A glossary of sex, sexuality, relationships, kink and adult wellbeing.

Abuse versus consensual power exchange

The distinction between negotiated, withdrawable adult role authority and patterns of coercion, fear, isolation or control that remove meaningful choice.

Accessible and adaptive design

Design and adaptation that reduce barriers across varied mobility, dexterity, strength, sensation, cognition, communication and assistance needs.

Accountability, apology and repair

Processes for acknowledging impact, stopping harmful conduct, accepting appropriate consequences and making changes intended to prevent recurrence. An apology does not require forgiveness or reconciliation.

Adult age play

Also: age role-play · ageplay

Role-play between adults in which one or more participants adopt a deliberately age-coded persona, caregiving role or changed social position. Chronological age and adult status do not change: the role remains a negotiated adult fiction.

Adult Baby/Diaper Lover

Also: ABDL · adult baby · diaper lover

An adult-only umbrella for overlapping interests that may involve age-role or regression-themed play, negotiated caregiving, nappies as garments or objects, comfort, ritual, identity, or some combination of these. Adult Baby and Diaper Lover are related but distinct labels; not everyone identifies with both.

Adult sexting

Consensual exchange of sexual or intimate words, images or recordings between adults, with separate decisions about content, recipients, storage and reuse.

Aftercare

Planned support or communication after a consensual kink or BDSM scene, used to help participants move out of roles, attend to comfort and make sense of the experience. It may be emotional, social or practical, and its meaning and preferred form vary between people rather than following one universal routine.

Age of consent and adulthood

Separate legal concepts: the general age at which a person can consent to sexual activity is 16 across the UK, while a person under 18 remains a child for many safeguarding, image, exploitation and position-of-trust laws.

AI companions and sexuality

Conversational or embodied AI systems designed or used for ongoing relational, romantic or erotic interaction, often with persistent personas and personalised responses.

Anorgasmia

Persistent or recurrent absence, marked delay, infrequency or reduced intensity of orgasm despite wanting orgasm and receiving stimulation the person considers adequate, assessed in context and especially where it causes distress.

Armpit interest

Also: maschalagnia

A focused adult attraction to armpits that may involve appearance, scent, hair, clothing, movement or consensual intimacy.

Aromantic

An orientation generally describing little or no romantic attraction. Aromantic, often shortened to aro, can also serve as an umbrella for varied aro-spectrum experiences.

Arousal

A psychological and/or physiological response associated with sexual attention, meaning or stimulation. Subjective excitement and genital or other bodily responses may align imperfectly, and neither proves desire, pleasure or consent.

Arousal non-concordance

A difference between a person's reported experience of arousal and genital or other bodily responses. A bodily response cannot establish desire, enjoyment, identity or consent.

Asexual

An orientation generally describing little or no sexual attraction. Asexual, often shortened to ace, is also an umbrella for varied ace-spectrum experiences.

Balloon fetish

Also: looning · balloon interest

An adult interest in balloons that may centre on colour, shape, surface, movement, sound, inflation imagery, fragility or the anticipation of a pop. Community language includes “looning”, but people differ substantially and may enjoy, dislike or avoid popping.

BDSM

Also: bondage and discipline · dominance and submission · sadism and masochism

An umbrella term for consensual adult practices involving restraint, rules, power exchange, intense sensation or role-based experiences. Its initials commonly group bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism; not every participant is interested in every element.

Belly and abdominal interest

Also: belly fetish

A focused adult attraction to the abdomen, potentially involving shape, softness, movement, fullness, clothing, sound or consensual touch.

Bisexual

An orientation involving the potential for sexual and/or romantic attraction to more than one gender. Attraction need not be equal, simultaneous, constant or expressed through behaviour.

Blindfold play

The consensual reduction or removal of sight using a blindfold to alter anticipation, attention, sensory balance or role experience.

Blood and bodily-fluid exposure

Contact whose infection significance depends on the fluid, route, body site, skin integrity, amount and source context. A splash onto intact skin is not equivalent to a sharps injury or contact with eyes, mouth or broken skin.

Bodily autonomy

The principle that a person should direct decisions about their own body, health and sexuality, within the law and with equal respect for every other person's rights and autonomy.

Body worship

Focused, consensual admiration or ritual attention directed toward an adult partner's body or chosen feature, potentially expressing praise, devotion, service or power exchange.

Body-safe claims

Marketing language suggesting that a product or material is suitable for bodily contact; it is not one universal certification, test method or guarantee for every user and use.

Bondage

The consensual use or representation of restraint and restricted movement between adults for aesthetic, psychological, sensory or role-based meaning. Bondage ranges from symbolic imagery to technically complex restraint; it is distinct from detention, coercion or preventing someone from leaving without agreement.

Boot worship

Consensual ritual or focused attention to boots as objects, symbols of authority, materials, fashion or items worn by an adult partner.

Boundary

A limit a person sets around their body, time, information, relationships or participation. It identifies what they will or will not accept rather than granting control over another person.

Brat and brat-tamer dynamic

A consensual adult power dynamic in which negotiated cheekiness, provocation, testing or playful resistance invites an agreed response from a brat-tamer or other partner.

Breast interest

Also: mazophilia · breast fetish

A focused adult attraction to breasts or chest tissue, including appearance, movement, clothing, touch or symbolic associations.

