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Rape is a controversial storyline on daytime television in general, with many viewers criticizing soaps for mishandling the storyline and appearing to glamorize or trivialize sexual assault. Daytime dramas are particularly bad at exploring the long-term consequences of rape and at characterizing the act as crime rather than a forgivable offense.

After the rape is milked for all its short-term drama, the issue usually vanishes from the storyline or is only referenced occasionally, and the perpetrator is often forgiven and/or reformed several weeks or months later, both of which trivialize the victim's trauma and contribute to the confusion between consensual sex and rape that makes date-rape such a problem in America.

How will All My Children handle these potential pitfalls? They are clearly not going to make the mistake of casting Michael in a sympathetic light after the rape, since he is rumored to be killed shortly thereafter. But will AMC be able to avoid the mistake of giving short shrift to the rape's aftermath? Given the ratings-driven environment the show operates in, and the fact that the day-to-day realities of a long healing process do not exactly make for exciting television, it's unlikely they will give it the long-term attention it requires.

Rape is also experienced differently by lesbians than heterosexual women--not better or worse, necessarily, but differently. Are the AMC writers going to address this difference?

For Lena-Bianca fans, it is almost worse if the show does manage to deal with the rape properly: to successfully explore the long-term impact of the assault, the romantic relationship between Bianca and Lena will have to be shelved once again, possibly for months, since after Bianca is sexually assaulted, it is unlikely that she will be interested in sex with Lena anytime soon.

Which begs the question, is Bianca's rape storyline really just All My Children's way of avoiding the increasing challenge of how to realistically develop Lena and Bianca's relationship when they're not allowed to engage in the same physical affection that the show's heterosexual couples do?

Even if the rape storyline was initially conceived for other reasons, AMC's ability to buy themselves some time on the lesbian-sex issue is clearly a convenient side benefit, since it allows the show to continue to trumpet its cutting-edge lesbian characters without having to deal with the potential fallout of actually portraying lesbian sexuality.

All of which translates to several more months of frustration for Bianca and Lena fans.

There is also a possibility that Bianca will end up pregnant as a result of the rape. Besides being unrealistic (given the ease of obtaining morning-after pills these days), this development would take things from bad to worse for Bianca and Lena fans. The combination rape-pregnancy storyline will effectively sideline the romantic aspects of Bianca and Lena's relationship for several months, since by the time the initial impact of the rape has been dealt with, the storyline will likely shift to focus on the pregnancy.

The pregnant-lesbian storyline is a common tactic employed by television shows to avoid dealing with more controversial aspects of lesbianism and to make the lesbian characters more palatable to heterosexual viewers. Now that Buffy is off the air, Bianca is currently the only lesbian character on television who doesn't have a child or isn't trying to get pregnant--unless AMC changes that with this storyline.

Some All My Children fans have vowed not to watch the episode or even continue watching the show if AMC goes through with the rape storyline, but others plan to support this as a good career-development opportunity for Eden Riegel, even if they don't like the storyline itself, since it ensures a great deal of time and attention will be devoted to her character. This is no minor thing in daytime television, where the high volume of revolving characters and storylines means actors can sometimes go for weeks or months with few or no appearances, as Riegel did when she first joined the show two years ago.

The rape storyline is also likely to put more focus more on Lena and Bianca's relationship, even as it simultaneously desexualizes it, which some fans view as a mixed blessing.

Sexual assault is a reality for many women of all sexual orientations, and these storylines do encourage conversation about it. According to an article in Soap Opera Digest's June 24th issue, national rape hotlines see an increase in calls following these episodes, which, some argue, would seem to make up for the occasionally mishandling of the issue.

But it's hard to argue that this also makes up for sending the message that rape is more acceptable viewing than a consensual relationship between two women, or for sacrificing the only lesbian relationship on daytime television for a short-term ratings spike.

It also doesn't make much long-term business sense: the show has attracted a large number of new fans because of the Bianca-Lena relationship, many of whom will tune out if this storyline derails the women's relationship--and few new viewers are likely to tune in just for the rape storyline.

It's possible that AMC has leaked the spoilers about the Bianca-rape storyline as a weather balloon to test viewer response, and given the almost across-the-board disapproval expressed by fans so far, they may decide at the last minute not to go through with it and change the storyline into an attempted-but-unsuccessful rape, or make someone else the victim instead of Bianca. This unlikely, however, since the taping has already been done.

It would be ideal if the AMC writers could come up with a high-ratings storyline that doesn't involve violence against women at all, since these images are too often used as a form of entertainment these days. If rape is truly the best they can deliver, then the show has bigger problems to worry about than how to avoid another lesbian kiss.

July 7th Update: in the July 22 issue of ABC Soaps in Depth, AMC head writer McTavish confirms the rape storyline and states: