Feature Menu  The (Bisexual) Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  In a
review of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (the new U.S. version
starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara), the US Weekly critic
Mara Reinstein writes of Lisbeth Salander, “The brazenly
bisexual, leather-clad, withdrawn title heroine…” Wait —
brazenly what? What does it even mean to be brazenly bisexual?
The phrase suggests that being bisexual is a sort of kink,
something akin to playing with whips and chains or having sex in
an adult diaper. A lifestyle choice, if you will. Or, perhaps,
that being bisexual is something to be ashamed of — and not
something to be flaunted. Imagine a character being described as
brazenly straight — what would that look like? A frat boy in
pleated khakis with a “No Entry” sign taped to his butt? A
breeder who divorced his infertile wife? And how about brazenly
gay? Well, that’s easy, because that’s the kind of thing we can
imagine someone saying a few years back, when it was still
widely acceptable to discuss being gay a