ABSTRACT
The sweet, angsty love story between Oliver “Olli” Sabel and Christian Mann began in 2007 on the German-language soap opera Verbotene Liebe (VL: Forbidden Love, 1995–). Openly bisexual Olli’s love for a conflicted (straight… or is he?) Christian unfolded in typical soap opera fashion, with misunderstandings, girls used as beards, denial of homosexuality, panic about outing to relatives, overheard outpourings of romantic angst to sympathetic roommates, and anonymous online chatting. Once Christian and Oliver had gotten together, their love was tested by Christian’s illness, Olli’s too familiar relationship with a business associate, and an AIDS scare. True love won out: Christian and Oliver married in a grand church wedding—the first broadcast church wedding of a gay couple—in September 2009 (Langford, 2010). The couple then tried to start a family, only to be thwarted in their attempts to adopt, then to create a family with a lesbian couple. They took in, and promptly fell in love with, a foster daughter whose return with her father to Cameroon so devastated the couple that they split up. As of late 2011 they remain married but separated and Christian has begun dating a woman.
