all the friends-turned-lovers can do is just go with the flow of their new romance and hope for the best. The term romantic friendship refers to a very close but non-sexual relationship between friends, often involving a degree of physical closeness beyond that common in modern Western societies, for example holding hands, cuddling, sharing a bed, as well as open expressions of love for one another.

Innocence is a term that describes the lack of guilt of an individual, with respect to a crime. It may also be used to indicate a general lack of guilt, with respect to any kind of crime, sin, or wrongdoing. It can also refer to a state of unknowing, where one's experience is lesser, in either a relative view to social peers, or by an absolute comparison to a more common normative scale. In contrast to ignorance, it is generally viewed as a positive term, connoting a blissfully positive view of the world, in particular one where the lack of knowledge stems from a lack of wrongdoing, whereas greater knowledge comes from doing wrong. This connotation may be connected with a popular false etymology explaining "innocent" as meaning "not knowing".

Marriage or wedlock is an interpersonal relationship, usually intimate and sexual, with governmental, social, or religious recognition. It is often created as a contract or through civil processes. Civil marriage is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution. The most common form of marriage unites one man and one woman as husband and wife. Other forms of marriage also exist: for example, polygamy-in which a person takes more than one spouse, marriage partner,-is common in many societies. In some jurisdictions civil marriage has been expanded to include same-sex marriage. People marry for many reasons, but usually one or more of the following: legal, social and economic stability; the formation of a family unit; procreation and the education and nurturing of children; legitimizing sexual relations; public declaration of love; or to obtain citizenship.

Hedonism, as an ethical theory, claims that good and bad consist ultimately in pleasure and pain. Many hedonists, such as Epicurus, emphasize avoiding suffering over pursuing pleasure, because they find that the greatest happiness lies in a tranquil state free from pain and from the worrisome pursuit or unwelcome consequences of pleasure. For stoicism, the greatest good lies in reason and virtue, but the soul best reaches it through a kind of indifference to pleasure and pain: as a consequence, this doctrine has become identified with self-control in front of even the worst sufferings. Jeremy Bentham developed hedonistic utilitarianism, a popular doctrine in ethics, politics, and economics. Bentham argued that the right act or policy was that which would cause "the greatest happiness of the greatest number". He suggested a procedure called hedonic or felicific calculus, for determining how much pleasure and pain would result from any action. John Stuart Mill improved and promoted the doctrine of hedonistic utilitarianism. Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, proposed a negative utilitarianism, which prioritizes the reduction of suffering over the enhancement of happiness when speaking of utility: "I believe that there is, from the ethical point of view, no symmetry between suffering and happiness, or between pain and pleasure. (...) human suffering makes a direct moral appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who is doing well anyway." David Pearce's utilitarianism asks straightforwardly for the abolition of suffering. Many utilitarians, since Bentham, hold that the moral status of a being comes from its ability to feel pleasure and pain: moral agents should therefore consider not only the interests of human beings but also those of animals. Richard Ryder developed such a view in his concepts of 'speciesism' and 'painism'. Peter Singer, with his book Animal Liberation and other writings, represents the leading edge of this kind of utilitarianism.

Voyeurism is a practice in which an individual derives sexual pleasure from observing other people. Such people may be engaged in sexual acts, or be nude or in underwear, or dressed in whatever other way the "voyeur" finds appealing. The word derives from French verb voir (to see) with the -eur suffix that translates as –er in English. A literal translation would then be "seer" or "observer", with pejorative connotations. Also, the word voyeur can define someone who receives enjoyment from witnessing other people's suffering or misfortune; see schadenfreude.

A wedding is a ceremony that celebrates the beginning of a marriage or civil union. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. In some countries, cultures and religions, the actual act of marriage begins during the wedding ceremony. In others, the legal act of marriage occurs at the time of signing a marriage license or other legal document, and the wedding is then an opportunity to perform a traditional ceremony and celebrate with friends and family. A woman being married is called a bride, a man called a bridegroom, after the ceremony they become a wife and a husband. Nuptial is the adjective of "wedding". It is used for example in zoology to denote plumage, coloration, behavior, etc related to or occurring in the mating season.

