Men Who Hate Women and Women Who Kick Their Asses: Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy in Feminist Perspective

7. Third-Wave Rebels in a Second-Wave World: Polyamory, Gender, and Power

65 7 Third-Wave Rebels in a Second-Wave World Polyamory, Gender, and Power Mimi Schippers W hen I posted a blog entry about nonmonogamy, a friend sent me an e-mail that read, “You must read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo! You will love it.” Well, my friend was right: I do love it. I love the characters and the suspense of an unraveling mystery, but I must confess that what really drew me into the series was the sex. You might be asking yourself,“What sex? There is no sex in those books!” It’s true. Stieg Larsson always fades away to the proverbial fireworks when it comes to getting down and dirty. But his books are full of sexual relationships, and the implied sex Larsson embeds in the lives of his main protagonists is as much a part of character development as drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, kicking the bad guy’s ass, and hacking into computers, especially for Mikael Blomkvist, Lisbeth Salander, and Erika Berger. Blomkvist is an independent, hard-hitting investigative reporter who has a strong feminist sensibility and an even stronger desire to avenge injustice. Salander is a traumatized and thus distrustful, intelligent, and resourceful woman who appears to some to have Asperger’s syndrome and attempts to depend on no one but herself. Berger, the third in our triad, embodies twenty-first-century post-second-wave feminism’s empowered woman: she’s beautiful, sexy, and in her late forties—a rarity in mainstream popular culture. She’s also smart and successful, and she runs Millennium, a magazine devoted to promoting social justice, whistle- 66 Men Who Hate Women and Women Who Kick Their Asses blowing, and exposing bad guys. I’m interested in how these characters are constructed partially through sexuality, how their sexual lives offer an alternative narrative of gendered sexuality, and how their relationships to one another offer a stark contrast to the gender injustices they fight. The Gendered and Polyamorous Sexualities of Salander, Berger, and Blomkvist In Dragon Tattoo, we meet Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative reporter with a lot of integrity, a rather healthy libido, and an apparently irresistible sex appeal, for he ends up in bed with pretty much every woman character who wanders through the stories. If we take a superficial look at the portrait Larsson weaves of Blomkvist’s sex life, we might conclude that it is a rather straightforward representation of hegemonic masculinity (Connell 1995; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Schippers 2007), especially when it comes to sexuality. Hegemonic masculinity refers to the takenas -natural characteristics and behaviors associated with or expected in men and boys that are perceived as complementary to opposite feminine characteristics. In other words, it’s the box our culture draws around what men and women, and boys and girls, can and cannot think, feel, and do. For example, in contemporary Western cultures, masculine sexuality usually includes some variation on (1) a healthy and always-ready libido, (2) desire for women and only women, and (3) a preference for being independent and free of the old ball and chain—that is, the restrictions that come with settling down in a committed and monogamous relationship with one woman. Taken-as-natural behaviors or characteristics that are expected in “normal”women—another example of the hegemonic cultural box— are something like these: (1) some reticence and a lot of prudence in feeling and especially expressing sexual desire; (2) the desire to be the object of men’s (and only men’s) desire; and (3) being more interested in romance and long-term commitment with one man than in sex, especially sex with many different men. Of course, not everybody (if anybody!) really embodies these Third-Wave Rebels in a Second-Wave World 67 ideals, but they are the dominant ideals nonetheless. They’re held up as the measure of good, normal, healthy relationships. The further your desires, sexual activities, and relationships fall from this ideal, the freakier you are. These ideals are written into (if not formulaic for) pretty much every romantic comedy and romance novel, provide a backstory for suspense and thriller novels, and are behind every “tsk-tsk” or “way to go!” we get from friends, family, and members of the clergy. In other words, these ideals for masculine and feminine sexuality are fundamental to most of the stories we hear or read about erotic relationships. Guys are always horny...