Last Updated on March 15, 2026 by Black Sunshine Media
Seventy percent of rock music is fundamentally and/or tangentially about sex. The other 30 percent of rock music is about guys who can’t seem to get any sex. The phrase “rocking and rolling” originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean as a sexual analogy. Likewise, the subtext of “boy meets girl” is ultimately about consummating the relationship, so to speak. In the 1950s, “rock and roll” became a euphemism for sexual intercourse.
The modern poet and philosopher Sir George Michael famously sang, “Sex is natural, sex is good. Not everybody does it, but everybody should.” It’s hard to argue with him, but I don’t think everybody should sing about it.
Terms & Conditions
- No songs about sexual assault, harassment, or exploitation.
- No songs by Ted Nugent.
- The song must clearly indicate some exchange of bodily fluids and/or demonstration of kink and fetish imagery.
These are my favorite songs about sex for one reason or another, but mainly because they appeal to my sense of humor. Let the Songs About… series continue!
25 Songs About Sex
Work It – Missy Elliott
I’d like to get to know ya so I could show ya
Put the pussy on ya like I told ya
Give me all your numbers so I can phone ya
Your girl acting stank, then call me over
Not on the bed, lay me on your sofa
Call before you come, I need to shave my chocha
You do or you don’t or you will or won’t ya?
Go downtown and eat it like a vulture
My dear friends, this jam won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Female Rap Solo Performance1 and a Billboard Music Award for Top Rap Song. It debuted at #2 on Billboard’s Hot 100, kept from the top spot by Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”, and spent 10 weeks in the top 10. And it’s because of this song that I’ve listened to more Missy Elliott than Green Day.
Pussy – Rammstein
You’ve got a pussy, I have a dick, ah
So, what’s the problem? Let’s do it quick
So, take me now before it’s too late, life’s too short, so I can’t wait
Take me now, oh, don’t you see? I can’t get laid in Germany
Rammstein is a band that thrives on the fringes of questionable taste, feeding on controversy and shock value. They’re known for one of the most infamous stage acts in rock history. During the song “Bück dich” (German for “Bend over”), vocalist Till Lindemann would lead keyboardist Christian “Flake” Lorenz across the stage on a leash. Lindemann would then simulate anal sex with Flake from behind. At the climax of the performance, Lindemann would produce a realistic prosthetic dildo and spray a white liquid (actually a mixture of water and Pernod or aniseed liqueur) over Flake, himself, and the audience.
This performance famously led to the arrest of both Lindemann and Lorenz on June 5, 1999, following a show in Worcester, Massachusetts, during the Family Values Tour. They were charged with lewd and lascivious behavior and spent a night in jail.
“Pussy” is from Liebe ist für alle da (2009) “Love is there for everyone”), their sixth studio album, and it’s the band’s first #1 single in Germany. The lyrics reference sex tourism with lines like “Alleine in das Ausland fahren” (“drive alone to a foreign country”) and “I can’t get laid in Germany”.
Three Days – Jane’s Addiction
Three ways was the morning
Three lovers in three ways
We knew when she landed
Three days she’d stay
Greasy. The more I know about Jane’s Addiction, the less I like them, and unfortunately, two of their albums are among my all-time favorite alternative rock albums. Clocking in at nearly 11 minutes, “Three Days” (from Ritual de lo Habitual (1990)) is about a ménage a trois between singer Perry Farrell, Casey Nicoli, and Farrell’s now deceased girlfriend Xiola Blue, who died of a heroin overdose in 1987 at the age of 18.
Dave Navarro‘s guitar solo in middle section gets a little tiresome, but the jam goes nuclear at 7:35 with the “Erotic Jesus” section and outro.
He Was a Big Freak – Betty Davis
He was a big freak!
I used to beat him with a turquoise chain, yeah
Betty Davis, formerly Betty Mabry, was a flamboyant funk and soul diva, known for her controversial sexually oriented lyrics and gritty performance style. She was second wife of trumpeter Miles Davis. “He Was a Big Freak” is from Davis’ second album, They Say I’m Different (1974).
