In 1981, Steven Carrington in Dynasty was the first US TV soap bisexual main character. In 1990, ZoeTate from Emmerdale was the first lesbian character in a UK soap, while in 1992 Amanda Donohoe’s bisexual character kissed a female colleague in LA Law, but the scene was shown from behind. In 1994, UK soap Brookside was the first to air a prime-time lesbian kiss between characters Beth and Margaret. Ellen DeGeneres received her highest ratings when she came out in 1997 in Ellen, her show about a woman who couldn’t find the right man, which received a whole night of attention on Channel 4 in the UK. In 1996, Ross’s ex, Carol, married girlfriend Susan in Friends. Award-winning TV sitcom Will & Grace brought homosexuality to the US mainstream from 1998. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by author Jeanette Winterson was a groundbreaking BBC drama, being the first to feature a lesbian sex scene. Channel 4’s 1999 drama Queer As Folk by Russell T Davies depicted a fantasy — cum-real gay life in Manchester, England, revealing promiscuous and sexually explicit content, including masturbation and ‘rimming’. Its success inspired the US version and in 2002 the BBC’s Tipping the Velvet dramatization was the first to do the same for lesbianism, followed by US drama The L Word in 2004: about lesbian and bisexual women, this the stereotypical butch-only image and term ‘panty hamster’, meaning vagina.
‘A lot of what used to be known as gay culture —
broadly speaking, homoeroticism and being camp —
has been brought into mainstream culture.
I think we should be moving to an era where it’s just sex.’
Neil Tennant, The Pet Shop Boys
Kissing