Diane Keaton Walks a Tight Line Between Gleefully Single and Extremely Horny

Diane Keaton is a wonderful spirit, but I worry about her from time to time. Keaton has said she has no friends, that she fancies herself the oldest single woman in America, and most recently, that she does not “mwah-mwah” (I have to assume here that means kissing). In a recent interview with InStyle, Keaton vehemently denied that she goes on dates. (Keaton is 73.) “Let’s just get that straight,” she said, and I cannot tell the tone of this statement, obviously—that is one of the drawbacks of the written word—but imagining Keaton uttering those words to me sent chills down my spine. “That one’s important. I haven’t been on a date in, I would say, 35 years. No dates.”

No dates. I believe her—but I also have a hard time squaring this with just how horny Keaton has been in the public eye. What should we make of her statements? Can we confirm that she’s happier being single? It’s stubbornly unclear. Take a look at Exhibit A: The next question in this InStyle profile:

Do you want to be on a date?

I have a lot of male friends. I have a lot of friends, but no dates. No mwah-mwah.

Friends. Male friends. A lot of them. No dates. This is like having two-thirds of the puzzle pieces and then realizing you’ll never be able to complete the picture. The least we can do here is analyze a few other puzzle pieces, if only because Keaton’s propensity to be extremely horny online and on talk shows and interviews is deeply admirable.

Keaton has always struck me as a woman who absolutely fucks. Let’s remember this tweet from her, sent into the ether back in 2013, in which she asked her followers to cheer her up by sending her “pictures of beautiful men!”

If Twitter has a better use case, I do not know it.

She’s been vocal about her love for kissing men. The first documented case of this on Jezebel was also from 2013, when Keaton appeared on Ellen to promote The Big Wedding (a movie I’ve never heard of, but could really describe so many Keaton movies). She talked about smooching her co-star Robert DeNiro:

I love kissing him. You know that I, I enjoy the kissing of the men… I kissed him. And I put my head. On his chest. While his chest did not have clothes on.

In 2015, she was compared the release of Channing Tatum vehicle Magic Mike to the ultimate paradise:

And in 2016, she told Ellen DeGeneres that she was looking for a lover. “Do you know what that feels like, to be sexually frustrated?” Keaton asked. DeGeneres did not (okay, show-off).

Then again in 2018, Keaton came on the show again and told DeGeneres she would like to touch a man “inside his mouth,” at which point DeGeneres burst out laughing, because how else would you respond to that? (The clip below starts just before that utterance.)

My only takeaway here is that Keaton must take great pleasure in describing in such detail the depths of her horniness, especially on national TV, and especially with her close friend Ellen. This is what I find most admirable about Keaton—whether or not she wants to get married, she definitely wants to fuck, and she’s not afraid to say so. Why should any of us be?

May her fearless spirit inspire you today to be honest about the thing you want the most, and share no further details about how you plan to get it, with anyone.