All over Twitter today and last night, people were telling on themselves as the type to only read headlines and not do any follow-up, when "Jada" went trending last night following an episode of Red Table Talk. Actually, more specifically, following an E! article entitled "Jada Pinkett Smith Tells Gywneth Paltrow Why It's Hard to Maintain a Sex Life With Will Smith."

Fans of Will Smith were immediately incensed by the revelation, turning to Twitter to express frustration with the 50-year-old actress for, as they viewed it, "embarrassing" her husband - again.

This Twitter storm comes just over a year after Jada Pinkett Smith admitted that she had been involved in an extramarital "entanglement" during a break in her marriage to the Men In Black actor. In both of these cases, however, people have been getting angry at half a story - reading into the headline without actually understanding what Jada was trying to say. This time around, the outrage is really over nothing, because what she said in this most recent interview with Gywneth Paltrow was less about her relationship, and more about relationships in general.

""It's hard," Pinkett Smith said. "The thing Will and I talk about a lot is the journey. We started in this at a very young age, you know, 22 years old...I think you expect your partner to know [what you need], especially when it comes to sex. It's like, 'Well, if you love me, you should know. If you love me, you should read my mind.' That's a huge pitfall."

Actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith
(Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

What these two women were discussing wasn't problems in their individual sex lives - it's a human habit, one that they want to acknowledge and work on so that we can begin to move past it. "You tell me what you need. Tell me what you want, and on top of it, I know that I have to be accountable to do the same...I think around sex, because it's something that we don't talk about a lot, and there's so much fantasy around it."

It's incredibly ironic, but the very reason that people are upset and outraged on behalf of Will Smith was the very mindset that his wife wanted people to try and free themselves from: That men should always know what to do during sex, and that if he doesn't automatically know it's a deep personal failing. That kind of thinking puts undue pressure on relationships, because the lack of communication usually leaves the woman unsatisfied, leaves the man confused, frustrated, and discouraged, and leaves them both disconnected from one another.

Will Smith himself has also spoken out about his relationship with Jada, after news of her affair last year made headlines. In a GQ interview, he assured people that he was very happy in his unconventional relationship,

"Jada had family members that had an unconventional relationship. So she grew up in a way that was very different than how I grew up...For the large part of our relationship, monogamy was what we chose, not thinking of monogamy as the only relational perfection."

The actor continued, "We have given each other trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way...And I don't suggest our road for anybody. But the experiences that the freedoms that we've given one another and the unconditional support, to me, is the highest definition of love."

Maybe we should all follow the Smiths' lead, and be more open with each other about how we discuss sexual relationships - especially with our partners, and ESPECIALLY when it comes to what we actually want. As Jada Pinkett Smith put it on her show, "it's uncomfortable, but it's deeply healthy."

Tags
Jada Pinkett-Smith, Will Smith