As part of her quest for confidence and personal empowerment, Billie Eilish has fostered a healthy, body-positive relationship with one of the ultimate forms of self-love: Masturbation.
In her new Rolling Stone cover story, Eilish calls self-pleasure “an enormous, enormous part of my life, and a huge, huge help for me.” She adds confidently: “People should be jerking it, man. I can’t stress it enough, as somebody with extreme body issues and dysmorphia that I’ve had my entire life.”
While Eilish jokes that she “should have a Ph.D. in masturbation,” she is candid and clear-eyed about why she finds it so fulfilling — and definitely not worthy of shame. Revealing that she likes to masturbate in front of a mirror, Eilish says it is both “hot” and fosters a “raw, deep connection” to herself, allowing her to hold “a love for my body that I have not really ever had.”
She continues: “I got to say, looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking ‘I look really good right now’ is so helpful. You can manufacture the situation you’re in to make sure you look good. You can make the light super dim, you can be in a specific outfit or in a specific position that’s more flattering. I have learned that looking at myself and watching myself feel pleasure has been an extreme help in loving myself and accepting myself, and feeling empowered and comfortable.”
Eilish is similarly positive when discussing sex itself, saying it is how she likes to decompress. “I basically talk about sex any time I possibly can. That’s literally my favorite topic,” she says. “My experience as a woman has been that it’s seen in such a weird way. People are so uncomfortable talking about it, and weirded out when women are very comfortable in their sexuality and communicative in it. I think it’s such a frowned-upon thing to talk about, and I think that should change. You asked me what I do to decompress? That shit can really, really save you sometimes, just saying. Can’t recommend it more, to be real.”
Eilish brings that attitude and energy to parts of her new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, which is set to arrive on May 17. She says one song — in which she compares sex with a girl to devouring a meal — is “part of what helped me become who I am, to be real.”
She goes on to say she wrote some of it before “even doing anything with a girl,” then finished it after. “I’ve been in love with girls for my whole life, but I just didn’t understand — until, last year, I realized I wanted my face in a vagina.”
There’s no immediate resolution in any of this. There’s no surrender either — and a lot of great escape. White’s slide guitar in “Dollar Bill” sounds like a National Steel on steroids until the solo, when it turns into what seems like a theremin gone postal. “I Can’t Believe What I’m Hearing” has a great pop-wise chorus closer to the Pretty Things than Son House. And don’t miss White’s wry aside to the White Stripes’ old creation myth in the second verse of “G.O.D.,” on the way to the real business at hand. “Well, it’s the beginning of the world now,” he declares at the song’s end. “Let’s do it all over again.”
