6 Times Celebrities Got Real About Masturbation
Celebs open up about masturbation
Not only is masturbation normal and healthy, but it can have real perks, from improving your sex life to relieving period cramps to helping you sleep. But for whatever reason, many women still don't feel totally comfortable doing it: In a recent national survey published in Plos One, one in five women said they had never engaged in self-stimulation. Ever.
"There are so, so many different benefits of masturbation for women," Los Angeles-based sex therapist Vanessa Marin told Health in a previous interview. But many of her clients feel clueless when it comes to self-love, she says. "These really smart, successful, super-accomplished women would come into my office and say, ‘I’ve never really masturbated, and I feel very embarrassed. I should have figured it out, but I haven’t.’ I saw this over and over again in my practice."
The good news? Some of our favorite A-listers are helping to open the dialogue—and reduce the stigma—on solo sex by candidly discussing their own bedroom habits.
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Gina Rodriguez
The Jane the Virgin actress got real about masturbation in an interview with Bust earlier this year. "In all honesty, I used to feel guilty for masturbating," she said. "Oh my God, this extreme guilt! And that lasted way too long. Or maybe I masturbated too much!"
But Rodriguez has since overcome those feelings of guilt and now has a healthier mindset about solo sex. "It’s okay to look back in retrospect and be like, it wasn't good that I felt bad about touching myself," she said.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal
After filming the movie Hysteria, the true story of the invention of the vibrator, Gyllenhaal quipped that the best part of the role was unsolicited sex toy gifts. "By the time I finished the movie I'd been sent maybe 15 vibrators by different people in London with vibrator stores," she told reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere in 2011. "It was a pleasant surprise."
The actress is also a proponent of making it less taboo to depict female masturbation onscreen; in an interview with Time Out New York, she revealed that she suggested a masturbation scene for Candy, her character in The Deuce. "I told [show creator David Simon] early on that we get to see so much performative sex as a financial transaction, watching women dressing and coming in the way men want, with little to do with their own desire," she recalled. "I said, 'Maybe you could have a scene where I masturbate?' And he wrote it beyond what I could have imagined."
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Taylor Momsen
Gossip Girl's Little J is not a fan of the female masturbation taboo. "I'm a promoter of masturbation," she said in a 2010 interview with the Guardian. "Don't sleep around—learn yourself first! Guys do, but girls don't. And that's why girls have so many bad experiences. But you can know your body, know yourself, know what feels good. You don't have to give yourself away just to have sexual relevance. Because I don't think sex is something people should be afraid of. It's part of human nature, so I don't think it should be so shameful—particularly for girls and young girls."
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Shailene Woodley
"As a young woman you don’t learn how to pleasure yourself, you don’t learn what an orgasm should be, you don’t learn that you should have feelings of satisfaction," Woodley said in an interview with Porter last year.
And if the actress is ever looking for a second career path, she might consider becoming a sex-positive author. "I’ve always had a dream of making a book called There’s No Right Way to Masturbate," she said.
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Emma Watson
When the Beauty and the Beast actress sat down with feminist icon Gloria Steinem for a talk in London last year, she revealed that she's a big fan of the website OMGYES.com. "It's based on research, which is a complete study on female sexuality," she said. "It's a pretty cool website. I wish it had been around longer."
OMGYES aims to "lift the veil on women's sexual pleasure" through videos and instructional forums. "Definitely check it out," Watson said. "It's an expensive subscription, but worth it."
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Hailee Steinfeld
With lyrics like "Gonna love myself, no, I don't need anybody else," many fans were quick to point out that Steinfeld's hit 2015 song "Love Myself" was a clear nod to self-stimulation. Another tip-off: the "Self-Service" T-shirt she wore in the music video.
