ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 16, 1996 TAG: 9609180060
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ben Beagle
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
Some of you ladies should know that this is going to be about sex, so maybe you'd better go and make a door wreath or something.
Go find Martha Stewart. You won't find old Martha talking S-E-X - not even about the reproductive processes that make daylilies possible.
I don't mean to be sexist here, but you gentlemen can stay if you want to. I mean, we're all urbane types, right? I'd appreciate it, though, if you guys wouldn't poke each other with your elbows and smirk.
But to get on here, let me say that I've been shaky ever since I heard about this study that concluded soap operas aren't doing enough to promote safe sex in real life.
I didn't know soap operas were supposed to do that, but this study suggests that they have a frightening influence on the way people behave in this country.
It's no fun to think that your fellow countrypersons pay that much attention to shows with such bad lighting you suspect all this racy stuff is going on in a room down at the funeral home.
We should also mention really bad acting and really bad writing.
Although I have long been a naive Radford boy, I never thought that the soaps might inspire 40 million viewers - the ladies who stayed on might want to cover their eyes here - to practice unsafe sex.
And I say to you my fellow Americans who have not been led down the primrose path by television that we had better do something about this.
There should be a law against sex in the soaps. So what if this would be unconstitutional? Our family values are at risk here.
Besides, we wouldn't take everything away from the soaps. They could still have their steamy blondes, beefcakes, biceps and reasonable amounts of cleavage.
The law would apply only to bedroom and smoochy scenes - without which the average half-hour soap would last five minutes. Millions of viewers would have time for weighty thoughts.
Somebody might even invent an edible plastic, which would save a lot of your recycling time.
We've got to stop somewhere, pal. The study found there were "6.1 sexual behaviors" in 97 hours of TV. I don't know how you show 6.1 "sexual behaviors," but I'm no expert.
I don't watch the soaps much, but I've noticed that a lot of bad diseases turn up - maybe not 6.1 terminal diseases an hour, but a lot.
Laugh if you want to, but "General Hospital" may already have given you a brain tumor.
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