There's a difference between love and sex. There's a difference between friends and lovers. But, when it comes to the soap opera, there's a serious distinction between romance and sex. Often the two aren't even in the same scene. Romance on the soap opera, and in any melodrama, is so much more than sex. It's about intimacy and longing and, more than anything else, about love. Sex is a by-product of that but love is the key. With the demise of the soap opera, we're losing one of the last bastions of real romance from a female perspective, as backburnered as it's been lately. And, I, for one, will miss it terribly.
I troll around many message boards just to keep myself in touch with what other people think. I must admit that much of that commentary has made it into a class or two, but that's another blog for another day. Yet I saw a specific post once that made me think that this person had no clue what a soap opera was about. The poster was evaluating a love scene and said it wasn't "hot" because there was no nudity or thrusting or such. It wasn't explicit and that was no kind of love scene that person was interested in seeing.
I shook my head, thinking this poster, although allowed to have her own preferences, had absolutely no idea what most soap viewers enjoy. It wasn't long until the point was made clear for me as poster after poster jumped on the scene and said exactly what I was thinking. Every poster said just what I thought they'd say and what I would have said if I'd responded. Soap operas aren't about sex. They're about romance. And if she wanted explicit sex, she should watch a porno.
Okay, that last line was a bit extreme. But message boards are the wild wild West of the internet, so what can you expect? And, I thought it was funny. I think I'll write an entire series on the fans as I find them so insightful and dedicated and, really, so fucking amusing I can't take it! Again, another blog for another day. Yet obnoxious as it was, it rang true to some extent.
Producers have made many wrong turns with the genre but this one, the prioritizing of sex over romance, I think goes hand in hand with the switch from the female center to the male focus. Men, in general, prefer to watch sex rather than romance. They enjoy hard core porn more than women. There is actual research to explain this fact. Men are much more visually-oriented. They are aroused by "looking" more than women. This relates to why strip clubs for men are more sexually provocative whereas strip clubs for women are much more tongue-in-cheek (excuse the double entendre) and less about sex than community and fun.
When the switch in the late 1990's went from female centered shows to male, this focus went with it. The male gaze, as mentioned earlier, takes with it the emphasis on the female reaction to sex. It focuses on what the man sees and wants. Thus what the women want is neglected. Thinking that explicit sex is what the audience wants is missing the point. Overwhelmingly, from what I've seen, they prefer the romance leading up to sex as opposed to the explicit act itself. It's about the emotion leading up to the act rather than the act. In fact, often I've seen more positive reactions to the "afterglow" scenes than the explicit scenes themselves. This would be more proof that it's about the feelings and intimacy as opposed to the orgasm. At least that seems to be my summation.
Take, for example, Jack and Carly on ATWT. Two great actors, two great characters. They had more heat in their arguments than in the rather explicit sex scenes, of which they had many. In fact, it seemed to me that the real love between Jack and Carly was somehow diminished by the explicit nature of their encounters. They were two very interesting characters who were hot for each other, that was obvious, but it's sexier to see the interaction rather than the penetration. At least, that's my opinion. Now, take this scene for example:
I don't really need to see Michael Park's face looking like this. It's not pretty and, well, it's voyeuristic. Not hot to me but, well, two people having sex. That's nice but, really, I enjoyed them getting there more than actually seeing this much detail. But, hey, maybe that's me. It was always emphasized how Jack and Carly had a very physical relationship, and that's great, but it's not that interesting to watch. What made them interesting was the build to the sex, the back and forth, the flirting, the surrender to emotion, not the groaning. In fact, that all cheapened it a bit to me.
I always see references to Natalie and Brody's sex scene on OLTL which was all about sex. They were in love with other people and had what is a typical soap cliche. "I'm mad at the person I love, so I'll get drunk and sleep with you instead" sex was happening here. It's a typical example of over the top, explicit sex that panders to the lowest common denominator. It's titillating but is it wonderful? No. But, then again, it wasn't supposed to be.
Now, that's sex. But it's not love and really, it wasn't meant to be. Yet this was and it's tragic and romantic and sweet and sad and still hot. Frisco and Felicia were all kinds of angst and in this scene where he's leaving yet again, she says goodbye to him one more time. And this is romance.
No thrusting, no panting, no sweating. Just love and passion and emotion. There's nothing wrong with a little bump and grind but that shouldn't be the focus of the love scene on daytime, scripted dramas. It never has. Soaps lost something when they entered into the serious sexual realm and often, romance got lost with it. It was as if many shows became about fucking, not love making. And, if your audience is women, most would prefer the latter. But, no one will turn down a little fun once in a while.
Frisco and Felicia were a beautiful young couple who were doomed to fail. They loved each other and they wanted each other, badly. But it wasn't just about sex. It was about how MUCH they wanted each other, completely. Not just physically. Look at this:
Here, they have sex and kiss passionately, but it's about how much they missed and needed one another. It's not just about getting their rocks off. It's about getting their heart's desire...and their rocks off. That's just a plus. A love scene shouldn't be about sex. In melodrama, it's about love and intimacy. It's about sharing and longing and a desperate need for the other person.
You see many of us like these shows because they are something we don't always get in real life. We rarely get moments that are lovely and sweet and often, our love lives are about sex, not romance. Most people don't get to experience that kind of emotion that often. If I wanted to watch my love life on screen, I'd watch 30 Rock. I think everyone on that show is having regular, average sex. It's about real people. Soaps are not. They're about love and fun and everything that's NOT real.
Losing the romance is one of the many wrong turns these shows have made. Don't even start me on Nick and Phyllis whose sex scenes are explicit but lack any real feeling for me. Their fights had more emotion but it wasn't passion really. It was simple desperation. And that's sad. But not romantic. Phyllis, to me, always seems desperate and needy and Nick seemed up for it anywhere, anytime, but his real romantic scenes were always with Sharon. Although those two also had explicit sex scenes, it was ones like this that resonated:
That's romance. And, of course, the explicit sex scenes happened later. But this is the one I remember. And what I know I won't see again. Maybe that's why Y&R is off my DVR.
Soap operas died when the producers failed to realize what they were about and what made them special. They started giving us the surface of what they were about. They became cartoons and parodies of themselves. But, that's part number three. Tune in tomorrow for that. There's parody and there's denigration of the form.
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