Melora Hardin Talks Importance of the Female Orgasm, Masturbation and Breaking Boundaries with 'The Bold Type'

Melora Hardin thinks female pleasure should be at the forefront of our minds.

The actress, who gained a massive fanbase playing Jan Levinson on "The Office," spoke with TooFab about the importance of sex education -- and how her current show "The Bold Type" tackles such vital issues.

In "The Bold Type," which is loosely based on the life of former Cosmopolitan editor Joanna Coles, Hardin plays Jacqueline Carlyle, editor-in-chief of Scarlet magazine. It's known that Cosmo -- and therefore Scarlet in the series -- doesn't shy away from talking about all things sex, including female orgasms, masturbation and STDs.

Hardin, who is a mother of two teenage daughters, spoke with us about how all women and men need to be more open when it comes to talking about female pleasure.

"I will say my mom was incredible at making that available to me and talking to me about stuff," Hardin began. "I just feel like I can't tell you how many of my female friends say, 'Gosh, I wish my mom had talked to me about that.'"

"I just think there's a lot of conversation about men and male masturbation and wet dreams," she continued, "Whereas they don't really talk about girls going through puberty and discovering masturbation and discovering pleasuring themselves."

"I think that it's really important," Hardin explained, "because my mom always said to me, 'You know, it's really good to do that [masturbate] so that you can know what you like and then you can teach somebody that one day when you find someone that you fall in love with and you want to explore that with.'"

"I mean what an empowering thing to say to your daughter and I've certainly passed it on to my daughters," Hardin added.

When asked if she read Cosmo growing up, Hardin said, "I was enticed, it was seductive because it talked about sex, but in a way that you felt like it was okay because you know, you didn't feel like you were looking at a porn magazine or something."

"Before Joanna [Coles] came along it was kind of more like what to do for your man, how to make your man happy," she continued. "And then Joanna changed all that. She was like, how to make yourself happy, how to get your man to make you happy.

"The Bold Type" follows three young women who work at Scarlet magazine: writer Jane Sloan (Katie Stevens), social media manager Kat Edison (Aisha Dee), and Sutton Brady (Meghann Fahy), a fashion assistant who aspires to become a designer. The drama, which is currently in its third season, tackles very important and often sensitive topics including breast cancer awareness, sexual assault and racial diversity.

During the April 30 episode of the Freeform series, which aired shortly after TooFab's interview with Hardin, Kat opened up about having an abortion when she was young and how she worried about it being revealed in her political campaign. Although we're in 2019, Kat said it's very much like the year of Roe vs. Wade; indeed Hardin even wore a t-shirt with "1973" emblazoned on the front for her sit-down with us.

Hardin's character, Jacqueline, is inspired by Coles, who worked at Cosmopolitan from 2012 to 2016 and became editorial director of publishers Hearst Magazines in 2014. Coles also serves as an EP on the Freeform series.

When asked if she has a friendship with Coles in real life, Hardin hysterically laughed in response before giving her answer. See why in the video above.

"The Bold Type" airs Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET on Freeform.

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