Today's Guiding Light featured a kiss between two female characters and what may be the start of a new romance. The characters are Olivia & Natalia, two friends who live together, work together, and are raising Olivia's daughter together.
Guiding Light has never been a soap I've really followed, though I've checked in from time to time. I know that Olivia is a character that has been on the show for years and has always been written thus far as heterosexual. Natalia is not a character I remember from the last time I checked in with the show, but it looks like she's been there nearly two years. From what I've read, she has been written as heterosexual up to this point as well.
Fans, though, have apparently been commenting on the close relationship between these characters for some time, to the point where Proctor & Gamble (the company that produces both Guiding Light and As the World Turns) denied there would be anything romantic happening between the two.
On today's show, though, Olivia & Natalia attended daughter Emma's elementary school presentation on her family, in which she spoke about her two mommies. Olivia became increasingly uncomfortable as she realized that Emma was making her & Natalia sound like a couple, while Natalia seemed either to be oblivious or to just not care.
After the presentation, Olivia quickly tried to let the teacher know that she wasn't a lesbian, but the teacher was too busy telling her how much the school values diversity and how her own gay cousin Todd just married his partner Michael in Connecticut.
Apparently, even the suggestion that she was into women bothered Olivia enough that she went to a bar afterwards and both visually and verbally ogled the male clientele, declaring out loud within earshot of a guy "Now that's a good butt."
When Natalia returned home, Olivia not only told her about checking out the guys, she also suggested that Natalia come along next time and basically all but demanded that Natalia go pick up a guy as soon as possible.
Clearly, Olivia was protesting a bit too much, and when Natalia asked her what was wrong, Olivia tried to tell her what everyone at school thought they were. Olivia didn't seem to be able to bring herself to use phrases like 'lesbians' or 'a couple' or 'lovers', and the more she danced around the subject, the less Natalia seemed to understand what she was trying to say.
Finally, Olivia asked "Do I have to hit you over the head with it?!" and kissed her friend full on the mouth to show her just what people were mistakenly thinking about them.
I'm not sure where things will go from here. It certainly seemed like Olivia, at least, has some issues with her own sexuality, so I doubt this will prove to be an isolated incident.
It's so great, though, that daytime can now show same sex kisses and have it be no big deal. I mean, just a year ago at this time, we were in the middle of the Kissing Ban with Luke & Noah on As the World Turns but things really seem to have moved on from that.
If Olivia & Natalia do end up becoming involved, they'd bring the number of LGBT characters currently on soaps up to six (or seven, if Brian returns to ATWT and sticks around), which is certainly a record high.
It would also be interesting to have long established characters experience something like this, rather than always introducing new characters to tell an LGBT story about. Clearly, if Olivia and Natalia do become involved they'd have to be considered bisexual, which would be a first as well. Daytime has really avoided bisexuality up to this point.
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