Brooke Shields Says She Found Empowerment After 40

In conversation with Yahoo! Life, Brooke Shields, 56, said age has improved her relationship with sex and her body, as well as giving her a new perspective on how fertility plays into perceptions of women's worth.

"I believe that it's a misconception that women can't be sexy over a certain age," Shields told Yahoo. "The acceptance of our bodies comes at a later date. I live much more in my body now than I ever did. My body actually feels like it belongs to me. And I can't say that about my youth."

Shields said she didn't start appreciating sex until her 40s. She wants her daughters—Rowan, 18, and Grier, 15—to learn from her experiences.

"My 20s, I was always terrified of [sex], because I was a virgin until I was 22," Shields said. "You know, I thought I was committing an offense to humanity for being a Catholic, not married, and I had so much guilt. My 30s, it wasn't really about being sexy. It was having your body work to create something. That was like a 10-year kind of journey.

'I live much more in my body now than I ever did. My body actually feels like it belongs to me. And I can't say that about my youth.'

"And it wasn't until my 40s that I started thinking of sex as my experience, not someone else's experience that I just navigated," she continued. "What I want my daughters to know is that it's a joint decision. Even with as woke as everybody is, you'd be shocked at how they see themselves within relationships."

Alongside Shields' sexual journey is her fertility journey—she revealed she underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF) seven times. The experience made Shields realize she "was an adult," and inspired her to launch Beginning Is Now, a self-care platform for women over 40.

"I think there is a misconception that if you are not of childbearing ability, you don't seem to matter in the world—because you do not keep the world going anymore," Shields said. "There's vitality in us. And I think that shows itself sexually. It shows itself with an adventure. It shows itself in confidence. We walk into rooms now and kind of think, well, I got nothing to lose. There's an uncomplicated nature to it."