The show’s tradition of thoughtful social commentary makes All My Children a fitting venue in which to make such daytime television history. According to an official statement from the show, All My Children has tackled many a controversial social issue in its 33-year history—such as “AIDS, abortion, drug abuse, racial bias and teenage alcoholism.” Lesbianism, it seems, was an obvious next step for the show’s producers. FM’s confidential sources high within the show’s internal party structure partly refute this claim, however, alleging that only after much heated debate did a lesbian kiss barely edge out an Ebola outbreak as the show’s next periodic extraordinary dramatic twist.
FM expects the news of the first daytime TV kiss, and Riegel’s role in it, to arouse a chorus of approval from various segments of the Harvard community. Gay rights activists will likely hail the kiss as progressive yet long overdue. Harvard men, for their part, also seem poised to welcome the historic television event—as an important first step in socializing their most private and cherished erotic fantasies, which until now have found an outlet only through illicit late night file transfers.
For those fearful of change, fear not. Unexercised sexual energies at Harvard should not dip from their fevered pitch for long. Excitement will no doubt ebb as Harvard men realize that they are actually statistically less likely to see booty on television than in their own social lives, for lack of cable or barely any reception on campus.
The kiss is also anticipated to set another milestone of sorts. While the lesbian kiss will not be a first for Harvard, which has long been on the vanguard of social tolerance, the exchange will be Harvard’s “most current” lesbian kiss, if only momentarily. Lesbians on campus plan to celebrate the occasion by going about their daily lives, which generally include not watching All My Children.
