Brooke Shields, 56, says sex for her has been an evolution: 'It wasn't until my 40s that I started thinking of sex as my experience'

Actress and model Brooke Shields gets candid about sex, aging and owning her body.

Video Transcript

BROOKE SHIELDS: I believe that it's a misconception that women can't be sexy over a certain age. The acceptance of our bodies come at a later date. I live much more in my body now than I ever did.

My body actually feels like it belongs to me. And I can't say that about my youth.

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I think there is a misconception that if you are not of childbearing ability, you don't seem to matter in the world. Because you do not keep the world going anymore. There's vitality in us. And I think that shows itself sexually.

It shows itself with an adventure. It shows itself in confidence. We walk into rooms now and kind of think, well, I got nothing to lose. There's an uncomplicated nature to it. Confidence is the sexiest thing that I've ever encountered.

I was wearing a bathing suit because I was visiting my sister and our whole family. And she just put a cold plunge into her backyard, and I wanted to challenge myself. It was just this sort of celebration and doing something a little uncomfortable.

I'm continually learning how to love myself. It's not something that's easy. Society doesn't make it easy for us. And then you've got social media, which doesn't make it easy.

Beginningisnow is a 360-degree well-being platform for women over 40. 40 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 to 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. 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 offense to humanity for being a Catholic, not married, and I had so much guilt. My 30s, it wasn't really about being sexy. It was having your body work to create something. That was like a 10-year kind of journey.

And 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. I want them to feel more in control and not ashamed of anything. 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.

I'm not tied to what the outside is for my self-esteem. And I think that's a miracle coming through this business, and being in it as long as I have. My currency wasn't the outside. It's about vitality, not aging.

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