My thoughts exactly

Indeed, I wonder if all these people complained when Sophie and Sian, two very young girls, had a mega pre coital snogging sesh .

In early evening viewing, explicit sex is unacceptable whether it is between gays, straights or with the village goat.

Where was the explicit sex??

Absolutely. We need more gay kissing on prime-time tv because it needs to be normalised.

Being gay is completely normal, and gay relationships and sex should not portrayed any differently to heterosexual relationships/sex. If people have a 'problem' with it then it is exactly that: their problem.

Homophobia.


I must have missed it too.

Exactly, one day they'll be in the "real world" and no dought see a man kiss abother, it's just setting them up for it.

And they explain it by saying "sometimes men fall in love with other men, and women sometimes fall in love with other women but this is okay because you can love who you want"

Won't be that if those kids later came out as gay, they should always have support and not be brought up by biggest!

I'll forgive it for its past transgressions but when you look at the current state of gay characters on the show you realise what an utter farce it is.

Ben and Paul were only developed as a couple to make Paul's death more tragic. Up until that point Paul was just Ben's passive little piece on the side, and his death has now become all about this ridiculous kidnap drama. Don't even get me started on that nasty, seedy little scene where an upset Paul had a fumble down the alley which was never mentioned again. Ben's character in general becomes closeted at a minute's notice depending on whether the plot calls for it.

Sonia and Tina are an absolute joke and Sonia is leaving soon anyway for maternity leave. They blatantly won't stay together.

Johnny's character was used for the critical acclaim of his coming out scene and was never developed beyond that. He's still the most likeable and realistic gay character in the show by a mile despite never being given anything to do, which says it all really.

Steven came out as gay in his last stint, is now straight to all intents and purposes (and in the world's most bland heterosexual relationship), and was used to gaybait viewers with his scene with Johnny. The only reassurance we have that he's even bisexual is Aaaron Sidwell's twitter.

Seriously, bravo to CS for showing hot gay men making out and pissing off the homophobes. Why the BBC are too afraid to do this is anyone's guess.

I'm pretty sure I would have remembered the explicit sex, they both still had the clothes on, no body parts entered anywhere

Indeed and if the parents hold these homophobic views, I hope the children learn from a different example.

BIB: I think they've become too afraid to cover a lot of things and soap has in general in a way. It sounds odd but even though soaps used to be less dramatic than they generally are now, they were seemingly more daring in the topics they covered and the way they covered them.

Anyway more on topic, I agree about gay characters in EE, I wish they would give Johnny something more to do. Since he has returned, months ago, the only memorable screentime he has had was convincing Ben to go to the police about the attack which wasnt even his own storyline.

Or when Caz kisses Maria I bet there will barely be any complaints.

But if someone said they didn't want to see an asian family like the Nazirs on television, their more be an even bigger uproar and people wouldn't make excuses for racism, as they do for homophobia.

Errrrm they DO realise Corrie's own creator, the late Tony Warren, was Gay right?

Sadly despite being 2016, it's easy to forget Racism & Homophobia still exist, lurking around waiting for any old excuse to reveal themselves.

Take Nadiyah Hussain from GBBO for example. Despite her popularity and being generally well loved she still gets racist abuse! In fact on DS' own Thread "The Chronicles Of Nadiya" it didn't take long for certain folks to pop up to complain about "PC BBC with an agenda".

Same thing with Todd & Billy, although well liked with their own fans, they're still going to get flak for it from certain folks anyway. The only thing you can really do is challenge it.

I'd understand if Todd was rimming the vicar but bloody hell get a life you small-minded bigots!

Welcome to the gay world

Homophobia is alive and kicking. You realise gay people have to put up with is shit all the time. Walking down old compton street the other day someone shouted insults at you involving the word "batties,". It happens all the time

The worst thing about it is getting it from someone you know.. I caught an aunt complaining about gay people the other day or a long term male friend bitching about them.

In many ways it keeps us on our toes but is very painful

I'm never sure on social media! Is it best to challenge it or to totally ignore it??
These people behind keyboards are probably not even from a generation where homosexualiity was viewed as tabboo, as I suspect some of the Ofcom complainers were, these lowlifes are simply nothing more than trolls who by nature, live & thrive off being fed an angry reaction!!
Irritating & offensive as it is to you guys I suspect that by ranting back at them you are giving them exactly what they want , whereas ignore them completely & they may get bored & find someone else to feed their nasty addiction!!
Having said that I realise it's easy for me to say!!

No, that way they get with it. And it allows other bigots to have their say until it becomes the norm

Homophobes should be challenged directly

Errrm I said "challenge" not "rant", there IS a difference you know.

Easy to say "just ignore it and it will go away" except it's just simply not that simple. Especially when they go on to borderline defamatory you can't just simply "ignore" at that point.

Take a certain former leader of the EDL for example (who I refuse to name), he once tweeted out that a 7 year old girl got raped by Muslims in a School Loo and started spreading this to his followers...Except that never happened, he blatantly lied about it. If that got left alone unchallenged God knows how many gullible folks would've fell for it just to suit their Anti-Muslim Fix.

Back to this subject, believe it or not there are still folks out there who spread false information about Homosexuals either "spreading Aids" or being "Perverts/Peados", that is NOT OK and needs to be called out on it. Point is some things just can't simply be "ignored".

And this can all be done without "ranting" about it.

What's bad about gay characters like Ben, Paul, Christian and Syed in recent years? Genuine question Elly.

Eastenders and Brookside led the way when it came to gay characters in my view.

I know Sonia and Tina are awful but that's their characters not because of their sexuality

Can I just give my thoughts/opinions. I'm 55 years old that may be considered old for some of you but being gay was very much frowned upon when I was younger, the slatings and criticism for gays was 'normal' back then. Move on 30+ years and I felt very uncomfortable watching that scene last night - it didn't sicken me (like it would have my parents for example) I just felt uneasy. Please bear in mind I was brainwashed when I was younger that this is/was not normal.

I think I'm digging myself a hole here sorry. Imagine in 30 years time the tide changes and it's considered wrong again, everything that you have come to accept as normal suddenly isn't - can you see where I'm coming from?

I have gay family, I love them dearly and wish them nothing but happiness but I don't want to imagine what they get up to behind closed doors.

I'm pretty sure I'm not a homophobe but correct me if i'm wrong.

Tune in in another 50 years and maybe!!!

WIlliam Roache famously said in an interview recently, that if any of today's episode were shown in 1960 they would be banned

This is in no way intended to play down the homophobia, some of the tweets last night were disgusting, but I take huge heart that they were massively outnumbered by supportive messages. It was about an 80/20 split positive/negative. Doesn't make the bad stuff okay, but I think in terms of numbers it was a few people shouting loudly.

They're losing and they know it.

I don't see anything wrong in what you're saying. Personally I thought the scenes last night were a bit "full on" for pre-watershed. Even when we saw Maria and Aidan engaging in a passionate snog recently, I think it lasted for about two or three seconds at most and then the implication was that they had sex.

I agree that one of the requirements of the 9pm watershed is that no explicit sex or graphic violence can be shown which is fair enough.

But I think the point is that the scene wasn't explicit (Singing Detective or Versailles it was not) and equivalent scenes between straight characters have not caused comments like this.

Hence people's belief that it comes from bigotry due to it being 2 men rather than them showing the start of foreplay at all.