Soap Opera Influence and Viewership
Speaker: Debra Haffner (click here for biography)
Soap Summit 1

Transcript of the Proceedings
October 22, 1994

SONNY FOX: We're coming down toward the end of where we're going to be and at this point I want to, as the last formal speaker of this session, introduce Debra Haffner. And I have left her intro over there, and ...enough to say that Debra is the Executive Director of SIECUS. And SIECUS is an agency which is a combination of many, many agencies and groups that ally for the purpose of providing sexual education and information in the United States. And Debra has been involved with this whole problem of how we deal with sexuality in the United States and, off of everything that has happened today I thought it would be interesting to have Debra give us her perceptions and her information. Debra, would you come forward, please?

DEBRA HAFFNER: Thanks, Sonny, I think Sonny saved me for last in the day because he figured maybe you would still listen to sex. Although, I feel a little bit like when your partner turns to you at quarter to twelve at night and you think, you know it's not that I'm not interested, but it's really late. The mission of my organization is to affirm that sexuality is a natural, healthy part of life. And I tell you that because I think it points out the irony and the discomfort that I think we have about sexuality in our culture. The head of the American Lung Association does not begin his talks by telling you that breathing is a natural and healthy part of life. And yet we have a need for an organization to say that this gift that we are born with, in fact that forms pre-birth and that continues until we die, is in general often looked at as dangerous, painful, sinful and negative. You all have become the primary sexuality educators of children and youth in this country. Someone asked earlier today about sex education in school. Well, I want to tell you that less than 5% of American young people get comprehensive sexuality education all the way through school. Every day you all model sexual relationships, male-female relationships, communication about sexual issues, standards of attractiveness. I want to tell you I used to think the soaps had the major role in sexuality education, but that was before there were 19 talk shows on the air. Yesterday you could have seen promiscuous spouses on Donahue, gay teens on Oprah, cheating husbands on Jessie Jones, women who sleep with their friend's lovers on Ricki Lake, aspiring porn actresses on Jerry Springer, and transvestites who cause problems, whatever that means, on Sally Jessy. So you're actually pretty mild when it compares to your competition.

America is culturally confused about sexuality. Dr. Elders talked to you about disease in this country, the morbidity in this country, but I want to also suggest to you that we are dis-eased about sexuality. You've all, I'm sure, seen the press about this book which came out last week, which is the recent sex survey which shows the average American has a sex life which is infrequent, monogamous, with partners of similar background and pretty much unvaried. Now that was very reassuring to the American public who really believed the media messages that everybody is getting it more, hotter, better than you are. And you may have noticed that in the press interviews they started with you guys. I mean, every story that I saw on TV and 'all the stories that I appeared on, started with soaps to show the contrast. Now I want to tell you that I am not suggesting to you all story lines. There is not a lot of dramatic potential in the sex lives of the American average adult. But I do think you can play a major role in addressing the confusion and that "dis-ease" that exists about sexuality.

You all know that there was a sexual revolution. And I'm fond of saying that sex won that revolution. But what happened during that time is the accepted standards about sexuality were not replaced and behavior changed. For example, premarital sex. More than half the people say they disapprove of premarital sex. More than 80% of adults had premarital sex. So that we have not caught up the standard with our culture.

If I do nothing else with you today, I want to suggest to you what is a moral, ethical sexual relation-ship as a new norm which we at SIECUS would like to see talked about. And that is a relationship that is consensual, that is non-exploitative, that is honest, that is mutually pleasurable and that is protected against pregnancies and STDs. And if you use that moral standard, you can have a moral, ethical relationship at 16, perhaps, and maybe not at 40. You can have it in a one-night stand and maybe not in marriage. You can have it if you're gay, as well as if you're straight. So that in fact that moves us out of marriage as the standard for when is sex okay or not.

I want to suggest to you six things that I would like to ask this community to think about in terms of your role in providing good modeling about sexual messages. The first is to affirm sexuality as a natural and healthy part of life. And that is not just about behaviors. We often think about sexuality as about what people do. Specifically what they do with their genitals. Your sexuality, all of our sexuality is really about who we are as men and women, and how we relate in the world.

