Sarah Silverman continued to support her pal, comedian/serial masturbator Louis CK, telling Howard Stern this morning that many times he would do his thing in front of her…. with her permission.

“I don’t know if I’m going to regret saying this. I’ve known Louis forever, I’m not making excuses for him, so please don’t take this that way. We are peers. We are equals. When we were kids, and he asked if he could masturbate in front of me, sometimes I’d go, ‘F— yeah I want to see that!’ … It’s not analogous to the other women that are talking about what he did to them. He could offer me nothing. We were only just friends. So sometimes, yeah, I wanted to see it, it was amazing. Sometimes I would say, ‘F—ing no, gross,’ and we got pizza.”

It was amazing. Mmmmkay.

She says there was an important distinction, though. They were peers – equals – unlike his accusers, over whom he had power.

“I’m not saying what he did was okay. I’m just saying at a certain point, when he became influential, not even famous, but influential in the world of comedy, it changes,” she said, echoing past statements in which she addressed the scandal. “He felt like he was the same person, but the dynamic was different and it was not okay.”

“He wielded his power with women in f—ed up ways, sometimes to the point where they left comedy entirely,” she said. “I could couch this with heartwarming stories of our friendship and what a great dad he is, but that’s totally irrelevant, isn’t it? Yes, it is. It’s a real mindf—, because I love Louis. But Louis did these things. Both of those statements are true. So I just keep asking myself, ‘Can you love someone who did bad things? Can you still love them?’”

Listen to her explanation below. (via TMZ; Photo: Avalon Red)