Deadpool does what a lot of superheroes do. He battles bad guys, he’s essentially indestructible, and he wears an insanely tight spandex suit. He (played by Ryan Reynolds) earned a lot of attention this weekend because he also curses like Ernest Hemingway on a bender, breaks the fourth wall to chat with the audience, and experiments sexually with his strip-club-waitress girlfriend, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Oh, and because his movie opened to an enormous $150 million over the holiday weekend, minting a brand-new franchise in the process.

Deadpool is undoubtedly the first superhero movie where the superhero gets (lovingly) anally penetrated by his main squeeze, and any signs of protest from Wade clearly have to do with physical discomfort, not gay panic. Deadpool still falls victim to a conservative, “damsel in distress” story line, but there are signs of spice here in the typically vanilla-glazed world of comic-book cinema. That’s partially because Deadpool is one of the few R-rated superhero movies, but the character of Deadpool himself is well suited for pushing boundaries. And, based on some chatter thus far, may push even more of them in the now-inevitable sequels to come.

In the comics, the sarcastic mercenary swings all ways, hitting on women, men, and Spider-Men alike. He’s been described as “omnisexual” by one of his comic writers and “pansexual” by the movie’s director, Tim Miller. So far, however, all of that flirtation has manifested solely in heterosexual relationships, and the movie follows suit with the same kind of casual, same-sex attractions that are waved off with a laugh.

Deadpool muses on fondling Wolverine’s balls and proclaims his arousal while battling his nemesis, Ajax (Ed Skrein). Jeffrey Bloomer at Slate takes those moments as the usual laddish fare, calling Deadpool “no more pansexual than a frat boy who smacks another brother’s ass and then giggles about it, acknowledging a homoerotic energy he only knows how to dismiss with a joke.” It’s that flirtation-without-representation dynamic that has gotten other popular properties like Sherlock and Supernatural slapped with accusations of “gay baiting.” But the context of the film brings the flirtations and safely homosocial jokes outside the frat house at least to the front porch. I don’t remember Van Wilder lingering so long, so often, and so matter-of-factly on Reynolds’s toned ass, but Deadpool does, leaving its scarred superhero to dance around sexuality like Bugs Bunny in a push-up bra and, more importantly, leaving the audience to deal with it.

For most moviegoers without prior knowledge of the comic books (and that’s a lot of them), Deadpool will not even register as the first mainstream superhero movie featuring a bisexual character. Deadpool ruffles feathers any way he can, then heads back home to have sex with his manic-pixie-cut girlfriend, so it’s easy to think he’s just being goofy about going gay. Without knowledge of the comic-book canon, the Deadpool of the movie appears thoroughly straight.

That’s why the sequel has all the promise in the world for bringing the character definitively out of the joke-protected closet. Despite the fact that Deadpool, more than a lot of other superhero films before it, hinges on the love story between Wade and his girlfriend, Reynolds recently said that it “would be great” for the character to have a boyfriend in the next movie. He hopes that he and the creative team can break more boundaries in the future, and Fox—which isn’t nearly as tight-leashed with its superheroes as Marvel/Disney—may very well give them room to run.