This Is the Sex Advice Gwyneth Paltrow Gives Her Kids

Gwyneth Paltrow tries to keep the advice about sex she gives to her children minimal as they explore their own relationships and sexuality. The actress opened up about her new Netflix series, Sex, Love & Goop, to Entertainment Tonight Tuesday, revealing that she tried to “show up with honesty and vulnerability” around those topics, similarly to how she’s raised her two teens, Apple, 17, and Moses, 15, whom she shares with ex-husband Chris Martin.

“I try always to be neutral on the topic,” Paltrow said when it came to discussing sex with her kids. “I think my generation, we got a lot of messages around sex that made us feel bad about it.” The Goop founder said she’s accepted that “teenagers are never going to want to talk to their parents about sex, ever,” and tries to follow their lead.

While Apple and Moses had “a very thorough sex education” in middle school, Paltrow said she’s there for any questions they might have, which have been “minimal” for the most part. One piece of advice she did pass down to them is to “stay really close to your own truth.”

“I think the main thing that nobody ever tells you, is you have to stay really close to your own truth and you have to stay really in integrity with that truth,” she explained. “Because when you are in a relationship and you are not being your full self, you are sublimating things or you are white-knuckling through something, and I think it can be pretty damaging to how you feel about yourself. I will always just encourage my children to really listen to themselves, listen to their instincts, listen if something feels right, and to act from that place.”

Paltrow keeps an open conversation about sexuality in her family, revealing on Wednesday’s Ellen DeGeneres Show that Moses had quite the reaction to Goop selling vibrators. “A few months ago, he said, ‘Mom, I was really embarrassed for a minute that Goop sold vibrators and then I realized that, no, this is great. You’re making people feel not embarrassed to buy something and that’s great! You’re a feminist.’ And I was like, ‘Thank you, my dear!’” she recalled. “I’m sure he’s still embarrassed, but at least he’s putting a good spin on it.”