The single peaked at number 23 on the US Album Rock Tracks chart.
Scott Weiland wrote the lyrics after a girl he was dating was raped by three high school football players after a party.
According to guitarist Dean DeLeo, the song "In the Light" by Led Zeppelin had a direct influence on the main riff in "Sex Type Thing".
In an October 1997 interview in Seconds magazine, Glenn Danzig mentions the similarity of the main riff to the Danzig song "Snakes of Christ".
During some performances from 1999 until STP's 2002 break-up, the band would extend the song's ending into a jam session where Weiland would strip naked in front of the audience and then wrap his lower body in an American flag.