Drew Barrymore Responds To Accusations That She 'Hates Sex' After Recent Abstinence Comments

Drew Barrymore responded to her former claim saying she hated sex and that she could avoid engaging in coitus for years if she wanted to.

The statement was in response to Andrew Garfield claiming he abstained from sex for six months to prepare for his role as a Jesuit priest in the 2016 Martin Scorcese historical drama, Silence.

On an episode from last month's Drew Barrymore show, the eponymous host of the show remarked:

"What’s wrong with me that six months doesn’t seem like a very long time? I was like, ‘Yeah so?'”

And when cohost Ross Matthews chimed in with, "Drew can go six months, no big deal," Barrymore replied, "Years."

Well, it appears her statement rubbed some people the wrong way.

Now she has addressed the situation in a detailed essay titled, "Rebels Who Love," which the former child actress published on her blog.

It opened with:

"The other day I walked into a workout class and this woman said 'you look just like Drew Barrymore except for you look like you have mental wellness and besides …she hates sex!'"

"I did not know what this woman was talking about."

Without naming Garfield by name, she recounted the hubbub surrounding the basis of her statement about intimacy.

"I love this actor," she said of Garfield, adding:

"For him, that must have been challenging. I see that now."

"And I’m sure that there was one point in my life where six months might have seemed extreme, but I’m on the other side of that now."

Barrymore went on to explain that at 48, she has "very different feelings about intimacy than I did growing up."

"I did not have role model parents and I engaged with people in grown up ways since a tender age! I was looking for companionship! validation! excitement! pleasure! hedonism! fun! And adventures!!"

She said that since she can't go back and alter the course of her personal history, she chooses to observe her situation through a "positive lens, which is that I lived! I lived a very rich full life."

But after separating from her husband– art consultant Will Kopelman, the son of former Chanel COO Arie L. Kopelman–she said she became "cautious."

"I have had the pleasure of shifting my focus when it comes to love for myself and my two daughters," she said of the two children she had with Kopelman after they got married in 2012.

Barrymore officially filed for divorce from Kopelman on July 15, 2016, which was finalized on August 3, 2016.

"I know that does not include a man nor has it for a while. I’ve come to realize through working in therapy (with Barry), he said something and I had to write it down."

"He said, 'Sex is not love! It is the expression of love.'"

"I have searched my whole life to have words like that to help me understand the difference and now, thanks to him, I do."

Barrymore said that once she started being a single mother, she has not been able to have an intimate relationship.

"The truth is, it’s different for every family and every individual, but I have had to try and find my own way."

"I’m also raising two daughters, so how we raise girls to be appropriate and empowered and to love themselves and to realize that we live in an age where the images and messages that they will see will also contradict what I have come to believe intimacy is!"

She said that intimacy was something that makes a person feel good about themselves, and advised for people not to ignore when something makes them feel bad about themselves "because there’s a lesson in there."

Barrymore admitted looking for a relationship was not a priority at this time and that she wasn't the kind of person "who needs sex and has to go out there and engage with people on that level."

"I am someone who is deeply committed to fostering how young girls, my daughters, and myself as a woman, are supposed to function in this world! A relationship with a man has not been top of mind for me for a very long time."

"Some people can get out of a marriage or relationship and in the near future find themselves in another relationship. There is nothing wrong with that! Not one bit. I do not judge!"

"I celebrate their journey! Because for some people that really works. It didn’t work for me."

"I needed to stay very celibate and honoring and in some sort of state of morning of the loss of a nuclear family that I swore I would have for my daughters and to find grace and acceptance and what our new normal of a blended family would be."

"It took time. I’m proud of myself that I took that time."

Barrymore clarified she does not "hate sex!"

"I have just finally come to the epiphany that love and sex are simply not the same thing."

"I searched my whole life for, which is to be a calm woman and not a bombastic party girl."

She concluded her post by encouraging everyone to find what makes them ultimately happy and to seek that whatever that may be and "to be passionate and protective in the fact that we all deserve love! and we should all give love! but love and sex are simply not the same thing."