Sharon Stone Reveals She ‘Fast Forwards’ Through Steamy Scenes on TV: ‘I Prefer My Yearning’

Sharon Stone became a sex symbol in the ’90s after her NSFW performance in Basic Instinct. Now, however, the actress believes that Hollywood sex scenes have become too “blatant.”

“It was a third of a frame,” Stone, 68, explained to Gayle King of her infamous scene — in which her character Catherine Tramell crossed and uncrossed her legs — from the 1992 film during a Tuesday, March 31, interview for CBS Mornings. “It wasn’t even an entire frame of film.”

King, 71, recalled the craze surrounding the “Cross the legs, uncross the legs” moment, which left viewers questioning, “Is she wearing panties?”

“People were desperately trying to figure it out,” Stone explained. “And I think that that idea of ‘oh my god,’ this hope, this wonder, this mystery, this intrigue, this yearning is something that is what all of our profound sexuality is based in.”

The Euphoria star added, “So often now, when sex scenes come on TV — I fast-forward. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to have to go through all of this blatant, harsh sexuality. For me, it steals from my own imagination. And I prefer my yearning, mystery, desire. I want to keep that alive inside myself.”

Stone — who is mother to three sons, Roan, 25, Laird, 20, and Quinn, 19 — added that her Basic Instinct role “changed everything.”

“In many ways, I feel like I wasn’t protected and taken care of. And then, in many ways, I feel I was punished for the behavior of others,” she told King. “People treated me in ways that were … very cruel and unkind, as if I was some sort of slatternly, vulgar person.”