Actor Sarah Shahi bared all to play stay-at-home wife Billie Mann in Netflix's steamy relationship drama Sex/Life. But what few knew was how closely Billie's life resembled Shahi's own—and that just as Billie embarked on a journey of sexual reawakening, so did she. Here, in a new essay for Glamour, Shahi reveals her own wake-up call and how she rediscovered sex, desire, and pleasure.
“Now fuck me.”
In the season-one finale of Sex/Life, Billie, the character I play, declares these words as she is standing in front of her ex-boyfriend Brad, feeling nothing but the exhilaration of her own heart and releasing the desires she had been denying for so long.
After a season of feeling unappreciated by her perfect-on-paper husband, Cooper, she believed the parts of herself that were unseen—her desire and her sexuality—would continue unseen forever. But the consistent urge for a life that was far bigger than her own could no longer be ignored.
Though I know the show’s fans took delight in the sexual explorations that happened next, to me that moment was so much more than a sultry twist. It felt like a battle cry—a call to all women to listen to their deepest desires. I felt it too. Just saying those words made me feel powerful, courageous, and in that moment gave a voice to the boldest parts of myself that I too had denied. In my own real life, like many women, I was guilty of settling into a version of my life that made me smaller. But after declaring those three words, the shame of my own appetite for a life that reflected my truest self started disappearing.
My transformation began in December of 2019, the month before I actually became Sex/Life’s Billie Mann. Years of frustration were coming to a head. Years of feeling stuck and lost, swimming in an endless sea of unhappiness.
In our modern world, mothers are expected to raise our children as if we don’t work, and work as if we have no children. I was married, had three beautiful, healthy children, and felt like I was living for everyone but me. I woke each day purely racing against the clock. I made breakfasts, packed lunches, did the drop-offs, came back, cleaned the kitchen, maybe had enough time for the gym or a bit of work, took a shower, did the pickups, helped with homework, made dinner, did the baths, put the kids to bed, crawled into bed, and repeat. I came last, and I was used to it. Though I’d always been a working actor, my ambitions were overshadowed by my duties as a wife and a mother. Doing something for myself looked like 10 uninterrupted minutes in my bathroom, picking parsley out of my teeth. The cage-free eggs in the fridge made me jealous. The girl who chased her passions with a sparkly fever was now chasing macaroni noodles being thrown from a high chair.
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Is this what my 13-year-old self couldn't wait to grow up and do? I felt buried in my own frustration. Why was I tired all the time? Wasn’t my life meant for more? Why is my neck pillow in my son’s room? I was my own prisoner, yet I also held the key—even if I didn’t realize it yet.
December 9, 2019. I hadn’t worked in almost a year. The projects that were knocking on my door were not what I wanted, and I really wanted to do something I was passionate about. Cue a little audition for something called Sex/Life. I feverishly read through the script as if the words were ripped right out of my heart. What the fuck?! I feel so seen! The abundance of nudity aside, it was frightening to read something that felt this personal to me. Billie had the courage to challenge all the things I had been questioning for years.
She was flawed, she didn’t have it together, she was a devoted mother, but she was—like me—mourning the loss of her liberated, younger self. This was the jump start I had been searching for. I walked into the audition room ready to prove that Billie Mann and I were one.
But what ensued was drastically different. My mind went blank; I couldn't remember the lines. Amnesia or momentary cataracts completely set in, and even reading off the script itself, I still couldn't perform a scene that I had basically rehearsed for the last 10 years of my life.
January 7, 2020. After weeks of nursing my wounds with Chipotle and Milagro, and convincing myself that maybe not getting the job was a sign that I wasn’t meant for a life bigger and bolder than the one I was leading, the phone rang. I’d gotten it! Billie Mann was mine! They felt that the energy that I possessed as my flawed, messy, overtired self was just what the character called for.
I’ll never forget the scene we were filming, where I felt her coursing through my veins. It was in season one, episode one, where Billie calls her best friend Sasha and talks about how she’s been reminiscing over Brad: “I don’t feel like myself…like a watered down wife-mom version of me, and I’m not sure this is who I’m supposed to be.” This scene had me longing for how I’d felt as my own earlier self. Uninhibited, spontaneous, wild, free.
The first among my girlfriends to have a baby, I’ve been declining invite after invite since 2009: a girls trip to Europe, skiing in Aspen, New Year’s in Paris. It was sweet of them to even consider asking, but there I was, pretending that I’d much rather be at home sleepless and nursing a newborn than living la dolce vita for the summer. Lewis and Clark’s expeditions couldn’t cast a shadow on the adventures of my friends. And there I was watching from the sidelines, putting lanolin on my sore breastfeeding nipples.
