Sister

This song is about incestuous sexual abuse of a sexually inexperienced sixteen year old boy by his thirty-two year old sister, whom the lyrics imply has custody of him. She is described as making love exclusively to her brother despite being "loose" and refusing to wear undergarments because of their inhibiting the flow of her sexual juices. The boy in the song feels guilt about the relationship, "I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse," even though he also says he just wants to be her friend. This guilt is common in survivors of sexual abuse. She teaches him about some sort of penetrative sex in addition to oral sex. The song then refers to her prostitution of him, "She only wanted to turn me out," and his reluctance, "Don't put me on the street again." It says she whipped him until he cried out, which is again intermingling sexual abuse with physical abuse.

Once again, Prince is proving himself socially aware and politically active. I think it's interesting that all the way back in 1979 this song was out there letting people know that it's not just women and girls who get abused by men and boys, but that abuse can occur with the genders reversed. People still forget that, today. I also think it's interesting that the others who comment, not just here but elsewhere, see the shock value so much more clearly than any potential social commentary that might make us aware of what can happen so that we can help those who need help. There are lots of places for abused women and girls to go for help, but our society tends to disbelieve or ridicule male victims of abuse. It would be good if songs like this led to greater awareness and change. Instead, it's more common for them to be used as an excuse for censorship, which I find extremely sad.

With his high heels on and women's underwear under his trenchcoat , Prince thrived on the use of titillation to get recognition. Here is a very BLATANT attempt at it again. Knowing his life long fascination with sex, it's probably FACTUAL. His sister was no doubt a first rate tramp at least. It probably happened down by old man Johnston's farm on a rainy day.

The song is about sexual abuse. It even has an explanation by Prince as to why he had such an extreme relationship with sex ("she's the reason for my, uh, sexuality"). It's a shame he never spoke publicly about it, apart from one time:

“All the stuff on the record [Dirty Mind] is true experiences and things that have occurred around me and the way I feel about things. I wasn’t laughing when I did it, so I don’t suppose it was intended that way.

“That’s why I stopped doing interviews. I started and I stopped abruptly because of that. People weren’t taking me seriously and I was being misunderstood. Everything I said they didn’t believe anyway. They didn’t believe my name. They didn’t believe anything.”

When Prince was 16 his step-sister, Norrine, was 32.

only prince would sing about incest such as this!

Soooo gross!