Miley Cyrus, the pop star and provocateur, gets very candid about her sexuality in a new interview with Paper Magazine.
"I don't relate to being boy or girl, and I don't have to have my partner relate to boy or girl," she told Paper.
Cyrus said she focuses instead on being loved and loving someone else no matter their identity.
"I am literally open to every single thing that is consenting and doesn't involve an animal and everyone is of age," she said. "Everything that's legal, I'm down with. Yo, I'm down with any adult -- anyone over the age of 18 who is down to love me."
Cyrus, who had high-profile relationships with Nick Jonas, Liam Hemsworth and Patrick Schwarzenegger, also acknowledged that she's had just as serious relationships with women.
"I've had that," she said. "But people never really looked at it, and I never brought it into the spotlight."
Cyrus, who alluded to having same-sex relationships last month, said that she's had romantic feelings for women for many years, and that at age 14 she shared them with her mother.
"I remember telling her I admire women in a different way. And she asked me what that meant. And I said, I love them. I love them like I love boys," she said.
In the article, Cyrus describes her parents, musician Billy Ray and producer Tish Cyrus, as deeply conservative. Cyrus said her mother struggled at first to accept her feelings for women.
"[I]t was so hard for her to understand," Cyrus said. "She didn't want me to be judged and she didn't want me to go to hell. But she believes in me more than she believes in any god. I just asked for her to accept me. And she has."
Cyrus' candor seems to be in the service of something greater: bringing attention to the hardship and trauma young people face when rejected because of their gender identity or sexuality.
Cyrus recently founded the Happy Hippie Foundation, which aims to "fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBT youth and other vulnerable populations."
"We can't keep noticing these kids too late," she said.