Although today she is primarily regarded as a gay icon, Cher was undoubtedly one of the most lusted after women in America during the 1970s. I know, I was there. She wore the most revealing outfits of any woman on television, had an amazing body and the longest, most beautiful hair I’d ever seen. I thought she was amazingly, outrageously stupendously hot.

I was nine years old when the above TIME cover came out and I can recall staring at it—I mean staring at it—in a Rite Aid, totally and utterly sexually transfixed. I’d never seen porn at that point in my young life, but this cover was pretty darned wonderful, I reckoned. Before I could probably fully form the thought that certain of these puzzlingly female creatures must be amazing in bed, I think I intuited this fact rather easily when it came to Cher. In the clip below, Cher sings her classic hit song Half Breed, demonstrating the effect she had back then.