Prince’s proclivity to color outside of the sexual lines has been evident since his early image. Here was this man, who while singing about his sexual desire for women, was wearing either a black thong and thigh-high’s, or decked out in lace and matching high heel boots, and always in full makeup. Like his music, Prince was expressing how multifaceted sexuality could be by blurring the lines between traditional male and female imagery. Something which is still not commonly done with performers who identify themselves as straight.

Prince shows us that sexuality is not flat or one sided but that it can be expressed as the multi-dimensional phenomenon that it is. He does not embrace just the masculine and feminine sides of his sexuality, but he also expresses everything in between, recognizing the many sexual sides that exist in all of us. His expression is not just the bouncing back and forth between what is male and female, but rather it encompasses that which isn’t one or the other and therefore cannot be fully described by either term. Prince, himself is not afraid to switch gender roles in his songs. In “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” Prince proclaims, "I wanna be your brother/ I wanna be your mother and your sister too." In "If I was Your Girlfriend" he openly sings of his desire to be his girlfriend's closest female friend. Prince uses gender switching to express romantic love in a way that is not commonly done and in a way that opens up his music to the listener. He's not just saying that he wants to be your man; he's saying that he wants to be your man, your woman, and about half of your relatives. He doesn't want the one sided male-female sexual relationship that predominates most love songs, but instead he wants a relationship that goes beyond the traditional concept of what a romantic and sexual relationship is.

In his Lovesexy album, Prince gives us a view of the spiritual side of sex when he alternately sings the praises of sexual intercourse and God throughout the album. Although God and sex are seen as being mutually exclusive in many Christian religions, Prince uses Lovesexy to express his love of God, and to show how sexual experiences can be spiritual as well. Just as Prince expresses male and female sexuality as a jointed experience, he also brings together sexual and religious experiences as one in the same. Prince isn't limiting sexuality to a dark forbidden corner of life but instead, brings it out into the light, letting it touch every part of his being; even the part that loves God.

Non-Prince fans don't seem to understand what Prince is trying to say, with his sexually explicit songs, androgynous image, and religious devotion. They don't understand the freedom that Prince is expressing and instead, find him weird. Or as my mother says, “creepy and perverted.”

The most common sentiment I find among males who are not fans, is that Prince is either “gay,” a “faggot,” or any number of hateful terms, while female non-fans think that he looks and acts too much like a woman. What I don’t think the non-fans understand is that they are reacting to the surface image of Prince and are not really listening to the music. They see the image, but not what it represents and are therefore closed off to his message.

The freedom that Prince represents is what the fans hold on to. Prince fans find that the way Prince expresses his sexuality through his music makes them more comfortable and able to embrace and express their own sexuality. Through his music, his behavior, and his public persona, Prince is all about freedom of expression and being true to himself. This is a freedom that many are unfamiliar with and will not allow themselves to comprehend. Those who do become familiar and open up to comprehend, become free within themselves.