Shailene Woodley Says The Way "Sex Is Presented" In The U.S. Is "Fabricated" And Lacks "True Intimacy"

Shailene Woodley recently appeared on the She MD podcast to discuss health, healing, and empowering young women. The Divergent star touched on intimacy and sexuality in today’s culture. 

While liberal media glamorizes sex, Woodley compared American media’s approach to sex as "bacon hanging in front of a dog." She explained how sex is tantalizingly present yet often leaves us unfulfilled, that Hollywood and porn’s portrayal of sex is not real. "The way that sex is presented on the surface in this country is so fabricated," Woodley explained. "It’s such a performance instead of true intimacy, vulnerability, and connection." 

This distorted representation can impact our intimacy. The 32-year-old actress goes on to say that sex has the power to either "make or break a person's spirit," depending on the circumstances surrounding it. It's incredibly refreshing to hear a celebrity tell the truth to women rather than encourage them to have casual sex with men who simply want them for their bodies. She added that sex is "something that needs to be handled with a lot of care."

"I do think there is a lack of conversation when it comes to the care," Woodley shared.

The Three Women star advocates for viewing sex as a "dance," an exchange of energy that should be cherished rather than commodified. "I was very lucky in my life as a young person discovering myself and my body to have a partner at the time who loved to dance," she revealed. "I always call [sex] a dance because it's a dance. We're exchanging energy. Sometimes the dance is a really fast tango, and sometimes it's a really slow groove, sometimes it's loud, and sometimes it's soft."

Woodley also wishes people could recognize that what is typically presented as sex is more like a cheap substitute for the meaningful connections that could occur between two partners. As Woodley puts it, “If people knew what was possible with sex, they would look at porn and go, ‘Oh god, this is like junk food. This is what we’re being sold?’”

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