But that version of me is still here, buried deep under the burdens of my life. I want to go on a girls trip. I want to book a last-minute flight to Paris for New Year’s and have Grandma take care of the kids. Am I less of a mother for wanting these things? Am I not a devoted wife if I want to take a trip with my girlfriends instead of my husband? Fully inspired by the character I was portraying, I started releasing some of that pressure inside. As someone who’s supremely uncomfortable voicing my needs, I remembered a quote I read: “Speak up. Even if your voice shakes.”
So that’s how I began—small—but at least it was a start. To my husband: “Hey, um, I’m not going to do drop-offs on Wednesdays, because, um, I’d like to take a dance class. Can you coordinate that instead?”
I felt a small sense of myself starting to return. The girl who used to dance was dancing again! This trickled into many areas of my life, work and personal. I became more confident in myself as a woman, as an actress. Usually, I never felt assured enough to offer up ideas, or question a director, or speak on something in a scene that made me uncomfortable, but little by little, I started to trust that voice inside. I spoke up, even when my voice shook. However, nothing prepared me for the heartache of speaking these four words: “I want a divorce.” Just like nothing can prepare you for how wonderful love is, nothing can prepare you for how much divorce hurts. But I had slammed my heart into my soul, and now I honored myself more than ever. My voice shook more than I thought possible, but I spoke up.
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This newfound bravery gave me so much ownership over who I was—it was empowering. I was no longer escaping my truth; I was living it. This newfound commitment to myself danced its way into all areas of my life, including the bedroom.
Women have also been shown throughout depictions in society that desire is a dirty word. Sexually speaking, it was always the man being serviced. But every human being is biologically designed to experience full sexual pleasure. It is our birthright. Does that end just because we have children? Absolutely not. Burning with desire to be pleasured in ways I hadn’t before, I no longer saw sex as an obligation. I wasn’t thinking, How quickly can I get this over with because I’m too tired and just want to sleep because I was the one up breastfeeding all night. It became kinky and playful and something I looked forward to and never wanted to end. I had the full confidence in myself to speak on my likes and dislikes, without shame. Once insecure about the effects that having three children had done to my body, I now wore them with pride. I wore lingerie with a look of mischief. I was still servicing someone. But now that someone was—is—me.
We are beautifully complex creatures, and our sexual needs should be tended to in a way that makes us, individually, feel special. That doesn’t end just because we have children. Our connection to an orgasm is much deeper than just the physical response. It's a connection to understanding who we are and the power we’ve held since the beginning of time. I was unlocking the person I always meant to be.
Owning this kind of self-liberation in front of millions of people was awkward at first. It ain’t no walk in the park to be physically and emotionally judged in front of the world. But I wear it with an immense amount of pride.
As an Iranian American, I consider it a privilege, and part of my life’s purpose, to be the poster child for women experiencing something similar. Though the women of Iran are fighting for things much bigger than the laments of an “unhappy housewife,” my purpose would feel amateurish if I didn't advocate for them when I could. Born and raised in Texas, I’m a first-generation American. My mother was born in Iran and one of the original protestors in the ’70s, which led to my parents’ fleeing before I came into this world. With individuality and basic human rights being stripped away daily by the regime back then, she knew she couldn’t raise any of her unborn children in her homeland. And my deep understanding of what she fought against, and the sacrifices she made to give me the freedoms I have, will forever be with me.
As I sit here, experimenting with my looks, discussing sexual preferences, living my life in any direction I choose, as my personal journey as a woman keeps getting fuller, I know that there are women in my homeland who are persecuted just for walking down the street without a headscarf.
As women we’ve always been told—and sometimes forced—to keep our heads down, don’t make noise, accept things the way they are. Desire is the life-giving gift from the universe. I pray that Billie Mann serves as a big, fat middle finger to every society, system, and person who held us down. We are not going to lie down and be taken advantage of. We are not going to stay quiet. We are not going to accept things the way they are just because it’s the status quo. We are here to live as our truest selves and do everything our soul’s fancy. It’ll be messy! But rejoice in the mess, make a little trouble out there, and make it on behalf of women everywhere. In the words of Maya Angelou, “I come as one, but I stand as 10,000.” We are here to live out our fullest selves next to one another, and we’re just getting started.
