Kinks, tips and Ben Affleck’s ‘technical excellence’: Welcome to the age of the celebrity sex overshare

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RObbie Williams and his wife Ayda Field rarely have sex. Rachel Bilson wants to be ‘fucking abused’ by her partners. Ben Affleck is “technically excellent” in the bedroom (according to Gwyneth Paltrow). And Christina Aguilera has dubbed herself the “Promoter of the Swallow.” These are just some of the most egregious sex-related confessions to come out of celebrities in recent weeks. And it seems they can’t stop sharing too much.

Most notable among them was pop star Meghan Trainor, who noted on her podcast Workin’ on It that her husband — Spy Kids actor and former child star Daryl Sabara — is a “big boy.” “[It’s] to the point where I’m like, ‘Is everything in there?’ and he’s like, ‘Just the tip,'” she confessed. Fans were quick to beg the “All About That Bass” singer to stop speaking. “Too much information,” they cried. Here’s a little sample from Twitter: “Honestly, Meghan can stop revealing things”; “I’m sick of them”; “She has to stop.” From then on, the backlash groaned on.

But while it’s easy to cringe at coded compliments like “technical excellence” and phrases like “big boy,” these celebrities could be doing us all a favor. When it comes to demystifying taboos around sex and intimacy, maybe honesty is the best policy? Even if it’s a little jarring.

In Trainor’s case, it quickly became apparent that her words had been taken out of context. No, she wasn’t just bragging about the size of her husband’s spy device, she actually spoke about her experiences with vaginismus, a relatively taboo psychosexual condition in which the vaginal muscles painfully tighten during penetrative sex. Trainor described feeling “stingy” and “burning” during sex, which always made it difficult for her to relax or even enjoy the act. “I thought that every woman walking around was always in pain during and after sex,” she explained. “I was like, ‘Doc, are you telling me I could have sex without feeling a bit of pain?'”

A similar kind of point-missing occurred with transgenerational heartthrob Robbie Williams. His claim in a recent interview that he and his wife hardly ever had sex anymore sounded like a lawsuit. But he also quickly made it clear what he meant: His desire for sex had dropped sharply after he started taking testosterone to treat depression. He also insisted that both he and Field are “content” with having less sex than when they first met — watching Netflix on the sofa is their favorite pastime these days. Williams was subsequently praised for challenging the idea that a couple needs to have a certain amount of sex each week to be “normal.”

American rapper Lil Dicky has also been discussing – in graphic detail – the size and appearance of his penis in recent weeks, but only to raise awareness of hypospadias, a condition he’s had since birth. Hypospadias is when the opening of the urethra is at the base of the penis rather than at the top and affects 1 in 300 boys. On the Call Her Daddy podcast, the rapper opened up about the insecurity he felt about his condition, adding that over time he’s learned to appreciate his penis. “I love my penis like you love a flawed Pixar character,” he joked.

While some of this may feel new, historically we’ve always known about the antics of famous people in the bedroom, from our new king’s desire to metaphorically become Queen Camilla’s tampon, to Jude Law’s affair with his children’s nanny — but only now that such talk comes from the horse’s mouth and not via leaked audio or invasion of privacy. We’ve also seen some stars in near-gyno detail — but only after their sex tapes were stolen and posted online without their permission. Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton, who both leaked sex tapes against their will in the early years of the internet, both released memoirs this year describing the horror of being abused by the world. Anderson has compared her sextape leak in 1995 to being sexually assaulted when she was a child. She told The Guardian that she was “raped by a 24-year-old friend of a friend” when she was 12, adding: “When the tape was stolen, that’s what it felt like.”

Meghan Trainor, who opened up about how her vaginismus affected her marriage to actor Daryl Sabara

(Getty)

Hilton has also said she felt “slandered” when her tape, which she claims she was forced to film, was sold online in 2003. She said this year she’s still haunted by the idea of ​​being “judged” for it. “It’s always in the back of my mind when I walk into a room and see people,” she told Glamor magazine.

Only now are we finally learning the truth about these experiences and not about the tabloids. The advent of celebrity-hosted podcasts and talk shows has also played a big part in this new trend. It was arguably sparked by Jada Pinkett-Smith’s Red Table Talk, an American talk show she hosts with her daughter Willow and her mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris, in which family and a special guest gather around the title’s red table to to discuss a range of topics that are often not safe for work (NSFW). In 2020, Pinkett-Smith brought herself to the table to admit she had an extramarital relationship with musician August Alsina, calling it an “entanglement” – her husband Will, meanwhile, sat across from her with a slightly broken gaze and spoke candidly about the state of their marriage.

It eventually served as a blueprint for the future. Today, celebrities flock to recording studios to spill the beans, led by the infamous Call Her Daddy, a popular podcast hosted by Alex Cooper in which she asks celebrities scandalous questions, and The High Low with EmRata, in the model Emily Ratajkowski invites celebrities over to spill the beans. Both have become synonymous with X-rated celebrity shots, so much so that baring the essence of your sex life is almost a must. American DJ Diplo, for example, recently went viral after telling Ratajkowski on her show that he had sexual experiences with other men.

Gwyneth Paltrow was a guest on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast last week.

(call her daddy)

There seems to be something about these environments that highlights the sexual honesty of famous people – be it the sense of a safe space or the illusion of intimacy. “Call Her Daddy,” for example, is recorded in a light and airy room with two sofas on either side, giving it the feel of a therapist’s office rather than a recording studio. This could explain why Gwyneth Paltrow was more than happy to talk about Ben Affleck’s sexual prowess or to call her other ex, Brad Pitt, the “love of her life” at the time they met in the mid-’90s.

Most importantly, all of these sex chats help humanize the kind of people who otherwise feel aloof. If stars continue to talk about sex on their own terms, the notion that celebrities have wild and torrid personal lives could be crushed for good. Some even rarely have sex. Sometimes it hurts some. And like the rest of us, they can get insecure when it comes to the little things.