The second thing I want to ask you to think about, is to affirm that all people are sexual. Not just young people, not just highly attractive people, not just able-bodied people, not just heterosexual people. That all people have the right to their sexuality. And so I would like to suggest that you show older, even your older characters having sex. I would like to suggest that you have your not-so-attractive characters be involved in sexual relationships. I would like to suggest to you that you look at having gay and lesbian characters and who can express their sexuality. I would like to suggest to you that you can show married people having hot sex. That in fact they can enjoy their behavior. And I bought a whole lot of soap magazines on the way out here. And I was really interested in the columns. A lot of people write in about how boring the marriage stories are. And I was thinking to myself, you know, could you use the opportunity to show hot sex in a marriage as well as what you do in non-married situations. I want to suggest to you that you have a critical role in modeling behaviors. There is a belief in sexuality among some people that what we need to do is help people make good suggestions, and I think a few people said that today. I don't believe that when it comes to sexuality we engage in decision-making models. We don't lay out the alternatives, we don't evaluate the consequences. In fact, what we do is that we act. And so what we need to look at is how to model healthy sexuality.

I want to tell you a quick story which is when I was in Sweden a few years ago, I met with a group of teenagers. In Sweden the legal age for intercourse is fifteen. And by and large young people do not engage in intercourse until they pass that fifteen-year-old age. I met with a group of fourteen-year-olds and I said, "Under what circumstances wouldn't you use birth control?" and they all looked at each other. So I tried again and I said, "In America a lot of teenagers don't use birth control. When would you not use birth control?" And finally one young man said to me, "But Ms. Haffner, that would be really silly unless you wanted to get pregnant." And another teenager said, "It kinda would be like driving through a red light." And that's because as a culture Sweden models contraceptive use as going with sex from when those kids are this big.

So I want to talk to you about four things of my six that have to do with modeling. The first is to model the ethical norm of sexual relationships. Too often sexual images have been associated with power and violence. One of the really disturbing things about this sex survey was it found that 22% of American adult women say that they have been forced to have sex as adults. And only 3% of American men say that they have ever forced somebody to have sex. What it shows is that when it comes to communication about sexuality, men and women don't do a very good job and have very different models about what consent is. And Bill talked about being values consistent. I think that if you all consistently showed ethical, moral sexual relationships, that would help change that norm.

The second thing I want to ask you to do, which is actually number four for those of you who are taking notes, is to model planned behavior. You heard these girls, each of them say, "It just happened." Well, it's just not to teenagers that it just happened. In fact, there is very little pre-intercourse discussion in this country. The norm is, or what we put out there, is "good sex is "swept away" sex. I look at you across the room, our eyes link, he's going, "Oh, my God, why is she looking at me?" And we immediately go out. We know exactly what each other wants. We don't have to talk about anything. We have fabulous sex, I am swept away... He made me blush...what people tell you, what single people tell you, is that pre-intercourse discussion may actually discourage it. They don't want to negotiate it in advance because maybe that would give him or her a chance to change their mind.

And married people don't discuss it. Those of you who are married know we develop a little set of signals, you know, are we in bed at 11:15 p.m.? Does he have a book with him? Doesn't he have a book with him? What kind of clothes are we wearing? And so we don't talk about it. There's this "swept away" thing. The problem with "swept away" is, what? If it's not planned, it's really hard to protect yourself. And so we need to demonstrate that communication is sexy. That we can demon-strate how to set sexual limits in our programming. That we demonstrate not just how to say "No", but I would really like you to demonstrate how to say "Yes," particularly to adolescents so they know when it is they are ready and they can see that.

And then we also model what I call sexual limit setting. What Brad's research shows is what happens in life, which is that people kiss, and if they are going to do more than kiss they have intercourse. And I would like to suggest to you, particularly for adolescents, we need to get them to slow down. We need to show that there is a range of behaviors, many of which don't involve putting yourself at risk of the intercourse or other penetrating behaviors. I call that my national petting project. I would like to see how we can help young people get the idea that there is something between kissing and intercourse.

Fifth, I think you need to model protection against sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy, even perhaps both together because we know people need to use them together. And to show the negative consequences of not protecting. Someone asked earlier, "How come if there are all these condoms and all this knowledge, why aren't people using it?" The problem is that culture tells us that condom use, as Allen told us, is not particularly sexy. But even for adolescents, it tells them it's wrong. And I am going to do an exercise with you I do with people all over the country. A sixteen-year-old girl with a condom in her purse is a (audience answer: "slut.") I want to change the culture so that you would all think "smart" first. But the reality is for teenagers, carrying a condom means she's planning, which in turn means she's bad, which in turn means she's risking an adult finding those condoms or those pills and she can't protect herself. So it is much more than access. It is much more than information. It is cultural support for modeling protection. And I would like to suggest to you that every act of voluntary intercourse, except among...for people planning to have babies, be protected.

