Anna Kendrick likes Ryan Gosling. A lot. Apparently, this condition, which most women refer to as “Being Aware of Ryan Gosling’s Presence on Earth,” is cause for a bit of a stir. Why do we care so much?
Well, we care because of one particular word Kendrick chose to use in a tweet sent out Monday. Kendrick tweeted, “Ugh - NEVER going to a Ryan Gosling movie in a theater again. Apparently masturbating in the back row is still considered 'inappropriate.’” You guessed it: a sweet, little lady said “masturbate” and it’s a cause for Internet chatter. But what’s the big deal? At the risk of sounding like a high school health teacher: we all do it.
And Kendrick’s nearly 21,000 retweets and 18,000 (plus) favorites for the scandalous tweet seem to signal that she’s not the first lady to have had that thought about Mr. Gosling. I don't do this very often, but Anna Kendrick: you go, girl.
Why am I fist-bumping Kendrick in spirit? Because it's about damn time someone was up front about the act: it helps to strip it of unnecessary astonishment. As a society, we’re still pretty prudish. Kendrick’s blatant word choice unfortunately inspires shock in the average reader. That's why a simple tweet has become a huge story. While Kendrick's comment was clearly tongue-in-cheek and made to elicit laughs, her use of the word "masturbate" is enough to make people gasp, “She does that? And she’s talking about it?” It’s fine for a woman to be sexy or exude the suggestion of sex by wearing a tight dress and four-inch heels (like Kendrick in her Twitter page background), but when she becomes actively sexual, it’s suddenly cause for shock and awe.
But we live in a post-Girls world (remember Marnie’s bathroom break after her first encounter with Booth Jonathan?) and, as much as I hate to say it, a post-Fifty Shades of Grey society. If we can handle mild BDSM, we can handle a little ribbing about masturbating to a sexy celebrity. Slowly, but surely, we’re moving past the world that says women need to go to masturbation rehab at a place like Dirty Girl Ministries because it’s so unconscionable that women might do themselves a little favor “twice a week or less.” Being sexual should be a conversation, no different from talking about what I might have for lunch or whether or not I'll go to that coworker's Superhero-themed birthday party this weekend. Carrie Bradshaw talked about masturbation (and put the face of George Clooney on her fantasies). Oprah has endorsed vibrators as great gifts for teen girls. Hell, there’s even a Maggie Gyllenhaal movie about the invention of the helpful little device. “Masturbate” is just a word, and it’s a word that belongs to all of us. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s your prerogative, but it’s not a bad or dirty word. It just is.
Can we stop pretending it’s shocking that a woman might be inspired by a handsome movie star, especially if that handsome movie star is someone as universally lusted after as Gosling?
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