Let Me Put My Love Into You – AC/DC
Let me put my love into you, babe
Let me put my love on the line
Let me put my love into you, babe
Let me cut your cake with my knife
The kings of the clumsy double entendre, you could throw a dart at an AC/DC set list and hit a dumbass song about sex. The true fun is imagining a sweaty Brian Johnson wearing that stupid hat, slumped over some poor girl who’s thinking about a handbag she saw in a boutique window the other day.
S.E.X. – Adam and the Ants
And when summer gets to me
And sets the sex on fire
My body is an ocean
Of twisted white debris
A deeply personal favorite, and everybody who loves early Adam Ant will understand the genius of the live performance.
Slide It In – Whitesnake
You talk too much
Never saying what’s on your mind
It’s written on your face
An’ in the words you hide behind
I know what you want
I can see what you’re looking for
I know what you want from me
An’ I’m gonna give you more
I’m gonna slide it in
Right to the top
Slide it in
I ain’t never gonna stop
Slide it in
Right to the top
I’m gonna slide it in, slide it in
Slide it, in baby…
I specifically remember hearing this song on the radio in 1984 and thinking, ew, gross. Whitesnake was never anything more than AC/DC without the double entendre. Horrible music for horrible people. And I sincerely doubt David Coverdale “ain’t ever gonna stop.” Five bucks says he was worthless after the first pop.
Darling Nikki – Prince
I knew a girl named Nikki
I guess you could say she was a sex fiend
I met her in a hotel lobby
Masturbating with a magazine
She said, “How’d you like to waste some time?”
And I could not resist when I saw little Nikki grind
I never enjoyed the corporate rock stylings of the Foo Fighters; however, their cover of “Darling Nikki” is fantastic.
The Ballad of Dorothy Parker – Prince
My pants were wet, they came off
But she didn’t see the movie ’cause she hadn’t read the book first
Instead she pretended she was blind
An affliction brought on by a witch’s curse
Dorothy made me laugh (ha ha, ha ha)
I felt much better so I went back to the violent room
(Tell us what you did, what you did)
Let me tell you what I did
I took another bubble bath with my pants on
All the fighting stopped
Next time I’ll do it sooner
“The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” is one of the few songs where Prince has the opportunity for some nookie, but for whatever reason, turns it down.
Very few Prince songs aren’t about sex. For example, I just happened to read the lyrics to “Raspberry Beret”, a song I’ve heard hundreds of times, and always thought it was about an innocent encounter with a cute girl in a second-hand store. In fact, Prince takes the girl to Old Man Johnson’s farm and bangs her in a barn.
The rain sounds so cool when it hits the barn roof
And the horses wonder who you are
Thunder drowns out what the lightning sees
You feel like a movie star
Listen, they say the first time ain’t the greatest
But I tell you, if I had the chance to do it all again
I wouldn’t change a stroke
Cause baby I’m the most
With a girl as fine as she was then
Venus in Furs – The Velvet Underground
Kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather
Shiny leather in the dark
Tongue of thongs, the belt that does await you
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart
“Venus in Furs” challenged multiple songwriting conventions at the time, but for starters, the celebration of sexual masochism wasn’t something you heard every day. Set to an eerie, minimalist drone amid waves of distortion, the song is a dark, narcotic, and dispassionate kink fantasy, culminating in an unprecedented experimental-psychedelic sound. Nobody had heard anything like it in 1967.
This cut always made me laugh because Lou Reed was probably the least sexually appealing of all classic rock stars. His Pointdexter Tryhard character just assassinated Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 novella Venus in Furs, in which the male main character seeks to be enslaved by his fur-coated lover.
