CINDI LAUPER RECALLS BEING TOLD TO WRITE A SONG ABOUT FEMALE MASTURBATION AND INSURING THE LYRICS WEREN'T OBVIOUS

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Cyndi Lauper Recalls Being Told to 'Write a Song About Female Masturbation' and Ensuring the Lyrics Weren't 'Obvious'

The Grammy winner shared the story behind her controversial 1984 hit "She Bop" in a new interview

By Jack Irvin  Published on February 4, 2025 11:10AM EST

 

Cyndi Lauper has always been up for taking a risk.

 

In a new interview with The Independent, the 71-year-old Grammy winner shared the story behind her 1984 hit "She Bop" and how she crafted the song's cheeky lyrics while keeping it radio-friendly.

 

"It really shocked me," she recalled of the track, which wound up on the Parents Music Resource Center's "Filthy 15" list of "profane or sexually explicit" songs upon its release.

 

"I wrote it with this guy, Steve [Lunt], who called me up one day and he said, ‘You’ve gotta write a song about female masturbation,'" said Lauper, "and I was like, ‘Whoa, OK!'"

 

"And we did, but I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t obvious — that the grown-ups would know what it was about and have a chuckle, but then the kids would just think it’s about dancing," she added of the track, also crafted alongside Rick Chertoff and Gary Corbett.

 

"Hey, hey they say I better get a chaperone / Because I can't stop messin' with the danger zone / Hey, hey I won't worry, and I won't fret / Ain't no law against it yet," she sings on the upbeat track.

 

Lauper's efforts were successful, as "She Bop" — the third single off her She's So Unusual album — reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her third consecutive top-5 hit on the chart after "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "Time After Time."

 

Backlash, however, came along with the fanfare. "I didn’t think it was so bad, or so nasty. But all of a sudden it got loony," she said.

 

Nonetheless, Lauper's record label was supportive of the track, and she was happy to shed light on a topic not often discussed openly at the time.

 

"Nobody was ever really talking about stuff like that," she said. "I find it interesting to talk about things that people don’t want to talk about."

 

Lauper is currently celebrating her legacy on the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour, which wrapped its U.S. leg in December and hits Europe in February. She'll then head to Australia for a string of dates in April, before concluding the run that month in Japan.

 

She assured The Independent the farewell tour is only a goodbye to major arena shows — not performing overall. "The show I do right now? I can do it," she told the outlet. "But I’m 71, so I don’t know how I’m going to be in four years’ or five years’ time."