sexuality

Noun

sexuality (countable and uncountable, plural sexualities)

1. The quality of being sexual; that which is characterized or distinguished by sex.
   • Sexuality, then, is related to both biological sex and gender, and simultaneously is quite distinct from them. […] We employ sexuality to refer to all kinds of sexual relations, including sexual activities, eroticism, sexual identities, sexual meanings, and sexual politics.2000, Barbara L. Voss, Robert A. Schmidt, “Archaeologies of Sexuality: An Introduction”, in Robert A. Schmidt, Barbara L. Voss, editors, Archaeologies of Sexuality, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge...
   • An alternative pattern of change from sexuality to asexuality in Ascomycotina could involve the widespread occurrence of female sterility. Both asexuality and 'female sterility' are widespread in Ascomycotina, and this may indicate that many ascomycotous Fungi Anamorphici have lost sexuality by a...2003, John Harrison Burnett, Fungal Populations and Species, Oxford University Press on Demand, →ISBN, page 282

   Antonyms:

   asexuality

   1. Sexual activity; concern with, or interest in, sexual activity.
      • [W]hen adults with mild mental retardation are allowed to express their sexuality in appropriate ways, they are, in general, competent in terms of biological capability, sexual desire, and the psychological significance they attribute to sexual behavior[…]. However, they typically lack basic...1995, Betty N. Gordon, Carolyn S. Schroeder, Sexuality: A Developmental Approach to Problems (Clinical Child Psychology Library), New York, N.Y.; London: Plenum Press, →ISBN, page 119
      • Listening to teenage girls on the telephone discuss for an hour who held whose hand at a party underscores the universal adolescent fascination with burgeoning sexuality.1998, Susan Moore, Doreen Rosenthal, “Adolescent Sexual Behaviour”, in John Coleman, Debi Roker, editors, Teenage Sexuality: Health, Risk and Education, Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge...
   2. Sexual potency.
      • As his sexual activity is aggressive, so he is interested in display and in manifestation of his sexuality, if not directly, then in contest against other men. And the whole of his life manifests his inner need to take initiative.1985, Paul M. Quay, The Christian Meaning of Human Sexuality, San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius Press, →ISBN
      • [Thomas] Hardy relies heavily upon the natural object metaphor to provide him with a language of female sexuality that is not of the fastidious, fey, 'lilies-and-lace' category. In keeping with his heterodox views—that a voluptuous woman is a fair product of nature, fit and healthy in body and...1988, Rosemarie Morgan, Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy, London: Routledge, →ISBN, page 35
   3. Sexual orientation.
      • [T]his prospective gay adoptive father chose not to disclose his sexuality to the caseworker who interviewed him at his home, rather than admit that he was a gay man, in order to avoid being told he could not adopt.2011, Rosie Harding, Regulating Sexuality: Legal Consciousness in Lesbian and Gay Lives, Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 101
      • Derek is the only participant to express ambivalence about both his sexuality and his gender identity. Aged 61, he has been married to women twice and has three children. He had no prior sexual encounters with men until he left his second wife in 1999, when he was 48, and began 'experimenting' with...2016, Sue Westwood, Ageing, Gender and Sexuality: Equality in Later Life (Routledge Research in Gender and Society; 49), London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN
   4. Sexual identity, gender.