The sixth thing I want to ask you to think about is modeling communication about sexuality between parents and children. We know that parents want to talk to their children about sex and they don't know how. I'd like you to think about how you can integrate in your story lines parents initiating discussions about sexuality, children asking for discussion, parents admitting they don't know, but showing how you can go and get information, and how you can find information about sexuality. And I'd like to suggest to you, don't start it at adolescence with that, but that you model how to talk to the 2 and 3-year-olds. So that you think about introducing that message that sexual communication begins with little children and that sets the foundation for adolescent work.

I was reading in one of the soap opera magazines an interview with Wendy and she said someone asked her about why were they doing all of these issues, and she said the intent is not to make General Hospital an issue show, issues are a part of life. Well I want to tell you that sexuality is a healthy and natural part of life and clearly a healthy and natural part of the soaps. And I ask for your participation and involvement to ensure that all people, teenagers and adults, gays and straights, young and old, married and single, able-bodied and disabled, that all people have the right and responsibility to make responsible sex. To make responsible sexual choices. Thank you.

Q: All I would like to know, Debra, is would you repeat because I thought they were fabulous, your list of characteristics of appropriate sexual...a moral, ethical sexual relationship.

DEBRA: It's consensual; people agree. It's non-exploitive; no one's using each other. It's honest; both people know what it means. It's mutually pleasurable. And it's protected against sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.

Q: I'm curious...you said to start when the child is 2 or 3-years-old. How do you start? In a story-line context, what are the kind of things you could incorporate?

DEBRA: Well, I think you could first of all have a small child ask where babies come from, which is really, if any of you have kids, know that is about a 2 to 3 l/2-year-old. I think you could have a child talk about "I'm different than Daddy." You know, have a little girl do that kind of anatomy thing. I actually wanted to suggest to you, but then I thought this is really radical, one of the things we really feel strongly about at SIECUS is to start naming the parts of the anatomy. And that, there is this thing in America where we say to little kids, I have a 15-month-old son, so this is very relevant in my house right now, we say, "This is your nose, this is your tummy, these are your knees," and we teach them this much of their body has no name. And I would love to see one of you take the risk to say, "This is your penis or vulva, these are your knees." And I have to tell you the Bobbits broke "penis" as a code word on TV. We can now say "penis." And I thought, "No, you can't suggest that to them, "they won't do that." But that's the kind of early education that sets the foundation for learning. Interestingly, I did a TV show and I said just that and I had one of the techs come up to me and say "What is a vulva?" So even with adults we don't have that education out there.

SONNY FOX: Thank you very much. Debra, I presume SIECUS will be available for a resource? And Debra, too, personally. Well, it's been a long journey to this conference. It's taken a lot of months and a lot of time, and a lot of support. And I am absolutely, totally thrilled with the outcome of it. I hope it has been of some use to those of you who have shared in it. And I want to thank especially the people who honored the soaps and the seriousness of their impact by coming from all over the country to be our faculty for the day. Starting, of course, last night with Dr. Elders who was so wonderful in kicking off the conference and going on today with Professor Charles Westoff of Princeton, and Allan Rosenfield who came in from New York from the School of Public Health at Columbia, Jim Marks who flew in from Atlanta from the CDC, Eloise Anderson who flew down from Sacramento to be with us today, Blanca Ovalle who came over from USC, Claire Brindis who came down from San Francisco, Drs. Lorraine Stern and Linda Reid who abandoned several sick children to come over here, I'm sure, Gayle Nathanson who travelled from Inglewood which is tougher to get to from than San Francisco, I think, Mary Jurmain who brought a little "Baby, Think It Over" with her, Dr. Mark Smith who cam down from the San Francisco area, Brad Greenberg who came in from Michigan State and Debra Haffner who came in from New York. To all of our faculty, we thank you.

Renewed thanks to the Pew Trust Grants for their generosity in giving us the grant that enabled us to get this thing going and to the Kaiser Foundation for the auxiliary grant which kept it going better. I hope that if story lines change, if characterizations change, if anything happens as a result of this conference and the input we've had today, it would be wonderful if we could hear about it and have the gratification of knowing that we've made a difference. There are no expectations and we're not putting any pressure on you. If it does make a difference down the line it would be ever so wonderful to know about it.

WENDY RICHE, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, GENERAL HOSPITAL: I would like to thank you. I was not aware and I don't think a lot of us were aware of what we were in for here. And I think this group was inspiring and stimulating. We're all sort of chattering about "we could do this and we could do that" and what it's done is informed us and given us an inspiration to the enormous responsibility that we carry. We appreciate it.

SONNY FOX: Thank you, Wendy. We thank you. (Applause.)