“Dirty Movies” – Van Halen
Daddy’s little sweetie after some damn rainbow
Got the big deal in the back of a limo
Now showbiz is so thrillin’, the camera rolls she’s willin’
They won’t believe it when they see what they’re seein’
Go see baby now!
I stands to reason that David Lee Roth and the boys were familiar with a porn star or two.
Melt! – Siouxsie & the Banshees
You are the melting men
And as you melt
You are beheaded
Handcuffed in lace and blood and sperm
Swimming in poison gasping in the fragrance
Sweat carves a screenplay of discipline and devotion
There are things in this life that I’m better off not knowing.
Orgasm Addict – Buzzcocks
You’re makin’ out with school kids
Winos and heads of state
You’ve even made it with the lady
Who puts the little plastic robins on the Christmas cakes
Butcher’s assistants and bellhops
You’ve had ’em all, here and there
Children of God and their joy strings
International women with no body hairYou’re an orgasm addict
The best song about sex addiction, ever. End of.
Wolf Like Me – TV on the Radio
Dream me, oh, dreamer, down to the floor
Open my hands and let them weave onto yours
Feel me, completer, down to my core
Open my heart and let it bleed onto yours
Feeding on fever, down on all fours
Show you what all the howling is for
Some kind of werewolf thing happening on this cut, which also happens to be the band’s most successful single in the U.S.
Run Like Hell – Pink Floyd
You better run all day and run all night
And keep your dirty feelings deep inside
And if you’re taking your girlfriend out tonight
You better park the car well out of sight
‘Cause if they catch you in the back seat trying to pick her locks
They’re gonna send you back to Mother in a cardboard box
You better run!
“Young Lust” is a bit more straightforward (and also from The Wall (1977)), but the imagery on this cut gets me every time.
Inside My Love – Minnie Riperton
You can see inside me – will you come inside me?
Do you wanna ride inside my love?
You can see inside me – will you come inside me?
Do you wanna ride inside my love?
Inside me
You can come inside me… (Inside my love…)
(Inside my love…) You can come inside me
(Inside my love…) Will you come inside me? (Inside my love…)
You can come inside me… (Inside my love…)
Will you come inside me? (Inside my love…)
You can come inside me
(Inside my love…) Will you come inside me?
You can come inside me… (Inside my love…)
Will you come inside me? (Inside my love…)
You can come inside me… (Will you come inside me?)
Will you come inside me?
You know Riperton as the voice of “Lovin’ You” (more colloquially known as “Lovin’ You Is Easy Cuz You’re Beautiful”), her use of the high whistle register in the song’s bridge, and possibly, as the mother of Maya Rudolph.
Riperton claimed that the lyrics to “Inside My Love”. aren’t about a woman encouraging a man to ejaculate, but rather, attaining true intimacy. I dunno about that.
Add It Up – Violent Femmes
Why can’t I get just one fuck?
Why can’t I get just one fuck?
I guess it’s got something to do with luck
But I waited my whole life for just one…
Day after day, I get angry and I will say
That the day is in my sight
When I’ll take a bow and say goodnight
The penultimate song of adolescent sexual frustration, summed up succinctly.
Lick It – 20 Fingers
You gotta lick it (you gotta lick it)
Before we kick it (before we kick it)
You gotta get it soft and wet so we can kick it (so we can kick)
I was in the men’s apparel department at Landmark the other day, rifling through racks of shirts, looking for something that will fit my Western frame. Asian sizes run super small, so I’m usually an XL or 2XL, depending on the brand. At some places, I’m a large. Occasionally, I can squeeze into a medium. But one of the main reasons I’m so picky and simple about clothing is it’s hard to find the right size. I care about how something fits.
I was standing there, scoffing in mild disappointment at a rack of too-small shirts, when I noticed this song playing on the store’s P.A. system, which isn’t uncommon in the Philippines, but…the subject matter seemed off. Another random dude looking at surf shorts heard the “lick it” bullshit and shot me a look like, “You hearin’ this, too, buddy?“
I shrugged and said, “I get the premise, but that’s just lazy songwriting.”
