New York - She has made a career out of being one of the sexiest women in the world, exposing a fair amount of flesh in the process.
Now, however, Raquel Welch has claimed modern culture has become saturated with pornography, making everyone a “sex addict”.
The Hollywood legend, 71, said people are so obsessed with sex that they equate happiness with “having as many orgasms as possible”.
She claimed “this era of porn” was responsible and that men - rather than women - are exploited because they cannot control their libidos.
Welch’s comments will have a certain irony for many.
She has been a pouting, sultry icon ever since emerging from behind a rock barely wearing a doe-skin bikini in the 1966 film One Million Years BC.
The poster took pride of place on the bedroom walls of millions of adolescent boys and made her a star.
But in an interview with Men’s Health US, she said: “We’ve gotten to the point in our culture where we’re all sex addicts, literally.
“We have equated happiness in life with as many orgasms as you can possibly pack in. This era of porn is at least partially responsible for it. Where is the anticipation and the personalisation? It’s an exploitation of the poor male’s libidos. Poor babies, they can’t control themselves.”
Welch, who has been married four times and has two children, said she does not mind being called prudish.
“I don’t care if I’m becoming one of those old fogies who says ‘Back in my day we didn’t have to hear about sex all the time’,” she said.
“Nobody remembers what it’s like to be left to form your own ideas about what’s erotic and sexual.”
The actress added that she is asked “every day” about the iconic bikini which made her name.
But she confessed she had not wanted to wear it and had asked the director, in vain, to “sweep it under the carpet”.
She said: “It was great stuff for kids, but maybe not the ideal way for an actress to enter the movie-making scene. I even complained to the studio. I was like ‘Please, please don’t make me do the dinosaur movie’.” - Daily Mail