7 things Stieg Larsson wanted to say about sex
The rationale (if there is one)
Larsson writes quite boring sex-scenes, doesn’t he? But tasteful in their own way, nevertheless.
Take this example – the infamous ’first time’ between Mikael and Lisbeth:
Blomkvist was reading a novel by Sara Paretsky when he heard the door handle turn and looked up to see Salander. She had a sheet wrapped round her body and stood in the doorway for a moment.
“You OK?” he said.
She shook her head.
“What is it?”
She went over to his bed, took the book, and put it on the bedside table. Then she bent down and kissed him on the mouth. She quickly got into his bed and sat looking at him, searching him. She put her hand on the sheet over his stomach. When he did not protest she leaned over and bit him on the nipple.
Blomkvist was flabbergasted. He took her shoulders and pushed her away a little so that he could see her face.
“Lisbeth…I don’t know if this is such a good idea. We have to work together.”
“I want to have sex with you. And I won’t have any problem working with you, but I will have a hell of a problem with you if you kick me out.”
“But we hardly know each other.”
She laughed, an abrupt laugh that sounded almost like a cough.
“You’ve never let anything like that stand in your way before. In fact, as I didn’t say in my background report, you’re one of these guys who can’t keep his hands off women. So what’s wrong? Aren’t I sexy enough for you?”
Blomkvist shook his head and tried to think of something clever to say. When he couldn’t she pulled the sheet off him and sat astride him.
“I don’t have any condoms,” he said.
“Screw it.”
*
When he woke up, he heard her in the kitchen. It was not yet 7:00. He may only have slept for two hours, and he stayed in bed, dozing.
This woman baffled him. At absolutely no point had she even with a glance indicated that she was the least bit interested in him.
(Excerpt from Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, translated by Reg Keeland, available pretty much everywhere if you want a 5th copy or so … )
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So … even though they (the sex-scenes) may be sprinted quite liberally across the pages of the Millennium tril, especially of book 1 and 2 a tad too often, they seem to emphasise Larsson’s message quite well, I think.
I have read some rather loony (IMHO) – and allegdedly feminist – analyses of how Larsson ‘just wants to write about violence to women as a sexual turn-on’, covering it up as a serious novel. Blahblahblah. I won’t even begin to sprout links here to said articles. I really don’t have time for it.
If some people want to believe that, more power to them. We are 27 million readers (and counting) at the time of writing who – probably – have a somewhat different experience of what Larsson wanted to say with his list of sex-scenes in the books.
Here’s what I think he wanted to say:
1) Sex between all sexes is okay
Obviously – we have Christer who is gay (and one of the good guys), Miriam – a through-and-through lesbian, Mikael who is ’absolutely hetero’, Erika who experiments a little and so on. All of them major characters. Homosexuality is independent of moral qualities, witness Martin Vanger as the gruesomest example.
2) (Consensual) sex can be a lot of different things, not just what you thought was normal
Again we have Miriam Wu as a good example: She’s into BDSM aside from having sex with her own sex. Salander is, like Erika, experimenting but not really aware that she is. Annika uses the ’what the hell is actually normal except as defined by the powers-that-be’ argument during the trial, when she hammers Teleborian for labeling Lisbeth as a nutcase, just because she presumably had sex with some older men in her teens. (And a bit more, I know, but that particular bit plays a major part in Teleborian’s attack on Salander.)
3) Sex is a natural part of life
What I like best about Larsson is that everyone (well, almost) has sex all the time, as the most natural thing in the world. He doesn’t write it particularly voyeuristic, or pornographic, or even over-romanticised – just as something normal, like having lunch. But still with that slight balance that makes it clear that this is a special situation for the characters and not lunch. 
4) Sex is a major good – that can be used for evil
Of course – Zalanchenko’s prostitutes, Martin Vanger’s victims, all of the women who are hated by men. The list is quite long, but by no means implying that sex per se is evil. That is probably a stand point a thousand miles away from Larsson’s outlook on the world (literally: I think you’d just about end up in the Vatican if you went 1K miles in a straight line from Stockholm!)
5) Sex is not necessarily normal between only two persons
Erika and her menage-a-trois = most prominent example. Wisely, though, Larsson only hints at this and thereby avoids making the Erika-Mikael-Erika’s husband ’triangle’ even more lurid than it could be perceived. For example, he writes that Erika has tried a real menage-a-trois with her (almost unbelievably tolerant) husband, but not one involving Mikael. And it’s probably best that Larsson just let things stay that way!
6) Sex and power are often inextricable … but don’t need to be
Blomkvist has sex with dozens of women but ’never asks anything from them’, and exactly therefore so many women seem to be crazy about him. Lisbeth uses sex as some kind of distraction from her personal problems, and can’t really put her heart into it (too well guarded one supposes). But in a way Mikael seems to have the same problem, just with a more positive twist.
The evil-doers use sex to terrorise and fullfil their power-fantasies. It is, for example, pretty obvious that Martin Vanger doesn’t really care as much about raping women as using rape as a tool to break down women, and assert his own power, before he murders them (the ultimate assertion of power – and the ultimate turn on for this creepy man).
Less extreme, but cast from the same mould, is – of course – lawyer Bjurman. It seems, though, that he is more interested in the sex-act itself, although he can’t really ’feel for it’ without mixing it with domination.
7) Sex and love could go together … but don’t have to
By far Larsson’s weakest point. As I recall it none of the main characters really have ’old-fashioned’ romantic relationsships and sex at the same time. Dag and Mia are obviously a happy couple, and obviously they explore the sexual side of their love behind the scenes, but the characters who are actively having sex in the books are not really the characters who get actively involved with each other, romantically speaking.
Mikael and Monica may be an exception but their relationship is in its early beginnings at the end of book 3 and we don’t really get more than a hint that this time could be steady-time for Blomkvist. Or maybe not. Maybe Monica will be ’just another woman’ he can’t get attached to.
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And that’s about it. I suspect there’ll be a part two of this blog post sometime in the near future. The topic is definitely not exhausted, I feel! For now, I’m just holding my breath and waiting for some of your comments.
What do you think about the way Larsson portrays sex and love in Millennium? Do you think it adds to or substracts from the drama, action and the political and social themes that there is a lot of sex? Or do you think it’s nothing really worth noting because a lot of other books are far, far more explicit?
Let me know! I’m sure you didn’t just skip the sex-scenes, when ploughing through the three books 
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(Slightly) related stuff:
Best movie photos from Millennium
Millennium movie rants and reviews
Noomi Rapace shrine (come on – let’s be honest: She IS sexy!)
