Sexual revolution aside, there is still something shocking about a woman not knowing who the father of her child is, so such tales can pose a risk to the rooting value of soap women who end up in that situation. To get around this, soaps come up with some preposterous scenarios ("Oh, my gosh, we're going to die, so let's do it to keep each other warm!") Most daytime heroines can't sleep with more than one man, à la DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES's Gabrielle, who may be pregnant by her husband, Carlos, or hunky gardner John.

"I don't think shows are ready to take the chance," says TV Guide columnist Michael Logan. "[DH] finds all kinds of ways to have us root for Gabrielle ... They've very skillfully kept us on her side. They've taken the chance to present it that way. In daytime, you're not going to see that because nobody is willing to risk a true-blue heroine in that situation and so it would then fall to the slutty, trampy character. I guess you could call Gabrielle more of a slut than a heroine, but she is somebody that we care about and we're able to get past a lot of things and love her anyway.... [On daytime] you just don't want to risk alienating the audience and say, 'Hey, let's put our leading lady, shining-star heroine in a willing sexual triangle and play it out realistically and present this fresh way of looking at one's sexuality."

"Somehow, the woman's character has to be protected," says scholar and media critic Martha P. Nochimson, who wrote Screen Couple Chemistry: The Power of 2, "If she is behaving in such a way that she could be pregnant by two men, it is a real problem for the audience's affection for her. Most 'Who's the daddy?' stories don't take care of that properly. With [DAYS OF OUR LIVES's 1986 tale of] Shane, Kimberly and Kiriakis, she did it to save Shane's life and he didn't understand what that was about. As far as I was concerned, that was a compelling story. I lost no respect for her."