Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood says sexual desires made her feel ‘like a weirdo’

‘Girls pretended like they didn’t know what masturbation was,’ actor says

Aimee Lou Wood in Netflix's 'Sex Education' (Rex Features)

Sex Education star Aimee Lou Wood has said experiencing sexual desires as a teenager made her feel like a “weirdo”, and that speaking about masturbation was “a complete taboo”.

In the first season of the Netflix series, Wood’s character, Aimee Gibbs, is depicted experimenting with masturbation.

Wood told said she would have liked to watch a television show like Sex Education when she was younger, as she was “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,” the 24-year-old said.

“So you think: ‘Oh, am I the crazy nympho that’s a bit unhinged because I’m definitely horny right now?”

Wood explained she and her classmates would not speak about masturbation with one another.

“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,” she stated.

The actor added that while she would have “really frank conversations” about other topics with her friends, the subject of masturbation was “a complete taboo”.

Speaking about her aforementioned masturbation storyline in the first season of Sex Education, Wood said she was glad the scene was “a bit ugly and unflattering”, as she was not required to wear “sexy lingerie”.

“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’,” she said.

“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?”

The second season of Sex Education is due to be released on Netflix on Friday 17 January.