Effects of Soaps on Teenage
Female Sexuality
Speaker: Debra Haffner (click here for biography)
Soap Summit 2

Transcript of the Proceedings
September 7, 1996

SONNY FOX: Information and Educational Council of the United States. She's president of an organization, that many of you in the business know about, because you have access to their resources, their library, and their help. Debra, incidentally, is now on a sabbatical from SIECUS, and where has she chosen to go? She is at the Yale Divinity School. And has made an exception to be with us today, because she considers this to be of great importance. I now invite Debra Haffner to come up, and share her thoughts with us. Debra. [APPLAUSE]

DEBRA HAFFNER: I'm really happy to be here. Sonny called to ask me to do this, I agreed because I felt so good about the first Soap Summit, and the dialogue that I was able to have with some of you not only at the Summit, but afterward, that I decided that I would be here.

One of the things I remember the most from the first Summit, is that I talked to a writer from one of the soaps who told me that he felt that he was following in the grand tradition of Charles Dickens in being a story teller. That fundamentally, what you people do is tell stories.

Well, I want to tell you that actually, after my first two weeks in Div. School, you could've been Bible writers. I have just finished the first chapter of the Old Testament, which is Genesis. And Genesis really rivals the soaps for its tales. So far, I have read about not only the seduction by Eve of Adam, but of brothers killing brothers, of incest, adultery, infertility, surrogate mothers, floods and famine, wives who masquerade as their husband's sisters, men who masquerade as their brothers in order to gain money, including two women in the first 27 chapters who get their father drunk in order to have sex with them so they can conceive. It's all in there. So, if you're looking for plot lines, go back and read Genesis, which talks about the same kind of human conditions that you deal with all the time.

In fact, if anybody says to you, what you do is heretical, you can point to Genesis, and tell them it all started back then. You're at least a tradition that goes back 3,500 years. SIECUS' mission is to affirm that sexuality is a natural, and healthy, and inevitable part of life. Now, why do we need such an organization in the United States? Clearly, our sexuality is as much a part of who we are as breathing is, or eating, or our circulatory system. But the U.S., rather than understanding that we are born as sexual beings, and will die as sexual beings, officially believes that our sexuality is dangerous, and that it needs to be controlled. We are both diseased, but we are also dis-eased as a culture. Every day, you bring 40 million people messages about their sexuality. Now we at SIECUS and other sexuality educators like to say that parents are the primary sexuality educators of their children.

It is television that provides the bulk of sexuality education, not just to young people, but also to adults. Every day, you model not only sexual relationships, but male-female relationships, how people can communicate or not communicate about sexual issues and what the standards of attractiveness are in our culture. You bring, as we learned today, over six messages about sexuality per hour to your viewers. And if you use the broader definition of sexuality that we do at SIECUS, you probably bring many more messages. We say sexuality is not about what you do with this tiny part of your body. It's about who we are as men and women, and how we relate to each other. It's not what we do, it's who we are. Now, it's important, I think for you to remember that for many of your viewers, not just the young people, but the adults, you may be the only sexuality education they get. Last night, you heard Donna Shalala answer Claire Brindis' question by saying the federal government will not take a position on sexuality education, that it's a local issue. And that lack of federal leadership, which long predates this administration, means that only five percent of young people, received anything like comprehensive sexuality education.

Now the sexual relationships you tend to show are not all that dissimilar to the actual lives of your viewers. As you learned today, where most people have sex in committed relationships, in real life, the research tells us it is married people who have the most sex. The average adult, which is different from what you would see on the soaps, the average adult has sex about once a week, or a few times a month. And the average adult is having sexual relationships with partners who are pretty similar to them in terms of their background, and to themselves. In contrast, at least traditionally, both your medium and other media have tended to show a different view of sexuality of America. What we tend to see on TV and movies is that only thin, very attractive people have sex.

