Kristen Stewart Defends ?On The Road? Topless, Threesome Scenes At Cannes

Kristen Stewart, star of the tween Twilight films, has received criticism for the topless and threesome scenes that appear in her new flick On the Road. But Stewart is defending her choice to play the risqué part.

During a press conference at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, Kristen Stewart said that she loves pushing boundaries.

I wanted to do [the scene], said Stewart referring to the racy scene in the film based on Jack Kerouac's 1957 book. I love pushing. I love scaring myself. I've always wanted to get as close to an experience as I could.

I'm usually self-conscious about running around town, she added. But I got to live more in those four weeks than I ever usually do in my life.

Stewart plays Marylou, the 16-year-old wife of Kerouac's friend Neal Cassasdy, in the portrait film about youngsters of the Beat Generation on a quest for It.

Some conservative groups criticized Kristen Stewart's actions in On The Road, noting how she is still a Hollywood icon for a younger generation.

The movie industry has a twisted affection for making raunchy films that use and abuse former child stars, Dan Gainor of the Culture and Media Institute told RadarOnline.com. In the film 'On The Road,' Kristen Stewart engages in a threesome and masturbates two male characters according to reports. How will parents who took their daughters to see the 'Twilight' movies explain this?

It is irresponsible of Stewart and manipulative of Hollywood bosses to deliberately try to destroy any sense of decency these actresses might have taught young people.

However, others see Kristen Stewart's On The Road role as wholly ground-breaking for the young actress.

Vulture recently published an essay detailing the transformation the 22-year-old has undergone, from lip-biting Bella to sexually-enlightened Marylou.

It's obviously a little more noteworthy when a star like Stewart dares to bare for her art, wrote Vulture's Kyle Buchanan. In fact, as an uninhibited teenager who takes up with Garrett Hedlund's Neal Cassady stand-in, both she and Hedlund go nude in their very first scenes in On the Road, and Stewart later takes part in a ménage à trois, initiates road head, and jerks off both Hedlund and Sam Riley while all three are naked in a moving car. She's so horny and curious that when another couple excuses themselves to have sex, a nosy Stewart follows them into the doorway and asks, 'Can I watch you guys screw?'

To watch Stewart come alive in On the Road, you have to wonder: At what point did we stop allowing movie stars to be sexy? continued Buchanan. Today's movie superheroes are at their most powerful when they've got their costumes on, but as this year's sexually adventurous films at Cannes are proving, sometimes actors are most fearless when they dare to take it all off.