Gang Bang – Sensational Alex Harvey Band
There was twenty-seven guys
An unexpected surprise
She just kept on rockin’ ’til the night was gone
She was smilin’ through the tears
For a hundred and fifty years
Just lickin’ her lips and helpin’ me along
Ain’t nothin’ like a gang bang
To blow away the blues
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band is an overlooked but highly influential early 1970’s proto-punk glam rock band that found reasonable success in the U.K., Europe, and Australia, but never caught on in the U.S. “Gang Bang” is from their second album Next (1973), which has some killer cuts, especially “The Faith Healer”. You can hear precursors of AC/DC in everything they do.
On July 8, 1974, Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band covered “Gang Bang” live at Ebbets Field in Denver, CO, recorded and broadcast by KBPI 105.9 FM. The Seventies were a different time.
Turbo Lover – Judas Priest
On and on we’re charging to the place so many seek
In perfect synchronicity of which so many speak
We feel so close to heaven in this roaring heavy load
And then in sheer abandonment, we shatter and explode
I’m your turbo lover
Tell me there’s no other
I’m your turbo lover
Better run for cover
Historically, most New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands studiously avoided matters of romance, love, and, to a lesser degree, sex, or the depiction of sexual activity, consensual and/or otherwise, except in the context of cock rock and viking rock.
From 1974 through 1985, the bulk of Judas Priest’s material covered dark themes of rock n’ roll hedonism, power dynamics, general violence, exuberant machismo, anti-authoritarian rebellion, and the occasional homoerotic fantasy. But they didn’t have a “Slide It In” type of vibe until the album Turbo (1986), a startling collection of glam metal (aka hair metal) jams that played well on MTV but horrified Priest’s diehard metal fan base.
Knowing what we know now, you can’t tell me “Turbo Lover” isn’t fuckin’ hilarious.
Nookie – Limp Bizkit
My so-called girl, but in reality
Had a hidden agenda
She put my tender heart in a blender
And still I surrendered, hey
Like a chump
I did it all for the nookie (come on!)
The nookie (come on!)
So you can take that cookie
And stick it up your (yeah!)
Stick it up your (yeah!)
Stick it up your (yeah!)
Listen, Fred. I owe you an apology. I did it all for the nookie, too. We all do.
Go All the Way – The Raspberries
I never knew how complete love could be
‘Til she kissed me and said
Baby, please (baby) go all the way
It feels so right (feels so right)
Being with you here tonight
Such a schizophrenic song. One minute they’re channeling the Who and the Beatles, and then it’s Neil Sedaka and Bobby Goldsboro. Do you remember Bobby Goldsboro? I do.
Whiter Shade of Pale – Procol Harum
She said, “There is no reason
And the truth is plain to see”
But I wandered through my playing cards
And would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
And although my eyes were open
They might just as well have been closed
And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale
This one appeals to my literary side. The surreal, baroque pop lyrics seem like nonsense, but they’re actually a fragmented narrative about a nervous, drunken seduction at a party, inspired by Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale, which, in itself, is the story of a cuckholded carpenter who’s wife has an affair with a clever university student.
Crazy Bitch – Buckcherry
Break me down, you got a lovely face
We’re going to your place
And now you got to freak me out
Scream so loud, getting fucking laid
You want me to stay, but I got to make my way
Hey
You’re a crazy bitch
But you fuck so good, I’m on top of it
I’ve never heard a band scream “Hepatitis C” like these jokers. This is why we can’t have nice things anymore. The lyrics are beyond stupid.
Slip It In – Black Flag
You’re getting around
(Slip it in)
I’m not putting it down
(Slip it in)
It’s just what it is
(Slip it in)
Getting it while it’s around
You say you don’t want it
You don’t want it
You don’t want it
But then you slip it on in
Kinda sad what happened to Black Flag. I guess I’m not surprised.
