At almost any hour of the afternoon, you can turn on the TV and find daytime couples steamong up the showers, frolicking in the flowers or earning their memberships in the "mile-high club."
Such scenes, of course, are just part of a day's work for soap actors. Depending on whom you talk to, though, they also happen to be an occupational hazard. We've all heard that on-camera love scenes are really not as much fun as they look.
Yeah, right. You get paid a ridiculous amount of money to be nearly naked in bed with some of the best-looking people on the planet. But it's really not that much fun!
Primetime Passion
If afternoon love scenes get your blood boiling, oh, baby, bring on the night. Daytime soaps are positively tame compared to some of their primetime counterparts.
Some say MELROSE PLACE began the primetime-TV sexual revolution, bringing sex out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, the shower, the garage, wherever. MP was even one of the first primetime soaps to depict gay relationships.
These days, though, viewers seem tired of the endless gymnastics, demanding some substance, like love and romance, along with the sex. MP's ratings have suffered - maybe because there's less sex than usual.
Other shows have found a balance between romantic and racy, a tight-rope act daytime has successfully navigated for decades.
* BY TRACY PANZARELLA