'I Touch Myself' Takes on New Meaning in Moving Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign
The hit song “I Touch Myself” spread a message of female sexual empowerment around the world back when it topped the charts in the early '90s, but today the tune is telling women to be in touch with their bodies for a ery different reason.
In a tribute to Chrissy Amphlett, frontwoman for the Australian rock band the Divinyls who passed away last year, 10 female recording artists remixed the band's original hit for a breast cancer awareness campaign.
The music video is performed by artists Sarah McLeod, Connie Mitchell, and breast cancer survivor Olivia Newton-John, to name a few. The original hit, which reached No. 1 on Australian charts and reached the top 5 in the U.S., is stripped down and sung mostly a capella. Commissioned by Cancer Council NSW, the organization is also hoping to spread the self-exam message worldwide with the social media initiative #itouchmyselfproject.
Advocating for self-exams was a particularly important issue for the singer because of her personal experience. Following a mammogram and ultrasound that both initially failed to detect her cancer, her gut instinct and own self-exam prompted her to insist that her doctor perform a biopsy in 2010, which, indeed revealed cancer, according to Billboard.
Before Amphlett passed away on April 21, 2013 at the age of 53 after battling both breast cancer and MS, she had actually hoped that the song would remind women about the importance of checking for lumps and recognizing the symptoms of breast cancer to help with early detection of the deadly disease.""I Touch Myself" is so appropriate now more than ever, you know it really should be the breast cancer song," she once said.
The tribute, notes the charity, came together to turn Amphlett’s dream into reality.
Click here to watch the video.
