Ah, the sex talk. It’s typical to realize it’s a lot more nuanced than the early conversations received in sex education or among family and friends growing up as one gets out there. As Nope lead Keke Palmer recently opened up about, Whoopi Goldberg was actually someone in her life who offered great sex advice that played into her own winding journey with exploring her sexuality further.
Last month, the former Nickelodeon star started a podcast available to stream with an Amazon Prime subscription called Baby, This Is Keke Palmer (opens in new tab). During the latest episode, titled “Has Porn Ruined Sex?”, the actress spoke to her relationship with doing the deed, saying this:
My identity with sex – it was always based upon, ‘Oh, I just gotta do this service. And my enjoyment, any enjoyment that I had at that era, in that point, in that time, came from, ‘I’m glad they’re happy.’ That was like, depressing and not enough because well I realized, like, ‘Well, wait a damn minute … this isn’t it’ you know what I’m saying?
Palmer shared that much of her thoughts on sex came from porn, but pursuing the kind of pleasure simulated in the porn industry was not it for her. The actress said that she’s “never actually had an actual happy ending” from going about sex that way and later realized a more “demure,” “calmer” and “more emotional approach” is her preferred kind of bedroom play. Palmer continued:
It was a journey of trying to figure out what works for me. I remember, I’ll never forget, I was on The View one time, and they were having a conversation about sex, a really great conversation, and Whoopi Goldberg said, ‘please just – start with pleasing yourself.’ And I was like, ‘That rings true.’
On the podcast, Palmer also shared that she’s a “very performative” person in her daily life, and at one time that translated to her sex life. It took her some time to realize that it was “not the kind of sex” she wanted to have, and would rather share a more emotional connection with a partner. Whoopi Goldberg offered her great advice too while they linked up on The View: pleasing yourself should be a key part of one’s sexual journey.
Now, Keke Palmer’s own experiences with sex are far from abnormal for women. Billie Eilish similarly called out porn for stunting her sexual journey, saying it “destroyed her brain” before she’d ever had sex and led her not say no to things that “were not good” because she thought she thought she was supposed to be attracted to a more abusive, violent form of sex.
Then there’s the Orgasm Gap, where studies have proven there to be uneven pleasure among many heterosexual couples. Per Forbes, Durex found that 20% of women found that they don’t orgasm during sex, in contrast to 2% of men. It’s great to hear more celebrities like Keke Palmer normalizing the sex talk with her recent words, along with her passing along advice she received during a conversation with fellow actress Whoopi Goldberg.
Aside from their deep conversations on sex, at one point when Palmer was on The View, she tried to shoot her shot to star with Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 3, and Goldberg was completely on board with the idea of the actress joining her in the upcoming movie being produced by Tyler Perry. As we cross our fingers that Goldberg and Palmer do team up for the next Sister Act, you can check out how to watch Keke Palmer’s movie and TV shows here on CinemaBlend.