[7][8] Considered a safe-sex manifesto,[9] in the song Positive K insistently tries to woo Lyte, who rejects him on the grounds that "guys are running games, like the New York Knicks", "guys like you just wanna hit and run" and "There's just certain things you don't understand baby/Every woman wants to be treated like a lady".

[4][5] As Positive K explained to Village People, at the time of creating the song "wanted to do something in rap that had never been seen before" and his main inspiration was the duets he grew up listening to such as Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell and Lionel Richie and Diana Ross's "Endless Love".

[10] In August 1991, regarding the content of songs like I'm Not Havin' It and Please Understand, Lyte told Deborah Gregory in an Essence interview "I’ve never let a man dog me and I never will, It’s just not gonna happen!".

[14] In January 2019, 30 years after its publication, Lyte collaborated on the Positive K single "I'm Still Not Havin 'It", which is a continuation of the original version.

"[7][8] In July 1990, black feminist author and cultural critic Michele Wallace wrote about the song in a note for the New York Times, later included in her book Dark Designs and Visual Culture (2004),[15] in which she commented that in their dialogue Positive K and Lyte "comes down hard on the notion that women can’t say no, and criticizes the shallowness of the male rap.

"[16] In October 1996 Jon Shecter of Vibe called the song a forerunner of male and female duets in hip hop, highlighting when Positive K says "Excuse me, miss ..." on the hook as its most memorable part.

[4] In 2018, The Boombox's Naima Cochrane commented on Positive K about her lyrics in Im not Havin'It and I Got a Man "despite his name, specialized in what could be called street harassment hip-hop.