Brooke Shields says sex has got better for her over the years.
The actress, 56, revealed she is “continually learning how to love myself” in an interview with Yahoo! Life.
“Sex for me it has really evolved. My 20s, I was always terrified of it, because I was a virgin until I was 22.
“You know, I thought I was committing an offence to humanity for being a Catholic, not married, and I had so much guilt.”
The mother, who shares daughters Rowan, 18, and 15-year-old Grier with husband Chris Henchy, continues: “It wasn’t until my 40s that I started thinking of sex as my experience, not someone else’s experience that I just navigated.
“What I want my daughters to know is that it’s a joint decision.
“Even with as woke as everybody is, you’d be shocked at how they see themselves within relationships. I don’t want them ever to feel used,” the actress says.
READ MORE: Brooke Shields Says Barbara Walters’ Innuendo-Laced Interview At Age 15 Was ‘Practically Criminal’
Shields adds of aging, “Forty felt that, all of a sudden, I was an adult. Fertility was changing for me. It was difficult for me to have children. I did IVF seven times.
“And my career, I was being told sort of, ‘Oh, you’re not viable once you’re 40.’ We’re not at the end the way people are living now. We’re at a new beginning. And so I kept saying I just feel like I’m beginning. I just feel like I’m beginning.
“I wanted to market that, to help women really sort of find the courage and take the chances, and the resilience, that they’ve had to get this far and really kind of embrace the next chapter.”
Shields, who was previously married to tennis player Andre Agassi, says of Henchy, whom she married in 2001: “I do have a wonderful husband who celebrates me. He loves me at every stage, which I’m very blessed by.
“When you start off in a relationship, it’s like this — it’s magnetic. And then all of a sudden, it’s about having children. And then your body is really your babies’. And you’re bigger, and you sort of are, like, ‘Oh, I wonder if that’s sexy.’
“And it takes talking to your partner, for sure. You have to carve out time to remind yourself that you are in this relationship first. Now I’m not saying it takes precedence over your children. Children are everything.
“But you can’t lose sight of date night or romance. You don’t want it to become, like, a chore, you know? With age comes this sense of confidence and knowledge. And I think that that’s not the predominant message out there.”
