sexual taboos
Society's bedroom restrictions
Sexual taboos are practices, desires, or topics related to sex that a culture treats as forbidden, shameful, or unspeakable.
What counts as taboo varies enormously across societies and eras—incest and sex with minors are near-universal prohibitions, while attitudes toward premarital sex, homosexuality, or masturbation shift dramatically by time and place.
The phrase often appears in discussions of what arouses precisely because it's forbidden: The thrill came from violating sexual taboos.
Taboos may be codified in law or enforced through social stigma alone.
- adulteryMarried person's sexual betrayal
- shamePainful awareness of failure
- scarlet letterMark of public shame
- repressionUnconscious blocking of thoughts
- modestyAbsence of vanity
sodomy laws · stigma · consent · age of consent · family honor · chastity · guilt · open secret · gender roles · celibacy · sexual diversity · marital rape · sexual ethics · obscenity · indecency · public decency · purity · sinfulness
- sexual customssexual norms, marriage customs, courtship, virginity, chastity
- sexual ethicssexual morality, sexual ethics, chastity, adultery, consent
- ancient sexualityfertility rites, fertility cults, sacred marriage, sex magic, erotic art
sexual taboossexual liberation
Freedom in intimate matters
sexual freedom · sex positivity · free love · sexual revolution · sex education