Sharon Stone shot to the stars with Paul Verhoeven’s erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992), in which she played a bisexual serial killer Catherine Tramell. The movie made Stone show up in every straight guy’s and gay girl’s daydreams, not the least because of the famous on-screen upskirt peek that even upset Stone at the opening night.

Why is she our idol?

Sharon Stone has been voted top of various gay idol lists. Why is that? What makes Sharon Stone such an idol? It can’t be just her honey-laced trailblazing erotic role in Basic Instinct, can it?

There’s more. Both before and after her role as the bisexual serial killer, Stone has proven herself to be a true model of a modern sex-positive woman. Both through her movies and through interviews she has dusted off our society’s shame filled notion of sexuality.

Also, Stone occasionally talks about her personal brand of gender fluidity. A fine example can be found in her 2008 interview:

“Everybody is bisexual to an extent. Now men act like women and it’s difficult to have a relationship because I like men in that old-fashioned way. I like masculinity and, in truth, only women do that now.”

She goes on to describe how much easier it is to date a lady:

“If you go on a date with a woman, they call and say, ‘I’m going to pick you up at seven’. They take you somewhere great and you can dress like a chick.”

Stone transcends gender and age

Stone’s statements show how even rather conservative gender roles can be a liberating force, and how you don’t need to strictly define your own sexual identity. Therefore, the everlasting question about whether Stone is gay or bisexual or straight or whatever are beside any deeper point she’s trying to make.

Stone’s powerful sex positive attitude was lately highlighted in Huffington Post, where Stone claimed that as women age their sexual potential and wisdom increase. Usually in popular media only the young and comely tend to be portrayed as sexual beings, and mature sexuality is often a bit of a taboo. 56-year-old Stone keeps breaking this taboo and perhaps helps a few aging women accept their basic instincts.

Sharon Stone’s best movies in the 2000s

1. In Jim Jarmusch’s movie Broken Flowers (2005) Stone plays a beautiful clothes consultant and single mother, who used to date the main character played by Bill Murray.
2. John Turturro’s recent comedy Fading Gigolo (2013) brings Sharon Stone and Sofía Vergara together to play two lovers in search of ménage à trois on Italian soil.
3. Alpha Dog (2006) showed us a different kind of Stone – namely, one in fat suit.

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