Joshua Jackson Names a Sexy “Dawson's Creek ”Scene That Sparked 'Outrage' When It Aired

Joshua Jackson is well aware that many view him as a sex symbol — though the 46-year-old actor admits it still makes him blush.

In an interview with Vulture, the actor reflected on his lengthy career — which includes 1992's Mighty Ducks and the six-season television drama Dawson's Creek — but said the notion of being a "sex symbol" is still a bit uncomfortable.

"It still makes me blush when you say it, so I guess that’s a good thing. It’s not really part of my self-conception," he told the outlet. "I’ve been doing this for 36 years. I’m very happy to still get to do it and still have people tune in."

Asked if he feels "objectified," Jackson admitted, "Yeah, that’s part of it, 1,000 percent. Not for nothing, we are in those whites 90 percent of the time," alluding to the uniform worn on his current show, Ryan Murphy's Doctor Odyssey.

Related: Joshua Jackson Is Having a Moment, So Here Are 10 Hot Photos of Him Through the Years to Mark It

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Jackson also spoke about how the industry has evolved in his three decades in show business, saying he's seen a shift toward the conservative in recent years.

"I think we’re even more conservative now than when I was shooting Dawson’s Creek. Like, way more conservative," he said of the series, which ran from 1998 to 2003.

The actor went on to say there was some "outrage" back in the day about one scene in which Dawson (played by James Van Der Beek) and Joey (played by Katie Holmes) "had a conversation about their emergent attraction to each other on top of the sheets, in clothes."

"Even before I was a parent, I recognized that that’s the best-case scenario for what could possibly happen. Two horny teenagers, fully clothed, discussing what would happen if they crossed that bridge together," he said. "At the same time, my teenage character is having sex with his adult teacher, and that didn’t come up."

Related: Joshua Jackson Jokes 'Chasing Around a 4-Year-Old' Is His Secret to Staying Young, Despite His 'Gray Hair' (Exclusive)

The third season of the show, he added, included a kiss between two teenage boys, "which at the time was scandalous yet got absorbed into the body politic, and our audience of young people wasn’t really freaked out by it."

"I feel like now, on one side, we have pure transgression, but by and large, popular entertainment is really down the middle and doesn’t push the edges," Jackson added.

Jackson said that the more conservative nature of sex on television led to a frustration with 2023's Fatal Attraction, a Paramount+ series based on the film of the same name.

"I made Fatal Attraction a couple of years ago, and honestly, I was frustrated with how the sex scenes were depicted, because that story’s about power and dominance. They’re not making love, it’s not sweet and gauzy — that’s a different kind of sex," he said.

He continued: "This sex is not about the sex, it’s about power. And there’s a transgression to that that is interesting. But we’re so afraid now, particularly of sexual dominance and power dynamics between men and women, as though to put something on camera is to advocate for it."

Read the original article on People