Obsessive love is a form of love where one person is emotionally obsessed with another. They state four conditions to help identify it, namely, a painful and all-consuming preoccupation with a real or wished-for lover, an insatiable longing either to possess or be possessed by the target of their obsession, rejection by or physical and/or emotional unavailability of their target, and being driven to behave in self-defeating ways by this rejection or unavailability. Two characteristics indicative of obsessive love are:

Obsessive lovers believe that only the person they fixate on can make them feel happy and fulfilled.

Persons close to the love-obsessed can also be greatly affected. Witnessing a friend or family member suffer from the disorder can be distressing.

Forms/stages of obsessive love:

Obsessive love is a form of love where one person is emotionally obsessed with another.

Love addiction is a process addiction where a person becomes attached to another in an unhealthy, dependent manner.

Relationship addiction is a process addiction where a person becomes addicted to his or her relationship.

Codependency is a term used to describe when a person becomes dependent upon another for emotional and physical validation.

Sexual obsessions are obsessions with sex, and in the context of Obsessive-compulsive disorder these are extremely common. Sexual obsessions can become extremely debilitating, making the sufferer ashamed of the symptoms and reluctant to seek help. Preoccupation with sexual matters, however, does not only occur as a symptom of OCD and may be enjoyable in other contexts. This article focuses on unwanted sexual obsessions.

Cohabitation is an emotionally- and physically-intimate relationship which includes a common living place and which exists without legal or religious sanction. Couples commonly choose to live together for one or more reasons: wanting to test compatibility or establish financial security before marrying, a desire to live as married when same-sex, interracial, or interreligious marriages are not legal or permitted, living with someone before marriage as a way to avoid divorce, a way for polygamists to avoid anti-polygamy laws, a way to avoid the higher income taxes paid by some two-income married couples in the United States, negative effects on pension payments among older people, and seeing little difference between the commitment to live together and the commitment to marriage.

Lolita is a slang term for a seductive, sexually attractive, or sexually precocious young girl. In the marketing of pornography, "lolita" is used to refer to any attractive woman who has only recently reached the age of consent, or sometimes to refer to women who appear to be younger than the age of consent. The term originated in the 1955 novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov where it was the nickname given to the young girl, Dolores, with whom the narrator, Humbert Humbert, has sexual relations. In the book itself, "Lolita" is specifically Humbert's nickname for Dolores, and "nymphet" is the general term for the type of young girl to whom Humbert is attracted, Dolores being one of them. In the novel, Humbert defines nymphets as being between the ages of nine and fourteen. However, commerce has preferred to use the girl's name, and to make "lolitas" attractive (in film adaptations and pornography) to a much wider audience than the small number of nymphets which Humbert believes to exist.

The term "lolita" has come to represent an archetypal image of an under-aged sexualized nymphet. This image is used often in advertising and many other aspects of popular culture, from movies to magazines - if not as sexualized children then as adult women made to appear childlike. In her article on the use of the "lolita" concept in advertising, Debra Merskin argued that the sexualization of children in the media has the potential to contribute to the increasing problem of child sexual abuse by indirectly condoning the use of children in inappropriate sexual contexts (2004). The phrase lolita complex or lolicon is popular in modern-day Japan to refer to a prurient interest in actual or manga or anime depictions of young girls. There is also a style of dress in Japan, often worn by Visual Kei musicians and their fans, called "Lolita" that is intended to evoke the look of a young girl. Lolita clothing styles range from Classic Lolita or Gothic Lolita to Sweet Lolita or "Ama Lolita." A Woolworths retail store chain in the U.K. briefly marketed a bed designed for six-year-old girls as "The Lolita," but the product line was pulled from stores after complaints from concerned parents.

