SEX IN MUSIC: Christina Amphlett’s Love Touch

Publishing History

High Society - Dec. 1991

“Christina Amphlett’s Love Touch” originally was published in the Nov. 1991 issue of High Society
magazine.

“I was trying to be dressed and
naked at the same time.”
— Christina Amphlett

By Nik Flandrè

Certainly in her performances, The Divinyl’s Christina Amphlett is and has always been, a sensual creature.

When she sings, her husky, bittersweet rasp lures the ear close to the speaker. When she talks, her whispery, Australian-accented voice
invites a kiss. Performing — well, just check out the cover to the group’s latest self-titled release, where her ample curves are barely hidden in fishnet. Strain to see more of that full breast she’s covering; follow the other hand disappearing between her legs. Try to put it down after just one glance.

It’s only fitting then, that this luscious singer land her first big hit with “I Touch Myself,” a song unabashed in its lust. The irony of course is, that it’s on the band’s first album after leaving Chrysalis Records in 1988. Now they’re on… Virgin!

Record company names aside, when Amphlett silkily confides in “Touch” that “I want you, I don’t want anybody else/and when I think about you, I touch myself — oooh, oooh oohoooh;” you may find you have a yearning ache below the belt.

Amphlett is coy about the song’s rather obvious meaning: “I think it’s up to the listener’s interpretation; if you’re a nun, you know, you’re going to interpret it in one way and if you’re a stripper, you’re going to interpret it another, you know? It is a bit of an attention grabber!”

Indeed.

If you need more help interpreting the song, check out Amphlett’s various sliinky outfits and knee-high boots in the video for “I Touch Myself,” which also includes a brief appearance by a scantily-clad contortionist with her head between her legs — touching herself, of course. “I suppose there’s a bit of flesh in it,” Amphlett admits nonchalantly.

On previous Divinyls records (which include their Australian debut, Monkey Grip, as well as the U.S.-released Desperate, What a Life and Tempermental), Amphlett sang of “Dirty Love,” “The Dance of Love,” and of how she would “Make U Happy.” On Divinyls, she consistently returns to the subject of sex in “Make Out Alright,” Love School,” “Need a Lover,” “If Love Was a Gun,” and “Bullet.”

And there’s no doubt of what she promises in “Lay Your Body Down” when she sings, “Action’s what I’m looking for, action’s what I like/You know what my name is, I’m the mistress of the night/Sometimes in black, sometimes I dress in white/Sometimes I dress so wicked, I give myself a fright.”

Fright is definitely not the reaction her fishnet dress causes.

“It’s like really clever. It was just some silly thing that was, I think, pulled off a second-hand clothes rack,” she explains. “I was trying to be dressed and naked at the same time.”

She looks great both ways.

Copyright 1991 by Nik Flandrè.
All Rights Reserved

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