One year ago on this stage, I was very pregnant, and we talked about the beginning of a revolution. Today, my new daughter is walking, and because of you, the revolution is rolling. You told the world that time’s up on violence. You told the world that time’s up on silence. You told the world that it’s time for a new day, a new locker-room culture, time to think about every person’s desires, needs, wants and pleasure. So let’s talk a little bit more about pleasure.

I keep hearing a particular gripe about this cultural shift, and maybe you have, too. Some people have been calling this movement puritanical or a return to Victorian values, where men can’t behave or speak sexually around dainty, delicate or fragile women. To these people, I want to say, the current system is puritanical. Maybe men can say and do whatever they want, but women cannot. The current system inhibits women from expressing our desires, wants and needs, from seeking our pleasure. Let me tell you about my own experience.

I turned 12 on the set of my first film, ‘The Professional,” in which I played a young girl who befriends a hit man and hopes to avenge the murder of her family. The character is simultaneously discovering and developing her womanhood, her voice and her desire. At that moment in my life, I, too, was discovering my own womanhood, my own desire and my own voice. I was so excited at 13 when the film was released and my work and my art would have a human response. I excitedly opened my first fan-mail to read a rape fantasy that a man had written me. A countdown was started on my local radio station to my 18th birthday, euphemistically the date that I would be legal to sleep with. Movie reviewers talked about my “budding breasts” in reviews.

I understood very quickly even as a 13-year-old, if I were to express myself sexually, that I would feel unsafe, and that men would feel entitled to discuss and objectify my body, to my great discomfort. So I quickly adjusted my behavior. I rejected any role that even had a kissing scene, and talked about that choice deliberately in interviews. I emphasized how bookish I was and how serious I was, and I cultivated an elegant way of dressing. I built a reputation for basically being prudish, conservative, nerdy, serious in an attempt to feel that my body was safe and my voice would be listened to. At 13 years old, the message from our culture was clear to me. I felt the need to cover my body and inhibit my expression and my work in order to send my own message to the world, that I’m someone worthy of safety and respect.

The response to my expression, from small comments about my body to more threatening deliberate statements, served to control my behavior through an environment of sexual terrorism. A world in which I could wear whatever I want, say whatever I want and express my desire however I want without fearing for my physical safety or reputation, that would be the world in which female desire and sexuality could have its greatest expression and fulfillment. That world that we want to build is the opposite of puritanical.

So I’d like to propose one way to continue moving this revolution forward. Let’s declare loud and clear that this is what I want. This is what I need. This is what I desire. This is how you can help me achieve pleasure. To people of all genders here today, let’s find a space where we mutually, consensually, look out for each other’s pleasure, and allow the vast, limitless range of desire to be expressed. Let’s make a revolution of desire.