As the study showed today, the majority of people who have sex in the media are 20 to 40 years old. So, for those of you, like me, who are past that 40 year old divide, you don't see a whole lot of models. What we tend to see in the media is that sexual behavior outside of marriage is frequent. I was very surprised, I think one of the good news findings of today's research, was, in fact, that you are indeed showing sexual behaviors in committed relationships. And I do think that's a change in what we saw, say, ten years ago. What the media tends to show is that the best sexual interactions just happen. They're not planned for, they're not discussed, they're not anticipated. People are swept off their feet with unbridled passion, and that's what good sex is. The media tends to show that men are always ready for sex, and certainly don't have the option to say, "No," very often. But women who enjoy their sexuality used to be evil. They're not evil anymore. But at least, they're not to be trusted. You know, and I think Erica is obviously the major example of that.

What we see in the media is that people kiss, and then they have intercourse. There are very few behaviors in between. Although I was delighted to see that you coded 30 instances of caressing. Because what tends to happen in the media, is that we kiss once, and the next scene is you're in bed. The media tends to show that contraception and condoms are rarely used, and even more rarely discussed. That pregnancies happen rarely. That STDs happen almost never. And abortions are non-existent. And perhaps even less existent on most soaps, and that was borne out in the study today, that gay men and lesbians are either non-existent, or they are shown as victims or villains.

So what I want to talk to you today about is nine recommendations for things that you can do within your programming to support a concept of responsible sexuality. And I was asked by one of my colleagues up at Yale whether, when I said what was the title of my speech, I said it was "Responsible Sexuality in the Soaps." And they said, "Isn't that an oxymoron, you know, like 'jumbo shrimp?'" And I don't think it has to be. And I think by some of the things we learned from the study, it's clearly not for all of you. So I want to talk to you about nine recommendations. On the back table, towards the very far right of the table is a copy of recommendations from the National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education, which has developed a series of recommendations for the media. And I hope you'll take them home. They've been endorsed by such prestigious organizations as the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Council of Churches.

So it's what these 35 organizations would like you to think about as you prepare your work. Okay. Recommendation one. Whenever possible, you need to be portraying moral, ethical, sexual relationships. What do I mean by that? The lexicon in America basically says that the only moral sexual relationship is one between husband and wife. This is a guarantee that a relationship is moral and ethical. Now you know that's not true. We all know people who are married who have neither moral, nor ethical sexual relationships. So what we at SIECUS say is that there are five criteria for what makes up a moral, ethical relationship. I'll say them slowly.

One is that the relationship is consensual. That people give consent to the experience. The second is that it's non-exploitative, that people don't use each other. The third criteria is that it's honest. That the people involved in the interaction, know what the interaction means. The fourth is that it's mutually pleasurable. The fifth is that it's protected against pregnancies, against STDs if any kind of intercourse occurs. And I would like to suggest to you is that your writers go through that checklist in their minds to say, "Yeah, are we showing a relationship that's consensual, non-exploitative, honest, mutually pleasurable, and protected?"

The second thing is that you look at portraying communication about sexuality between children and their parents, and other trusted adults. We have a concept, that adolescence is the time that sexuality issues emerge. That we have to start dealing with our adolescents more honestly and openly, and we do. But we believe that we have to start dealing with your infants more openly and honestly. That we have to deal with our toddlers more openly and honestly. When you are talking about parental education of young people, we're talking not just about adolescent characters, but with small children as well.

That begins looking by at things like how are people on the soaps educating their babies? Now you're saying to yourself, "What is she talking about?" An example would be if you have a character who is diapering a baby, and I was interested in the young man's comment that the babies sort of disappear. But if there's a character that's doing that, instead of having the Mom teach the parts of the body, or the Dad teach the parts of the body, the way Americans tend to, which is we say, "This is your nose, this is your tummy, these are your knees, those are your toes," and so at 14 months we teach them that this much of their body has no name, and no function. That your character might be able to say, "This is your nose, this your tummy, this is your penis or vulva, these are your knees," and nothing would happen. And you would model for people at home that people can talk about those issues. That when there is a pregnant woman, a character might have the opportunity to say to a child, "Do you see that woman? Inside of her in a special place called a uterus, a baby is beginning." So that you can model that kind of communication.

