What's The Soap Audience Actually Seeing?
The question remains, does the audience see what it thinks it sees? Unanimously, every source available says, "NO!" Nina Arvesen, an actress who played roles on SANTA BARBARA and THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS said, "I don't think that anything we do is ever too racy or too graphic…Most of what we do is left up to the viewers' imaginations and consequently what they think they're seeing is what they create in their own minds and it's illusion." (Povich 10/9/92) Arvesen explained that scenes usually end with the implication (however obvious) that sex will take place, although it is up to the viewer to determine that.
Daytime writers and actresses aren't the only ones making such claims. In The Soap Opera, Cantor says, "Most of what has been called 'sex' on TV actually concerns only intimations of sexual acts or their outcomes such as crimes of passion, adultery, other forms of infidelity, pregnancy, and abortion." (Cantor 73) "Seeing sex on network soap operas required an active imagination or at least deductive reasoning from the viewer. Scenes and conversations contain strong hints, but the critical conclusion remains with the viewer." (Greenberg and D'Alessio 316)
The deluge of quotes on this subject continues to prove that the suggestion of sex instead of actual sex is an industry wide phenomenon noted by researchers as well as writers and performers. "The dominant mode of presenting sex on soap operas was talking about it." (Lowry 94) "Talking about sex in the soaps was far more prevalent than visual counterparts of engaging in it." (Greenberg and D'Alessio 319)
ANOTHER WORLD and SANTA BARBARA (both were hour long shows on NBC which are now defunct, but still remembered fondly in soap circles) were monitored from September 14, 1992 to October 23, 1992. During this time, the concept of "all talk and suggested action" was much in evidence. Out of the sixteen scenes between the two shows during which intercourse was supposedly taking place, there was only one scene in which the cameras were rolling during a simulation of the act itself. This was storyline motivated because the audience witnessed it as the man's fiancée walked in on the man having sex with another woman.
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