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The Gays Go All the Way in Daytime
As the World Turns took an unexpected turn this week and went where no soap opera—and few primetime shows—has dared: showing two post-coital men.
On June 1, 2007, the character of Noah Mayer made his first appearance on As the World Turns, the daytime drama that has aired daily since 1956. He was a military brat turned heartthrob, who quickly hooked up with a fellow intern at the local television station. She fell for him—and so did her openly gay best friend, Luke Snyder.
It took a while for Noah (played by Jake Silberman) to admit his own attraction to Luke (Van Hansis), who had come out the previous summer. On August 17, 2007, Noah and Luke shared a groundbreaking kiss—the first gay male kiss in the history of American daytime dramas. Overnight, the clip went viral and still stands as one of the most-viewed videos on YouTube.
This Christmas, Noah presented Luke with a watch that was engraved, "Worth the wait."
Since that fateful exchange of spit, the characters have naturally faced countless obstacles. At first, their mutual friend was caught in the crossfire of Noah's sexual identity crisis. Noah had to come out to his homophobic father, who (after killing his wife) soon conned Luke and Noah on a fishing trip where he shot Luke, paralyzing him from the waist down. But since this is daytime, where characters are known to have seven lives, it wasn't a surprise when Luke walked again thanks to the devotion and optimism of Noah's steadfast support. Even more twisted: Noah briefly married an Iraqi refugee to keep her in the country after she claimed his father saved her family. Luke and Noah stole kisses but fear of being discovered by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency drove their otherwise openly gay rapport back into the 1950s.
As the months wore on, the sexual tension between Luke and Noah (affectionately dubbed Nuke and Loah) grew. They kissed increasingly frequently and with decreasingly little fanfare from blogs, but they never went all the way. They did talk about sex—and what their first time would be like—but it never came anywhere near their horizon. Like everything in their relationship, intimacy was shown through incredibly compelling dialogue.
The inseparable pair talked about everything. Their feelings were always expressed (thanks in large part to head writer Jean Passanante, who happens to be responsible for two other gay characters in soap history) if not physically acted on.
Luke and Noah's dynamic escalated on New Year's Eve, when the night finally seemed right. Except for one elephant in the room: Luke's step-grandfather, who had kissed him during Thanksgiving. To make a convoluted story short, Luke got drunk (not a good thing when you've had a kidney transplant, too) after seeing Noah console his ex-girlfriend, and then he kissed his step-grandfather. Of course, Noah was a witness and threw a punch to protect "his love." When Luke confessed to initiating the kiss, Noah walked out, leaving Luke alone to read a note written from Noah, which was meant to be read the next morning, when they would have been together in bed.
For fans, it appeared, as usual, as if Luke and Noah had gone a few steps forward and many more steps back. Sure, they would recover over time. Like most soap "supercouples," they were meant to be. I was prepared for the long haul of relationship rebuilding.
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Henry Seltzer is a homepage editor for The Daily Beast. He previously worked at UsMagazine.com and The Huffington Post and filed for Gawker and Wonkette under the moniker of "Henry the Intern." He occasionally contributes to Project.ioni.st and once published Press Gaggle, a blog about the White House press briefings.
Banjo1
How soon before we have anal intercourse discreetly depicted? Then perhaps not so discreetly as the gay culture flattens the remaining standards of decency . It has captured Hollywood -- see former power agent Michael Ovitz on the gay mafia that rules there -- so why not daytime TV?
link2882
The above comment is exactly the ridiculous, heteronormative banter the US is getting sick of. We are constantly subjected to heterosexual activity on television, in the news, and discrimination based on orientation throughout the governmental sector. And as for "gay mafia"... I wish! maybe then we could get some muscle together to shut this guy up... :-)
bavb63
oh Banjo1, we have gay porn for that silly!
Banjo1
"Heteronormative." Like that word, 2882! Does it have roots in "normal"? What's with gays wanting to shut up people who disagree with them? First anyone who is a Christian and now Banjo1. Where does it stop?
ghettosavant
Decency in an American context means essentially nothing. We have things that are illegal and we have things that are legal. We have behavior and property the laws protect and we have behavior and property the laws do not protect. Decency in a democracy is a matter of taste unless it is referred to by statute and even then - it is entirely interpretable by the judiciary who is responsible for taking the temperature of the public will.
like-mind
There's remaining standards of decency?
like-mind
Christians and other arbiters of What's Right are learning every day how much they now stand on shifting sand in our society - and thank God heh
For 30 yrs, politicians have traded for power and money, by making these folks feel like God's little soldiers, at the expense of the 4th Amendment's establishment of Separation of Church and State.
Hello! Test for a False Idol: do they exhort you to live a pious life, or do they degrade the meaning of religion by exhorting you to hate?
Really, Banjo1 - how hating on gaydom (and every other person freedom quashed by Faith-Based Initiatives imposed upon the Citizenry) bring you closer to God? It can't, because God is love. QED dude
Banjo1
ghettosavant: Moral relativism has taken you down a strange and twisted road.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
idiotking
Just as long as they were playing safe... I'm sick of the glorification of, and lies surrounding, unsafe sex in the gay community these days.
allamericanboy
......... OR Banjo1, maybe, just maybe, piety and/or bigotry has taken you down a strange and twisted road.
liviapeacock
banjo1, closet case much? Why don't you stick to making comments on the drudge report or fox? Open minded people like to read the daily beast, smut and all. That's why Tina was born, and its not your place to ruin it for the rest of us. Go back to your man cave.
Maiyeko
The Christian Taliban are gonna have a field day with this one!
BrainDispatch
Time is a funny thing. It's an inarguable fact that each generation of Americans, for over a century now, gets more liberal with each passing decade.
The more youth in our nation that get secondary educations and the more we become globalized by things like the internet and television; the more gay society is going to become a social norm.
Anti-progressive sentiment is always going to be around, but it does fizzle away a little bit more with each passing year. I mean, my grandfather voted for Barrack Obama. I'm sure someone else here has an old, racist, sometimes wildly inappropriate, immigrant in the family. I've heard him call a black people countless names and been ashamed but I was never more proud when he voted for a black man to be the most powerful man in the country.
As far as "standards of decency" decreasing in society goes, I think it's a joke. What a person thinks is "decent" is an individual's choice. And Banjo1 saying something like "What's with gays wanting to shut up people who disagree with them?", just makes him sounds ignorant. Straight people want to shut people like you up too.
I am 27 years old and have many gay friends, all of whom I consider to be some of the most "decent" human beings I've had the pleasure of knowing in my life.
Brooklynindy
Banjo, this quote's for you:
"There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or to be acted out under the guise of virtue."
-Erich Fromm
And I think he was paraphrasing Mark Twain, who said something along the lines of, "Moral indignation is envy dressed in a tuxedo."
Thank you.
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