We have a pamphlet at SIECUS called, "Oh, No, What Do I Do Now," which is aimed at parents of two to three year olds to deal with all of those situations. How many of you are parents, or have been parents? So you know, if you've got toddlers, what do you do in the supermarket when your boy says, "How come you don't have a penis, Mom," at the top of their lung in line? Right? Or when you walk in, and your child has the neighborhood's child's clothes off, and is playing doctor at the age of three and a half. So those are, we call those, "Oh, No, What Do I Do Now" situations, and I have lots of them we could share with you that you could integrate. The third thing I'm going to ask you to do is to look at how you portray young people choosing abstinence. Now you all know that there is a huge "Just Say No" bandwagon going on. Okay? The American public has decided that the answer to adolescent sexuality is to tell kids not to do it. We kind of allow them to kiss, we really don't want them to do anything else. And what tends to happen in the media, is that adolescents in the media who say no are often not the hip kids, they're not often the kids who other young people look up to.

The highlight of this is the nighttime soap, Beverly Hills 90210, where Donna, who's one of the most screwed up characters on 90210 is the virgin. She wears the tiniest clothes of anybody on the show. And you get this feeling that, it's, in fact, the, the young woman, Tori Spelling, who plays her, has said in interviews, "Can you believe that people think she's a virgin?" So, it's not really credible. But to present kids who are credible, by showing them choosing abstinence as clear and positive choice, demonstrating how they can refuse sexual advances in order to maintain this decision, without losing a boyfriend or girlfriend, maintaining their popularly, while continuing to feel good about who they are.

The fourth thing I'm going to suggest is to suggest intimate behaviors other than intercourse to your viewers. That's to educate the American public about the possibility that there are, indeed, safe, pleasurable sexual behaviors that do not involve the risks of pregnancies or STD. That it is not just about kissing and then having intercourse.

I've often talked, and it's nice this room is closed, 'cause sometimes it shows up in the wrong media, about the need for a national petting project. See, when you and I were growing up, we had this thing called the bases. Did any of you have the bases? Yes? Yes. Some of you had the bases. Okay, great. And the bases meant you only went so far with somebody until how long you'd been going out with them. So you went to first base, you had to have, been dating a couple of times. But to hit a home run, at least in my high school, you had to be going' steady at least two years. And so we slowly learned about intimacy at the same time that we were learning about our sexual response and sexual expression. Well that doesn't happen. What the research tells us now, is that as like in the media, kids kiss, and if they're going to do more than kissing, they go straight to intercourse. And I really believe that we need to help young people slow down. We need to give them alternatives to intercourse, and to tell them that sex can still be fun, and hot, and heavy, and you don't have to take risks. And I think you can help us do that.

By the way, when I talk about, the national petting project, I've been in a room once where there was a Right to Life person there, and it made every far right magazine. "Debra Haffner Advocates Petting for Teenagers." Which is not the point. The point is that young people are going to be sexual, let's help them be sexual safely. Fifth thing I'd like you to do is to show that the healthiest sexual encounters are anticipated events. That they are not spur of the moment responses to unbridled passion. It is not true for most of us that we walk into a room, I see Mark, I instantly connect with him, we instantly know we want to go to bed together, we instantly know what will pleasure each other, we instantly, somehow, without communicating at all manage to get someplace, and we have this fabulous experience. When was the last time that happened to you? Hasn't happened to me too recently.

The fact is that what we know is that talking about sex can be really sexy. That planning for sexual encounters can be really positive, and perhaps, most importantly from a public health perspective, if people are going to protect themselves, they have to communicate first. You can't get somebody to use a condom unless you talk about it.