A nymphet is seen to be a sexually precocious, attractive girl, and was notably used by French author Pierre de Ronsard, and popularized by Vladimir Nabokov in the novel Lolita. In Lolita, protagonist Humbert Humbert uses it to describe the 9-14-year-old girls to whom he is attracted. In today's popular press the term is sometimes applied to women in their late teens or early twenties. The archetypal nymphet is the character Lolita of Vladimir Nabokov's novel. Nabokov, in the voice of his narrator Humbert, first describes these nymphets in the following passage:

"Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as 'nymphets.' It will be marked that I substitute time terms for spatial ones. In fact, I would have the reader see "nine" and "fourteen" as the boundaries - the mirrory beaches and rosy rocks - of an enchanted island haunted by those nymphets of mine and surrounded by a vast, misty sea."

For Humbert, a nymphet is in the earliest stages of puberty - "The bud-stage of breast development appears early (10.7 years)". When he meets a streetwalker of 18, he considers her no longer a nymphet, although her body is still in some ways childlike.

Lolicon, also Romanized as rorikon, is a slang portmanteau of the phrase "Lolita complex". In Japan, the term describes an attraction to young girls, or an individual with such an attraction. Outside Japan, the term is less common and most often refers to a genre of manga and anime wherein childlike female characters are depicted in an erotic manner. The phrase is a reference to Vladimir Nabokov's book, Lolita, in which a middle-aged man becomes sexually obsessed with a 12-year-old girl. The equivalent term for the sexualization of or attraction to young boys is shotacon. Some critics claim that the lolicon genre contributes to actual sexual abuse of children, while others claim that there is no evidence for this, or that there is evidence to the contrary. Several countries have attempted to criminalize lolicon's sexually explicit forms as a type of child pornography. Generally, lolicon is a term used to describe a sexual attraction to younger girls, or girls with underdeveloped secondary sexual characteristics. In other words, it can refer to actual or perceived pedophilia and ephebophilia. Strictly speaking, Lolita complex in Japanese refers only to the paraphilia itself, but the abbreviation lolicon can refer to an individual that has the paraphilia as well. Lolicon is a widespread phenomenon in Japan, where it is a frequent subject of scholarly articles and criticism. Many general bookstores and newsstands openly offer illustrated lolicon material, but there has also been police action against lolicon manga. There are also stores that specifically target the lolicon audience. The consumers are said to be white-collar workers in their 20s and 30s who do not complain about the high prices of lolicon merchandise such as figurines and accessories.

The "kawaii" style is extremely popular in Japan, where it is present in all the manga/anime styles. The school-aged girl in a school uniform is also an erotic symbol in Japan, comparable to the image of a woman in a mini-skirt in the United States. Burusera shops cater to men with lolicon complexes by selling unwashed panties, men can make dates with teenagers through terekura ("telephone clubs"), and school girls moonlight as prostitutes in Tokyo. Together, these create the "strange collusion which exists in Japanese culture between the hentai and the kawaii." Conversely, the great cultural respect associated with old age would make it incompatible with portraying ecchi behavior in manga, except in a greatly exaggerated farce context (typical examples being "Dirty Old Men", Dragon Ball's Muten-Roshi, Master Happosai in Ranma 1/2).

Gambling has a specific economic definition, referring to wagering money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods. Typically, the outcome of the wager is evident within a short period of time. The term gaming in this context typically refers to instances in which the activity has been specifically permitted by law. The two words are not mutually exclusive; i.e., a “gaming” company offers legal “gambling” activities to the public. This distinction is not universally observed in the English-speaking world, however. For instance, in the UK, the regulator of gambling activities is called the Gambling Commission not the Gaming Commission.

Risk is a concept that denotes a potential negative impact to some characteristic of value that may arise from a future event, or we can say that "Risks are events or conditions that may occur, and whose occurrence, if it does take place, has a harmful or negative effect". Exposure to the consequences of uncertainty constitutes a risk. In everyday usage, risk is often used synonymously with the probability of a known loss. Risk communication and risk perception are essential factors for all human decision making. There are many definitions of risk that vary by specific application and situational context. Risk is described both qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitatively, risk is proportional to both the expected losses which may be caused by an event and to the probability of this event. Greater loss and greater event likelihood result in a greater overall risk. Frequently in the subject matter literature, risk is defined in pseudo-formal forms where the components of the definition are vague and ill-defined, for example, risk is considered as an indicator of threat, or depends on threats, vulnerability, impact and uncertainty.