“ATWT”’s Luke and Noah (Finally!) Get Busy

They finally did it.

Five hundred and fourteen days after their first meeting, Luke and Noah, two young gay characters on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns, finally had sex yesterday. The length of time it’s taken them to consummate their relationship, unusual in a medium that is well-known for its heterosexual bed-hopping, had led to frustration on the part of some fans and raised speculation that the show’s sponsor was wary over the same-sex subject matter. Yesterday’s event caught many viewers by surprise as the show had not publicized the milestone beforehand.

Jake Silbermann and Van Hansis post-consummation

On the episode, an estranged Luke and Noah were encouraged to make up by their friends. When they reunited with a passionate kiss, that passion carried over to the bedroom where they began to disrobe. After a commercial break, both emerged from the shower, and Noah said to Luke, “I know we did wait for a long time, but it was worth it.”

“It was getting goofy-ridiculous how long it took,” says Michael Logan, a columnist who covers daytime drama for TV Guide. “But it happened. It’s historic, I guess.”

“It should have happened a lot sooner,” agrees Alexandra Chando, the actress who played Maddie, Noah’s girlfriend before he realized he was gay. “But at least it happened. I think it’s really important to tell their story.”

“The scenes in yesterday's episode were a natural progression of their relationship,” says Lisa Lugassy, Senior Publicist for As the World Turns, “and the time seemed right for this couple to reach this milestone.”

Last year, fans of Luke and Noah (commonly referred to as “Nuke”) were frustrated when it seemed as if the producers of the show were refusing to show the two teen characters kiss. The show went 211 days between on-screen kisses, creating a controversy that eventually spilled over to the mainstream media.

Alexandra Chando, Silbermann and Hansis

“It’s kind of amazing how it became a phenomenon,” Chando says. “It was on CNN! It’s amazing how far [the gay teen storyline] came from just a little idea. I remember when we first started. It was very controversial to begin with.”

On April 23rd of last year, the characters were finally shown kissing again, and have kissed many times since. But whenever the characters talked about having sex, something always seemed to come between them — whether it was the Iraqi immigrant Noah married to get her a green card, or staying together in Luke’s family house where the couple was not allowed to share a room.

According to TV Guide’s Michael Logan, the audience for daytime television is different from than prime time: older and more conservative. Indeed, at the same time that fans of “Nuke” were protesting As the World Turns for last year’s apparent kissing-moratorium, far-right Christian groups were boycotting the show’s sponsor, Proctor & Gamble, for featuring the gay teen characters at all.

“They made their upset known,” Logan says. “Lying, stealing, coveting thy neighbor’s wife and all the other stuff you see on soaps, that’s just peachy with that crowd. But boy-boy romance? No way.”

Logan explains that the rules of daytime television are different than those of primetime. “New viewers [of soaps] step in from prime time where they watch shows such as Nip/Tuck, and expect to see the same mature, audacious, ballsy programming,” he says. “But if you expect to see the same rules of drama [on daytime], you’re going to be disappointed and maybe hostile.”

According to As the World Turn’s Lugassy, “Nuke” have long been fan favorites. “Fans of the show have been overwhelmingly supportive of Luke and Noah since the start of their relationship, and they continue to voice that support today as they have consistently in the past,” she says.

But on AfterElton.com, frustration with the chaste nature of the Nuke’s relationship was apparent even as the seeming kissing-moratorium was lifted, especially when compared to international soaps such as the United Kingdom’s Hollyoaks or Germany’s Forbidden Love, which have both been far more forthcoming on sexual matters. Logan suspects the producers of As the World Turns were trying to thread a very thin needle.

John Paul and Craig on Hollyoaks, Olli and Christian on Forbidden love

“Perhaps the show was being savvy by making fans wait,” he says, noting that it harkens back to an era several decades ago when even heterosexual relationships proceeded this slowly in order to build up viewer anticipation.

“For the last year and a half, we’ve been telling Luke and Noah’s story in a sensitive, respectful way and their romance has evolved over time,” Lugassy says.

For a time last year, ratings for the show were up, something that many observers credited to “Nuke” phenomenon and the ensuing kissing controversy. But in the sex-less months since, ratings have fallen again.