"Sex Is Not the Enemy" is a song by American alternative rock band Garbage, released as the second single from their fourth album Bleed Like Me (2005) in the UK.

[1] Written as a protest song, "Sex Is Not the Enemy" was influenced by the 2004 Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy, which led to a censorship row across American media after singer Janet Jackson's bare breast was exposed by Justin Timberlake in what was later referred to as a "wardrobe malfunction".

[12] After regrouping in Los Angeles to work with John King on some songs at the beginning of 2004, Garbage were prepared to return to Madison to overcome the difficulties that had derailed the previous years sessions.

[1] "We came up with a whole slew of songs in the first week [in Madison] ... Shirley wrote the lyrics to "Sex is Not the Enemy" ... suddenly words started pouring out of her. "

[15] At least three different versions of "Sex Is Not the Enemy" evolved throughout the Bleed Like Me sessions; towards the end of recording, Manson re-sung the entire vocal, as the band decided to return to the original verse melody.

"[19] Manson was perplexed by the apparent hypocrisy of censorship on US television, when in her opinion there were much worse things shown on-screen that children were left to watch unsupervised,[19] yet as the Iraq War raged on, the USA Today featured the SuperBowl incident on their cover for three days in a row instead.

[14] Coming through in the verse was Manson's sympathy for committed same-sex couples fighting for their right to be married, while celebrities such as Nicky Hilton were able to abuse the institution ("and, besides the odd raised-eyebrow or two, totally get away with it just because they're heterosexual.

Ahead of the retail date, Garbage undertook some media interviews on TRL, Popworld, CD:UK and hit40uk,[23] and headlined a sold-out concert at London's Brixton Academy[2] and performed a slot at the Download Festival.

[26] On June 19, Garbage appeared at T4's televised Party on the Beach coast-side festival in Weston-Super-Mare, promoting "Sex Is Not the Enemy" and "Why Do You Love Me" in front of thousands of sun-baked revellers.

[27] Warners belatedly serviced a few club remixes of "Sex Is Not the Enemy" to DJs[28] and on July 3 a digital bundle of the single and B-side "Honeybee" was made available on iTunes.

[32] On the first day of shooting, both Manson and Muller shot montage scenes in a New York City hotel room and at a street corner down from Times Square.

[34] This section of the video referenced both Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" and Jim Morrison's 1969 arrest for alleged on-stage indecent exposure,[1] choreographing a sequence where Manson exposed her breasts to the audience (in reality, a flesh-coloured bra) and dragged off-stage by hired actors posing as D.C.

By the end of August, two separate 12" vinyl white labels were in circulation featuring further remixes of the song produced by Freaks[43] and by DJ Hell/Fischerspooner side-project Naughty.

[46] Reviewers for NME were rather critical, Dan Martin writing that "tracks on the sober second-half [of the album] like "Sex Is Not the Enemy" revert to factory settings" and "could have been on any Garbage record of the past ten years,"[15] while in their single review, their journalist wrote "a sludgy-yet-shiny rock song that rages against state prudishness while sounding like a less-gay re-write of "Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)".

[48] Contrastingly, Leander Williams, of Time Out New York, wrote "Garbage's adventures in Wall of Sound multi-tracking make what's been called a return to basics impossible.

What's interesting is how the band tops the guitar and explosive glitches of present day rock with the Blondie-tronic keyboard riffs of new wave pop on "Sex Is Not the Enemy" ... amongst others".