I think I’d rather go over my skin with a cheese grater than sit through another gratuitously exploitative rape storyline on daytime. It’d be less painful. This morning, before the DAYS rerun on SOAPnet, I rewatched the tail end of GH. After again experiencing the scenes where Michael initially revealed to Jason that he’d been raped, I was ready to crawl under my desk and cry for an hour rather than attending to my job duties. And my colleague Joe helpfully reminded me that this was just the tip of the rape-y iceberg: We have the Jason/Michael fallout scenes ahead of us today, and Michael still has to repeat the entire story to Carly and Sonny.

After Michael was attacked by Carter last year, I wrote up a pretty blistering blog entry. “Is there a key rape-story fan demographic out there that I’m missing?” I wondered on May 25. “Do focus groups go, ‘Hey, you know what I’d like on my soaps? More rape!’?”

I generally appreciate that soaps feature both outlandish, fun plots and stories involving social commentary, but I am seriously so done with being traumatized by what I watch.

So, yeah, please hand me a cheese grater.

originally posted on soapoperaweekly.com