After Rolling Stone published its April cover story on shape-shifting pop musician and actor Janelle Monáe on the release of her third album, Dirty Computer (Wondaland/Bad Boy/Atlantic), it felt like every traffic-hungry news outlet cherry-picked the quotes where she opens up about her sexuality. Monáe’s transparency about being pansexual is well and good, but in the midst of stories that boiled her statements down to one cheap talking point—for example, the Washington Post piece headlined “Janelle Monáe comes out as ‘pansexual’—what does that mean?”—a lot of the nuance of the record was lost in the mix.…
After Rolling Stone published its April cover story on shape-shifting pop musician and actor Janelle Monáe on the release of her third album, Dirty Computer (Wondaland/Bad Boy/Atlantic), it felt like every traffic-hungry news outlet cherry-picked the quotes where she opens up about her sexuality. Monáe’s transparency about being pansexual is well and good, but in the midst of stories that boiled her statements down to one cheap talking point—for example, the Washington Post piece headlined “Janelle Monáe comes out as ‘pansexual’—what does that mean?”—a lot of the nuance of the record was lost in the mix.…