Sex Education star Aimee Lou Wood has said that speaking about masturbation as a teenager was “a complete taboo” and that her sexual desires had made her feel like a “weirdo”.
The English actress, 24, plays Aimee in the hit Netflix show about socially awkward high school student Otis (Asa Butterfield) and his sex therapist mother Jean (Gillian Anderson), which is returning for a second series later this month.
The first series was praised by viewers for its frank depiction of sex and teenage emotion, and featured Wood’s character experimenting with masturbation.
Get in losers, the new term is starting. Sex Education s2 streaming 17 January 2020. pic.twitter.com/itDARGz5ba
— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) November 25, 2019
Wood told the PA news agency that she had been taught that women who enjoyed sex were “crazy” but that Sex Education had helped dispel that idea.
She said: “I really wish I’d seen something like (Sex Education) because I felt like a weirdo.
“Because we were taught that sex was for making babies and that was basically it.
“So, our pleasure was this enigmatic thing that didn’t really exist and it was always portrayed like, in American Pie, anyone who enjoyed sex was kind of the crazy nympho who’s a bit unhinged.
“So you think: ‘Oh, am I the crazy nympho that’s a bit unhinged because I’m definitely horny right now?’
“And then you go into school and you pretend that you’ve never experienced masturbation. Girls pretended like they didn’t even know what it was.”
Wood said she remembered “having really frank conversations” about other topics with her friends but that masturbation had remained “a complete taboo”.
She also said she had been pleased that she did not have to wear “sexy lingerie” in the scenes where her character masturbates.
She said: “While I was doing it at the time, I didn’t realise how… a little part of me was looking at the camera up there, the angels, and going, ‘bloody hell, this is unflattering. Jesus, put those massive pants on love’.
“I was thinking ‘oh God’ but then I knew it would be so much better if it was a bit ugly and unflattering and days-of-the-week pants rather than sexy lingerie, with some misty foggy lighting. Who does that?”
Series two of Sex Education launches on Netflix on Friday January 17.