She’s been laying low in recent years but Cara Delevingne has always been someone we have serious admiration for. The model is never one to shy away from chats around her sexuality, she’s a major activist for the causes she cares about and she has a bloody good time without giving a f*** what anyone else thinks.
Staying true to form, Cara has gotten really candid on female sexuality, masturbation and sex (as well as some of her hilarious strip club stories) in a new interview.
Speaking on the Pride edition of podcast, Make It Reign with Josh Smith, the 28-year-old has opened up about being shamed for masturbating at boarding school, how she wants to change the conversation around sexuality and sex, plus how she sexually identifies now.
Cara on how she sexually identifies is like a ‘pendulum swinging’…
“The way I define myself still changes all the time, whether it’s pansexual, bisexual – I don’t really know. It’s like a pendulum swinging, but almost now I feel far more comfortable being bisexual than I used to. I’ve kind of felt because I was lacking in my desire for women or love for women that I kind of just went one way and now it changes a lot more. I feel a lot more free and being more comfortable in it because before I was like, ‘oh, I’m gay.’ That comes with self shaming. I will talk to myself so much worse than I would ever speak to any other human being in the entire world. No matter what, even someone who’s hurt me more than anyone, I will be so much nicer than that.
Cara on what Pride means to her…
“I try to live with Pride and acceptance every day and that comes by living authentically, by being able to use my voice and be honest about love that I feel or the love that I feel for myself or struggles that I’m going through. I really don’t think I was ever proud of that or used it enough. Until I stopped feeling shame – shame about my sexuality, shame about the woman that I am. When this time comes around, this is not just a month for the community. This is about anyone choosing love, really. Any ally of the community or people in the community. That’s what I think Pride needs to be about, it’s just love, love for your partner, love for your neighbour, love for yourself more importantly, and loving people you don’t know either. Like, it just doesn’t have to be something you talk about where it’s just about a relationship. It can just be about a stranger, you know, having empathy and compassion for all people.”
Cara on alleviating the shame around talking about orgasms and masturbation through her business, Lora DiCarlo…
“Talking about sex in this way, it’s not trying to alienate men and women or however you identify. It’s more about opening the conversation of self-pleasure and what it means to you. There are so many guys I know where they said, ‘I just love to sit and watch her use it.’ And I’m like, ‘that’s so hot,’ and that’s so nice for straight couples you know. It’s so interesting when you start talking about sex and how many people find it so unbelievably uncomfortable.
For me growing up, the idea of masturbating or talking about masturbation, and going to boarding school, I remember I used to masturbate in the pool on the pool jets things, and I remember this girl told everyone she saw me doing that and I was mortified and there was so much shaming involved!
I’m (now) taking pride in my sexual identity. I’m taking pride in my sexuality. I’m taking pride in my sexual needs as well and I also think being able to take ownership of my orgasm (makes it) so much easier to tell a partner what you want, if you know what you want. I think just the way that we’re taught that men are hornier creatures – it’s just not true. Just because we don’t have a giant alert between our legs going like, ‘woo I’m alive you have to stroke me,’ it’s still there. It’s just a bit more under the surface but the needs are very much the same, but we’re not taught to think about that, the pleasure part kind of comes last. We’re almost far more likely to give your vagina or body to someone but not actually think like that. The amount of times I would have sex and that wasn’t even a thought, I wasn’t even thinking I could have an orgasm right now, it was just, ‘this is sex and that wasn’t even on the list of things during sex.”
Cara on cosmetic surgery…
“I always think if I was to have work done or something I would talk about it. I have had my teeth done for instance, (I am honest about that) and that’s something I find really important for young girls. I think, especially at the moment, to have someone who would go, do something and then talk about it afterwards because it’s seen as being frowned upon and I get it because it comes from a place of deep insecurity. Like ever since I was a kid, I was like, ‘I wanna have a boob job, my boobs are uneven.’ I’ve gotten close to thinking about it and luckily at that moment go, ‘well, if I was to do it, then I don’t think I could be honest about it.’ That would be a problem because I just think that young girls or young boys need to know that some things aren’t naturally obtainable, you know, which is fine. That’s the model of modern science and that’s okay, it’s great, but just what makes it more sad is that people just can’t really talk about it.”
Cara on changing beauty standards:
“Everyone’s idea of beauty is different, and beauty is really in the eye of the beholder. Everything is beautiful. What I really find truly beautiful though, is confidence. That’s what beauty is to me. I do feel like going into that (modelling) world, I’m so glad it’s changed from when I went in, it was like, ‘why is everyone so underweight?’ I’m skinny but I’m naturally very skinny, but this is the thing you always want, what you can’t have. I was like, ‘God, I wish I was more womanly.’ It’s just the craziest thing and it’s changed a lot, but the modelling industry from the nineties and eighties where it was all these women who were celebrated for being different and the supermodel era, but it’s funny how beauty moves in phases and things come in and out of phase, but what I hope isn’t a phase is more acceptance and inclusion in beauty, a hundred percent, I think that’s really important.”
Cara on her hilarious strip club stories…
“Every time I go to a strip club I make friends, I’m like ‘oh my god you’re so cool – you’re a doctor and a single mum, you’re awesome.’ My friends will be like, ‘what are you doing, that’s not what you’re meant to do here!’ Have you ever been to Magic Mike? It was so hot, it was carnage. I went back to the guys who made the show and I told them, ‘I think you’re doing the world a really big favour. It’s educating and teaching men more about foreplay and not just sex but in the way they can be sexy in that way – it’s an art!’ I was honestly blown away, I was amazed. I got taken up on stage, I was the one who was attached to the ropes and was flying around. It was so fun! Honestly, I prefer male strip clubs far more. There was an incredible one in Toronto. Canada is the only place you can have full frontal male nudity. I remember going into a place and I was like, ‘oh there’s a penis on my hand at the bar, that’s weird! Just there, floppy, this is funny!”