Drew Barrymore would have been criticised no matter what she had said about sex

If Barrymore had revealed she had sex with lots of different people, the headlines would have been just as saturated with her name, only its association would be different

Why is not having sex still considered to be a big deal? Intimacy is an incredibly broad spectrum – one in which sex plays only a small part. Yet, when Drew Barrymore revealed her indifference to sex, having not been in an intimate relationship since 2016, the internet rumour mill started in earnest. Suddenly, she hated sex; an assumption which has grown with such ferocity that the actor has now publicly addressed the matter.

But she shouldn’t have to. Nobody should have to explain their romantic situation, or lack thereof. Especially in the context of physical intimacy being seen as the primary component of a relationship.

This weird – and frankly unnecessary – deep dive into Barrymore’s private life all started a month ago. During the “Drew’s News” segment of The Drew Barrymore Show, the actor and Ross Matthews talked about Andrew Garfield’s admission that he abstained from sex while preparing for his role in 2016 Martin Scorsese film Silence. Matthews joked “I get abstaining from sex. I mean, I did that my entire twenties, right?’ To which Barrymore quickly responded “What’s wrong with me that six months doesn’t seem like a very long time? I was like, ‘Yeah so?’”.

So far, so underwhelming – it’s just a woman candidly joking about not having sex. If anything, my biggest issue with that sentence is that it implies something is wrong with her for viewing sex as unimportant. However, the main takeaway for a lot of people was that she was a sex hater. Those rumours have circulated so quickly that Barrymore has now spoken out about it in her latest blog post.

“The other day I walked into a workout class and this woman said ‘you look just like Drew Barrymore except for, you look like you have mental wellness and besides …she hates sex!’. I did not know what this woman was talking about,” the post begins.

I don’t know which implication is worse, and while Barrymore may be able to take the high ground by addressing this topic courteously, I lack that kind of grace. To me, the whole situation is absurd. Not just the invasive nature of all these enquiries, but also how not having sex is deemed a bad thing. It reminds me of when I was at secondary school, when people would ask if you were still a virgin. If you answered yes, you were frigid; but if you did have sex, you were a slut. You couldn’t win. At least, not if you were a girl. This feels a lot like that, only we’re applying silly teenage notions to a 47-year-old woman.

Sex, while something many people enjoy, isn’t some badge of honour that declares you’re a functioning human being. You don’t gain brownie points for how active you are, nor do you lose them for abstaining. If we’re being totally honest, as wonderful as sex can be, there’s so much more to explore than getting each other’s clothes off.

This is what Barrymore tackles in her blog, detailing how her experiences, particularly since becoming a mother and her divorce, have altered the way she sees physical intimacy. As someone who’s also “engaged with people in grown-up ways since a tender age”, I too have shifted how I view my pleasure and how I achieve it. No, I’m not a mother, nor have I experienced the kind of loss divorce can bring, but I too now realise that love and sex are not one and the same. You don’t need one to have the other.

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This is one (of many) sticking points for society: it struggles to abandon outdated beliefs that revolve around the mantra that sex is crucial. It isn’t. Not even when it comes to procreation. Thanks to fertility treatments, sex isn’t really a necessity for anyone.

If you want it and have it, that’s great. But it’s all just a matter of personal preference. Unfortunately, despite the wonderful work sex-positive educators do in challenging our misassumptions, we still have a long way to go before we regard sex as an extension of intimate expression rather than as the sole conduit of it.

This isn’t to say that having regular and/or casual sex is bad, but rather that neither decision (whether you have sex or not) should negatively impact how you’re viewed. That being said, I appreciate that we live in a world where ideologies about women are skewered from the get-go; we’re damned if we do, and we’re damned if we don’t.

If Barrymore had revealed she had sex with lots of different people, the headlines would have been just as saturated with her name, only its association would be different. You could argue it would be more barbed, as so often is the case when women own their pleasure, but she would be a target nonetheless.

We need to change the way we view sex. Yes, a lot of work has already been done in recognising sex as more than penetrative pleasure, but that’s just the start. We need to accept the fact that sex is a choice; one we’re allowed to make for and by ourselves. In the words of Barrymore herself, “I wish for everyone that they find out what makes them feel good about themselves and seek that!”