Shailene Woodley opens up about her sex life, intimacy and why watching porn is like eating fast food.
During an interview on the podcast She MDWoodley, 32, spoke about a pivotal relationship where she discovered herself during their intimate moments together.
Shailene said the relationship started when she was “a young person discovering herself and her body,” and compared sex to dancing and exchanging “energy.”
She went on to criticize pornography for the way it portrays intimacy, comparing it to a McDonald’s restaurant.
“I’m a very sexual person, I always have been, and I was lucky enough when I was younger, when I was discovering myself and my body, to have a partner who loved to dance,” said the actress, who will play Janis Joplin in a new biopic.
Shailene Woodley spoke candidly about her sex life and why she thinks watching porn is like eating junk food; photo September 2024
“I always call it a dance because it is a dance. We exchange 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 really soft.”
“I had someone who helped me discover myself because we were comfortable with each other,” she said. “I think I did the same for him.”
“I wish I could teach sex education in some way,” she continued. “I personally don’t, but I go into a sex education curriculum and think, ‘How can we fix this and how can we change this a little bit?’”
Shailene then criticized the way sex was depicted, calling it “manufactured” and performative.
“The way sex is presented on the surface in this country is so manufactured,” she said. “And it’s such a performance rather than real intimacy and vulnerability and connection.”
She then compared porn to junk food, because it was just the tip of the iceberg of “what’s possible” during sex.
“If people knew what was possible with sex, they would look at porn and be like, ‘Oh God, this is like junk food,’” she said. “Pleasure is so important, and we just kill each other because I don’t think we even necessarily know what’s possible.”
‘And that’s my big problem with porn: I think, ‘You’re selling everyone McDonald’, while you could just as well say, ‘Wow.”
Shailene said the relationship started when she was a “young person discovering herself and her body,” comparing sex to a dance and “energy” exchange
“I’m a very sexual person, I always have been, and I was lucky enough to discover myself and my body when I was younger and to have a partner who loved dancing,” she said.
During an interview on the SHE MD podcast, Woodley, 32, opened up about a significant relationship that helped her “discover” herself during their intimate moments together
Shailene was last in a serious relationship with NFL star Aaron Rodgers.
They started dating in 2020, got engaged, but split for good two years ago.
She was in a relationship with Ben Volavola from 2017 to 2020.
The actress was previously linked to musician Nahko Bear of the band Nahko And Medicine For The People, as they were spotted together in 2015.
In August, People reported that she was seen on a date with a mystery man.
During that same interview with SHE MD, Shailene also spoke candidly about a “scary” and mysterious health issue she had in her early 20s, on the set of the Divergent franchise.
Shailene spoke about her experiences while filming the hugely popular science fiction series, where she struggled with many difficult issues including: hearing loss, hypothyroidism, fainting, food intolerances, PTSD and trauma reactions.
Shailene was last in a serious relationship with NFL star Aaron Rodgers
During that same interview, Shailene also spoke candidly about a “scary” mysterious health issue she experienced in her early 20s on the set of the Divergent franchise.
While she didn’t fully reveal what the issue was, she spoke openly about what she had been through, as she explained: “Yes. I can talk about it in a kind of abstraction. I haven’t said what it was exactly because that just feels like something personal that I don’t have to reveal.
“But essentially I was in a position in my early 20s. It got to the point where I was losing my hearing. I couldn’t walk for more than five minutes at a time without having to lie down and sleep for hours and hours and hours. Everything I ate hurt my stomach. It was this conflation of issues and diagnoses and different doctors telling me different things. And I come from a very holistic background and studied herbal medicine.”
Shailene explained that in addition to “independent healers,” she also worked with real doctors to get to the root of her issues.
She continued, “And it was a long journey, about a decade of relaxing and healing and getting healthy. And during that decade, a lot of other things came out of feeling so much physical discomfort, namely, oh my gosh, when everything I eat hurts my stomach, now I’m suddenly afraid of food.
“And then, the mental chaos that can arise from body dysmorphia and confusion about identity and feeling safe in my own capsule, in my own skin, and what that meant and what that was supposed to be.”
The actress explained that the issue eventually resolved itself physically and she is now healthy.
