When it comes to sex objects, we all have our type. Mine’s tough, cheekbones, deep voice, wiry with muscles and a ton of primal gym-toned rage. Think Linda Hamilton as the ultimate avenging warrior mum in Terminator 2, who made my heart pound obscurely fifteen years ago (and still does).

So a small-screen smooch by two Laura Ashley models called Beth and Margaret near the UPVC front door of a standard semi was never going to do it for me. Still, that famous Brookside kiss broke the unspoken anti-dyke TV injunction and achieved the stunning victory of letting straight people know, (a) that lesbians existed, and (b) they were even quite nice, sympathetic and not offensive to behold. And for that patronage the lesbians of the world are humbly thankful to the men who wrote, produced and directed the scene. That kiss was going to herald a new age in mainstream TV, when lesbians would be depicted as ordinary people living ordinary lives on ordinary streets, above the rotting remains of their abusive dads.

Brookside pointed out something simple yet fundamental: that lesbians are human beings, not monsters, castrators, hysterical self-haters, twisted sisters or sadistic matrons

Brookside pointed out something simple yet fundamental: that lesbians are human beings, not monsters, castrators, hysterical self-haters, twisted sisters or sadistic matrons. Which is hardly radical; we shouldn’t be grateful to writers for finally showing the respect they ought to have been showing in the first place. And yet where else in the mainstream is lesbianism freely available? Porn, actually. In mainstream pornography, pseudo-lesbian moves are performed obediently by straight women for the pleasure of a male watcher. In straight porn, lesbianism is a way for women to get men’s attention; porn lesbians are men’s geishas. Brookside’s simple depiction of a relationship between two average women was, though a long time coming, a humane and socially integrated enterprise. Apart from the surprise value of the kiss/realisation itself, these fictional women’s lives weren’t exploited for further titillation – or no more than any new young soap couple’s.

But that was thirteen years ago. It turned out that the kiss was an isolated point in the development of straight viewers’ consciousness and lesbians’ recognition within the mainstream. None of this, you could say, particularly matters; if there’s a thriving and specifically lesbian artistic community, history and culture, then who needs the validation of a white, male, patriarchal, heterosexual (etcetera) dominant culture? Yet it’s surprising, given the way society itself has developed, that we haven’t seen a corresponding, non-stereotypical mainstreaming of lesbianism within televised culture. We have the brightness and talent of Rhona Cameron and Sue Perkins in reality – and yet, perversely, fiction is still playing catch-up.