Sixth thing I want to talk about, which has been talked about before, is that when intercourse does occur, I think it's essential that contraception and condoms should be used by responsible people. Now, I think the fact that General Hospital showed four instances of condom use and the world did not collapse around you, in fact, I didn't even know about it, until I read about it in your report last night, I think that shows that we can do this. I am always amazed by the number of doctors and lawyers on TV who don't use protection, and then find themselves pregnant, or with STD's. You all know, on E.R., we're on this cliffhanger because this doctor's been having sex with this woman who turns out, her last husband is HIV positive, and so we don't know whether he's going to be HIV positive, or she's HIV positive. These are doctors, okay? You know, you kind'a go, "What were they thinking?" Not only did she have unprotected sex with him, she had unprotected sex with this other guy. I mean, this makes no sense, right? So I think when you have responsible people, we need to model contraception and condom as routine, unless the plot would indicate otherwise. I would like to see that non-contraceptive use is the exception, not the regular occurrence.

The seventh thing I'd like you to think about is looking at how you can help eliminate stereotypes and prejudices about sexuality. I think it's be really important to show that some people who are not physically perfect are having sexual relationships, just like us. I think we need to show your older couples having sex more. There were eight instances in her study of old people over 60 having sex. And I have this vision, what if the Quartermaines regularly got in bed together? What if we showed those patriarchal couples in bed, which would give people the message that sex doesn't end at 40? That, in fact, a healthy sexual relationship is a normal and expected part of life until we die. I'd like to see you showing disabled people having sexual experiences, because we also have a myth in this country that unless you are able bodied, you don't have sex. I'd even like to suggest that you could probably show gay men and lesbians having sexual relationships, and including them in your, in your character, in your plot lines and characters. And I'd also like to ask you to consider showing a more positive view of a diverse range of body types and sizes. It is not true, as many of us in this room will tell you, that you have to be a size six to have somebody sexually interested in you.

And so I think to have a range of people, that's one of the things I love about the Roseanne show, which I have a lot of complaints about, but the fact that Roseanne is shown as a vibrant, sexually involved, active person, is probably one of the few examples we have in the media of somebody who is not physically perfect who is sexually involved, sexually active, and sexually attractive. The eighth thing refers to something Claire talked to you about, which is to look at how you could show teenagers in a positive light. We do such a disservice to young people when we only show them as chaotic, as disorganized, as dysfunctional. That we need to show adolescents making good decisions, exercising self control, and setting positive goals for their lives. And certainly, this morning we saw lots of examples of that. And the ninth thing that I'd like you to ask you to do is to consider providing ways for viewers to get additional information. I think Felicia's offer to you all, which is to do temporary 800 numbers, is really exciting. And I really hope that some of you will really take that up.

So when you deal with issues such as AIDS, or unplanned pregnancy or rape, or domestic violence, people get an 800 number, or an Internet address, or that on your Internet site, you give them more access to new places to get information. I was interested that one of the soaps dealt with a transsexual, and I wondered for that young person sitting at home in Iowa, who's never met another transsexual, and who knows that they're transsexual, you may have been, which soap was that? City. You may have provided the first time that young man or young woman ever knew that there was anybody out there like them. But then where do they go? Then who do they call? So if you can think about whether your plot lines can connect those people, 'cause so many people need that information, and I can tell you based on the tens of thousands of calls we get at SIECUS, that people don't have it. There's an assumption that we all know everything there is to know about sexuality. It's not true.

And so we need to look at how we provide information. I'll make my offer, too. You've got offers from Kaiser, you've got offers from HHS, we can also help you. We can help you, perhaps, in a way different than other people can help you, 'cause we have the largest sexuality library in the country, and so we can help you specifically on issues related to sexuality. Our media service helps hundreds of writers and producers each year, and I hope that you will call on us. I have cards back there, rolodex cards, they say "Sex Info," so it will stand up in your rolodex. It has our e-mail address on it, and I, too, pledge that we will do everything we can to respond to you quickly. I want to conclude by telling you that I think that you are incredibly important partners in educating the members of the general public about sexuality. I think you have an opportunity not only to provide people with accurate information, but to help us create a world where sexuality is affirmed, where sexual justice and equality prevails, where all children can be born loved and wanted, where adolescence can be a time that is pregnancy free, disease free, and violence free, and where all people can have the right and information to make responsible sexual choices. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]