Sexual acts in the context of "Human bonding"

The consummation of a marriage, or simply consummation, is the first officially credited act of sexual intercourse following marriage. In many traditions and statutes of civil or religious law, the definition usually refers to penile–vaginal penetration (i.e., heterosexual), and some religious doctrines hold an additional requirement prohibiting contraception. In this sense, "a marriage is consummated only if the conjugal act performed deposits semen in the vagina."

The religious, cultural, or legal significance of consummation may arise from theories of marriage as having the purpose of producing legally recognized descendants of both partners, or of providing sanction to their sexual acts together, or both, and its absence may amount to treating a marriage ceremony as falling short of completing the state of being married, or as creating a marriage which may later be repudiated. Thus, in some legal systems, a marriage may be annulled if it has not been consummated. Consummation is also relevant in the case of a common-law marriage. The historical importance of consummation has resulted in the development of various bedding rituals.

Sexual abuse or sex abuse is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using physical force, or by taking advantage of another. It often consists of a persistent pattern of sexual assaults. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser. Live streaming sexual abuse involves trafficking and coerced sexual acts, or rape, in real time on webcam.

Molestation refers to an instance of sexual assault, especially when perpetrated against a child. The perpetrator is called (often pejoratively) a molester. The term also covers behavior by an adult or older adolescent towards a child to sexually stimulate any of the involved. The use of a child for sexual stimulation is referred to as child sexual abuse and, for pubescent or post-pubescent individuals younger than the age of consent, statutory rape.

The early United States inherited sodomy laws which constitutionally outlawed a variety of sexual acts deemed illegal, illicit, unlawful, unnatural or immoral from the colonial-era based laws in the 17th century. While these laws often targeted sexual acts between persons of the same sex, many sodomy-related statutes employed definitions broad enough to outlaw certain sexual acts between persons of different sexes, in some cases even including acts between married persons.

Through the mid to late 20th century, the gradual decriminalization of consensual sexual acts led to the elimination of anti-sodomy laws in most U.S. states. During this time, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of its sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986. In 2003, the Supreme Court reversed that decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which invalidated any state sodomy laws, some of which were still law in the following 14 states: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia.