Was Marilyn Monroe a Lesbian?

Despite her highly publicized relationships with such men as Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, and Marlon Brando, did classic screen gem Marilyn Monroe secretly swing both ways?

Allegedly, yes. Yes, oh, yes.

According to the new Marilyn biography Marilyn Monroe: My Little Secret, by author Tony Jerris, the timeless beauty had more than just expensive dresses hiding in her closet.

Add to her long list of known scandals a string of lesbian relationships, encompassing a pretty impressive set of ladies. Along with women like Jane Lawrence and acting coach Paula Strasberg, the icon reportedly experimented with Hollywood powerhouses Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlene Dietrich, and Barbara Stanwyck.

Liz Taylor and Monroe in one bed? Did anyone else just feel incredibly plain?

So, why the sudden interest in Monroe's bedroom preferences?

Despite her death in 1962, our fascination with Marilyn doesn't seem to have waned. In last December's "My Week with Marilyn," Michelle William plays a sultry but tragic Monroe, and NBC's series "Smash" revolves around the production of a musical based on the star's life, making Marilyn worshipping accessible to a whole new generation.

And it's not just men obsessed with the seductress. Women love her. We hang her black-and-white posters in our dorm rooms. We want to be like her. We want to smell her hair and borrow her shoes. And, if we have a glass of wine and are perfectly honest with ourselves, a lot of us kind of want to do her.

Therefore Jerris' book sparks within us that age-old question: Well, would you?

Jerris tells how Lawrence, a sixteen-year-old who ran Monroe's fan club, was invited over to the starlet's apartment to help line shelves (if you know what I mean). She recalled to the writer how the pill-popping and champagne swigging twenty-nine-year-old Monroe first initiated their relationship with a kiss on the thigh.

The rest of the excerpts read like something teenagers might hide between the mattress, detailing some "flicking and licking" on Monroe's part, along with various other verbs I blush to recount, but probably read a few times with the covers over my head. Suffice to say that the rumors of Monroe's sexual mastery were not ill-founded.

"'Whatever your sexual preference is, it means nothing - love is love,'" she told Lawrence.  But despite the suddenly all-too imaginable fantasies about the curvy star's famous bosom sandwiched between Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford, the book maintains that Monroe was not strictly playing for the prettier team. Rather a she was "free spirit" and an "open person," and didn't classify herself as a lesbian.

 So, with this news, the obvious follow up is this: should we be expecting a public denouncement of Miss Monroe by Chick-Fil-A?