Soapies, sex and social responsibility

Some might agree with the caller to the talk show, but I know what our director meant.

Explicit educational component

Soaps in South Africa are, for the most part, very different to first world soaps, in that we regularly engage with social issues. Most creatives who work on soaps do this very consciously and are aware of the responsibilities they carry. I think the teams working on all the major soaps in South Africa could reel off a list of stories they have told that had an explicit educational component.

e.tv has just conducted an extensive research project into our viewers attitudes towards our show, and one of the key things our audience looks for from Rhythm City and appreciates about our content is that it educates them. We could debate what they mean by that, but it is very significant that the word is even mentioned.

I would be very surprised if it ever came up in similar exercises in first world countries, and, if it did, the producers would probably think they had a problem on their hands.

Sexual intrigue

However, I do think we have to admit that where the educative role that we play becomes very thorny is in the area of sexual relationships. Soaps rely on sexual intrigue. It is our bread and butter. Tales of sexual intrigue are not really possible without betrayals. Betrayal does not really have much weight unless someone is having sex with more than one person at the same time. So we have to be frank and admit that multiple concurrent sexual partnerships are very common in the worlds we create.

Soaps are fun, but they are also, whether they like it or not, major contributors to the national conversation around identity. They reflect back at ordinary South Africans a version of their lives. For many they are an important daily player within their lives.

I'm sure everyone has a version of why soaps enjoy the popularity they do. Mine is that they form an alternative community for our viewers. Our characters become friends to them, friends who they care about and whose intimate processes they have more access to than they do to their real-life friends and family.

And, as with the opinions expressed by their real-life community, the actions and opinions of our soap community have a real impact on the way they see themselves.

Overtly incorporated

There is a danger that the astonishing and growing prevalence of people having multiple concurrent sexual partners in the real world is linked to what they watch characters getting up to in their surrogate communities. Having more than one partner at the same time has now been identified as the major social factor contributing to the spread of HIV. The health risks involved in this lifestyle have to be overtly incorporated into the ways we tell these stories.

There is a reason that transgressive sex is at the heart of so many stories, and not only the stories on soaps. Sex is energy; it's life, it's the individual at their most exposed and intimate and therefore most at risk. This is what makes AIDS education so difficult to conduct, but it is also what makes us return again and again to stories that deal with sexual betrayal and intrigue.

We will never stop telling these sorts of stories to each other, nor would we want to. Our challenge as story tellers is to hold onto that part of these stories that makes them compelling viewing, but not lose sight of the other obligation that our audience has placed on us, to educate them.

• The HIV/AIDS and the Media Project is collaboration between Anova Health Institute and the Wits Journalism Programme. For more information, email Natalie Ridgard on .