--- title: Shailene Woodley: Masturbation Should Be Taught In School description: Shailene Woodley has some requests about how sex education is taught in schools. canonical: https://time.com/4496926/shailene-woodley-masturbation-sex-education/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-16T15:27:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:03:24.085Z og:title: Shailene Woodley Thinks Masturbation Should Be Taught In School og:description: It’s time to get over the taboo og:url: https://time.com/4496926/shailene-woodley-masturbation-sex-education/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e4d7fefd3d88841/6988a6695f570fba8fb228d5/shailene-woodley-masturbation-sex-education.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: "Snowden" New York Premiere og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Shailene Woodley Thinks Masturbation Should Be Taught In School twitter:description: It’s time to get over the taboo twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e4d7fefd3d88841/6988a6695f570fba8fb228d5/shailene-woodley-masturbation-sex-education.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Shailene Woodley Thinks Masturbation Should Be Taught In School > Sponsored content. 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It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=49020852-743a-4b7a-b78f-12ee20137347&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Sep 16, 2016 3:27 PM UTC  NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 13: Actress Shailene Woodley attends the "Snowden" New York premiere at AMC Loews Lincoln Square on September 13, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Jim Spellman/WireImage) NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 13: Actress Shailene Woodley attends the "Snowden" New York premiere at AMC Loews Lincoln Square on September 13, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Jim Spellman/WireImage) Jim Spellman—WireImage/Getty Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Sep 16, 2016 3:27 PM UTC [Shailene Woodley](http://motto.time.com/4487525/shailene-woodley-online-food-stamps-petition/) has some requests about how sex education is taught in schools. Woodley, who is _Net-a-Porter_‘s digital magazine’s [cover story](https://www.net-a-porter.com/magazine/368), Woodley speaks up about the various causes that matter most to her, one of them being [sex ed](http://time.com/4488013/sex-education-sexism-abstinence/). She has thoughts about masturbation education, specifically. Woodley mentions she once thought of pursuing the subject of masturbation and turning it into a book. She tells _Net-a-Porter_, “I’ve always had a dream of making a book called _There’s No Right Way to Masturbate.”_ She believes young women should learn how to pleasure themselves because it is an important part of self-discovery: “As a young woman…you don’t learn what an orgasm should be, you don’t learn that you can have feelings of satisfaction.” Woodley, who starred in _Secret Life of the American Teenager_, also attributes the connection of masturbation to teen pregnancy: “If masturbation were taught in school, I wonder how \[many\] fewer people would get herpes at 16 or [pregnant](http://motto.time.com/4494971/olivia-wilde-subway-new-york/) at 14.” Read the rest of her cover story [here](https://www.net-a-porter.com/magazine/368/21). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4496926/shailene-woodley-masturbation-sex-education/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4496926/shailene-woodley-masturbation-sex-education/"},"headline":"Shailene Woodley Thinks Masturbation Should Be Taught In School","datePublished":"2016-09-16T15:27:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:03:24.085Z","description":"It’s time to get over the taboo","url":"https://time.com/4496926/shailene-woodley-masturbation-sex-education/","keywords":["motto"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e4d7fefd3d88841/6988a6695f570fba8fb228d5/shailene-woodley-masturbation-sex-education.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e4d7fefd3d88841/6988a6695f570fba8fb228d5/shailene-woodley-masturbation-sex-education.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"\"Snowden\" New York Premiere","caption":"\"Snowden\" New York Premiere","creditText":"Jim Spellman—WireImage/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4496926/shailene-woodley-masturbation-sex-education/","name":"Shailene Woodley Thinks Masturbation Should Be Taught In School"}}]}] ```