Breath restriction interest

Also: breath play · sexual choking · erotic asphyxiation

An adult interest in fantasies or acts involving restricted breathing or blood flow. Community language often says sexual choking, while clinical and legal sources distinguish external neck compression as strangulation from choking on an internal obstruction. Every form of actual oxygen or blood-flow restriction can cause severe injury or death.

Bystander intervention

Safe action by a witness to interrupt, distract, document, delegate or seek help concerning potentially harmful behaviour.

Capacity to consent

The present, decision-specific ability to understand relevant information, use or weigh it and communicate a choice. The exact legal test depends on the UK jurisdiction and context.

Caregiver role

Also: Daddy/Mommy dynamic · CG/l

An adult role or relationship dynamic centred on negotiated nurturance, reassurance, guidance, structure or responsibility, with or without adult age-play elements.

Catfishing

Using a false or materially deceptive online identity to form or manipulate a relationship, which may range from misleading self-presentation to fraud, exploitation, blackmail or abuse.

Chastity play

A consensual dynamic in which access to sexual touch or release is symbolically or practically restricted for an agreed period. It may centre on anticipation, ritual, control or commitment rather than continuous device wear.

Check-in

A brief communication used to confirm comfort, capacity, consent or changing needs before, during or after an interaction.

Cleaning and disinfection

Cleaning physically removes soil and many microorganisms; disinfection uses a validated process to inactivate specified microorganisms on an inanimate surface. Neither term automatically means sterilisation.

Coercion

The use of force, threats, manipulation, control or serious pressure to obtain conduct that is not freely chosen.

Collaring

The consensual use or exchange of a collar as clothing, scene equipment or a symbol of role, commitment, belonging, protection, protocol or relationship meaning.

Community accountability

Collective, usually non-state processes intended to respond to harm, support affected people, establish responsibility and change individual or organisational conditions that enabled harm.

Compersion

A term for positive feelings about another person's pleasure or relationship. It may coexist with jealousy and is not required for ethical non-monogamy.

Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder

An ICD-11 impulse-control disorder involving a persistent failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses or urges, resulting in repetitive behaviour and marked distress or significant impairment over an extended period.

Condoms and barriers

Products used to reduce contact with bodily fluids or skin and lower the likelihood of some infections and/or pregnancy. Protection depends on material, fit, correct use and the exposure involved.

Consensual degradation

Also: degradation play

Negotiated psychological play using lowered status, language or ritual to create intensity. It overlaps with humiliation but may focus more on role and identity language than embarrassment.

Consensual exhibitionistic play

A staged adult scenario in which agreed visibility or display creates excitement. It belongs in private, controlled or specifically consenting settings; exposing non-consenting bystanders is outside this definition.

Consensual humiliation

Also: humiliation play

A negotiated form of psychological play in which embarrassment, teasing or status difference is used for intensity. Because language can have lasting effects, participants often define subjects and words that remain off-limits.

Consensual non-consent fantasy

Also: CNC · resistance role-play

A pre-negotiated adult fantasy that stages resistance, capture or apparent loss of control while real consent remains active, bounded and withdrawable outside the fiction.

Consensual non-monogamy

An umbrella for relationship structures in which adults knowingly agree that more than one sexual and/or romantic connection may occur.

Consensual objectification

Also: objectification play

Role-play in which a person is temporarily treated as a symbolic object, display or function under agreed conditions. The person’s real autonomy and right to stop remain intact throughout.

Consensual sleep fantasy

Also: consensual somnophilia

An adult fantasy involving sleep, apparent sleep or staged unresponsiveness, ethically explored through fiction or role-play while real participants retain capacity and communication.

Consensual voyeuristic play

A staged adult scenario in which being watched, or watching, is agreed by everyone involved. It is categorically different from observing an unaware person, invading privacy or recording without permission.

Consent

A person's freely chosen, informed and continuing agreement to a specific activity or interaction while they have capacity to decide. Consent can be conditional, paused or withdrawn and is not supplied by silence, a relationship, a role or previous participation.

Consent negotiation

Also: scene negotiation · boundary negotiation

An explicit and continuing process through which adults agree the scope of a kink or BDSM interaction, including roles, boundaries, communication, relevant risks and conditions that could affect capacity. Negotiation may happen before, during and after an interaction; it is not a contract that grants blanket or permanent permission.

Consent to bodily harm

The legally limited role consent may play when an activity causes injury. A private agreement does not automatically provide a defence to assault, and rules depend on harm, purpose, recognised exceptions and jurisdiction.

Consent versus compliance

The distinction between freely choosing an activity and merely going along because of fear, pressure, dependency, resignation or perceived consequences.

Consent violation

Conduct outside a person's freely given consent, including continuing after withdrawal or exceeding agreed scope. It is an umbrella description, not a substitute for legal or safeguarding assessment.

Contraception

Methods used to reduce the chance of pregnancy. Methods differ in effectiveness, duration, reversibility, side effects, user control and protection against sexually transmitted infections.

Conversion practices

Interventions or practices directed at changing, suppressing or preventing a person's sexual orientation or gender identity because one outcome is presumed preferable. They may be presented as therapy, counselling, prayer, discipline or support.

Counterfeit products

Goods or packaging presented without authorisation as a genuine brand product, potentially obscuring their source, composition, testing and accountability.

Cross-contamination

Unintended transfer of microorganisms, allergens, irritants or other substances between people, body sites, objects, hands or product containers.