What the fluff?

BEACH BUMS The men and women of Dante’s Cove are willing to show you their best assets.

For 211 days, viewers waited with bated breath for gay teens Noah and Luke to kiss on As the World Turns. The perennial CBS soap offered up a smooch between its protagonist boyfriends last September, but then held off much to the dismay of its queer fan base. Ballyhoo ensued, including a flurry of Internet protests that ended last month when the pair finally locked lips again. But are these same viewers aware that there’s plenty of same-sex osculating, not to mention undressing and bitch-slapping, just a click away?

The answer, perhaps, is yes. In fall of 2005, here!, then a pay-per-view network, launched its first series, Dante’s Cove, a supernatural and sexy soap that mixes witchcraft and sorcery with frequent disrobing. Though the show was seen by few at the time, DVD sales propelled it into a second, third and now fourth season. Dante’s Cove was followed by The Lair, a blatantly horned-up romp about a sex club full of hunky gay vampires. Other here! shows, like Paradise Falls and to some extent The DL Chronicles, are of a similar ilk.

But despite successful DVD sales (season one of The Lair hit No. 1 on Amazon), some LGBT viewers won’t admit to watching these shows. One person told us it was his fantasy to be on Dante’s Cove even though he’d never seen it and didn’t want to. Another insisted we not dumb ourselves down and view the screeners sent by the network (although he too had never seen it). Given the long-standing obsession with campy shows (Dynasty, Melrose Place, Desperate Housewives), why leave out gay soaps (especially when they’re this addictive)?

Perhaps an onslaught of lowbrow fare like Eating Out and Naked Boys Singing! has made many gay viewers eager to prove that gay culture is about more than shirtless men. But Paul Colichman doesn’t view his programming that way. He is the CEO and founder of here! and a veteran producer of both television and film (including noteworthy gay fare like Twilight of the Golds and the Oscar-winning Gods and Monsters). Colichman says the network intends to provide positive media images for the community and argues that Dante’s Cove does just that. “When you look at Dante’s Cove, there’s something really wonderful about it. Being gay in Dante’s Cove is not a problem. It doesn’t make you different, you’re not weird and you’re not an outsider, you’re just part of the tapestry of life.”

True, but that doesn’t change the fact these shows are high on nudity and low on smart dialogue. Again, Colichman deflects. He admits Dante’s chisel-chested guys and topless ladies put the network on the map, but adds that they make up only a small fraction of the feature films, documentaries, family programming and reality shows that here! offers. “I have 24 hours of programming on every day, and Dante’s Cove and The Lair are but a small part of it,” he says. “It’s our job to provide all kinds of images that are not seen on free television. To some extent, if we didn’t have sexualized images on here!, we’d be less than a straight person’s pay channel. We do provide the entire spectrum.”

David Moretti is the star of The Lair. He’s young, sexy and out, and perhaps the only genuine talent in a cast that includes ex-porn stars. He has a more insouciant take on the show: “It’s basically a gay erotic Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I’m pretty much gay Buffy,” he says. “It’s sexy, erotic, it’s campy [and] you’re not going to have to take a shower afterwards.”

More importantly, the actor proves these soaps serve another purpose: They push the community forward by creating a safe space for out actors. “The here! network taught me that it’s not such a big deal,” he says. “You don’t have to hide it and you don’t have to bring women down the red carpet.”

Dante’s Cove Season 3 is available on DVD Tuesday 3.