R&B-popstar Janet Jackson knows she has struck a seriously sexy chord with the building-to-orgasm song Would You Mind.

"No, I wasn't trying to make a statement -- I was just writing about an experience that I had, really," said the singer about the song from her new album, All For You, in stores Tuesday.

The superstar, 34, was on a promotion stop in Toronto yesterday, decked out in a pink tank top, tight jeans and multi-coloured snakeskin boots. Her long hair was pulled back into an elegant bun. (Her well-toned arms and body, by the way, come courtesy of two-and-a-half-hour workouts, six days a week.)

"And it's so, so, so weird. That is the one song everybody brings up in every interview. I said, 'Gosh, what is it about this song.' And they all said, 'It's very, very sexy.'

"I felt like I was just singing about an experience, that it wasn't that much of a departure from what I had done on previous albums, like Someday Is Tonight or Rope Burn, songs like that -- the baby-making songs."

None of Jackon's songs, though, have been as explicit as Would You Mind, in which she coos with trembling vocals and heavy breathing: "I just wanna kiss you, suck you, taste you, ride you, feel you, make you come too."

When the song ends abruptly, you can hear someone laughing in the background and Jackson complaining: "The song ended! What the ... ? I didn't even get to come!"

It's hard to believe this is the same woman who came across as downright shy during a recent interview on David Letterman.

In yesterday's 15-minute chat, however, she's both friendly and charming, offering to hold my tape recorder during our conversation, which was timed by a publicist, Jackson's schedule was that tight.

So feeling comfortable, or possibly like Dr. Ruth, I ask her whether or not she did indeed climax during the recording of Would You Mind.

"I like trying to get into the mood, whatever it is I'm singing, let's put it like that," she said, avoiding a direct answer. "I love my candles, and it's totally setting the mood for all the songs I write, putting myself in that space again, to try to convey it, not just melodically, but also lyrically."

As for up-and-coming female artists, like 19-year-old Britney Spears, who seem to have incorporated some of Jackson's dance moves and sexual mores, she sees nothing wrong with it.

"Just watching documentaries and hearing stories about when Elvis came along and moved his hips and they said, 'Oh, it's too sexual.' You're always going to have that.

"And when (Britney) gets older there's going to be someone else that comes along. They'll probably only have on dental floss this way and that way. And that will be the whole fashion trend or something. So I don't think she should get the flak that she does."

Jackson does say that with each album she's released since 1986's Control, it's become easier to express her sexuality.

There is a definite sense of liberation about All For You. Some of that vibe, she said, has to do with her being single again, after divorcing second husband Rene Elizondo in 2000. He subsequently filed a $10-million lawsuit, claiming he's owed money for their work together.

"It's a sense of freedom," she said. "It's because of, once again, another change in my life. And it's very positive. The album's very happy, very up, optimistic and hopeful. A lot has gone on, and it reflects the way that I'm feeling.

"Being single again, going through the divorce, so many different things have happened. I feel it's all for the better, nothing for the worse."

Still, Jackson said the new song Truth is about Elizondo.

"With Truth, it's me thinking out loud and saying, 'Look, let's stop all this bulls---. Let's just go our separate ways, because we're wasting time here. We have our whole lives to live. And let's move on.