Really, guys?

Frustrating experience: At rehearsal last night, I was the only girl there. OK, that's fine with me; I'm used to it.

Things started to get weird during the montage. My scene partners kept making me their mom. I don't mind playing a mom every once in a while, but it felt like every other scene, no matter how I initiated, the other person would come back with, "But MOM..."

I thought it was weird, but not horrible. I didn't really like playing the mom all the time, but I thought maybe it was some sort of coincidence, or maybe a mind-burp on the part of my scene partners. Still feelin' OK. THEN...

We went to practice the new form we're creating, in which each player plays one and only one character the whole time. My scenes were about a romantic relationship between two people imprisoned in the back of a Chinese restaurant. Fine. The second scene, my cohort initiates with something like, "Look, I'm sorry, I hadn't had sex in a long time." OK, I'll go with it. I had already introduced a flirtatious nature to the relationship, and he was just taking it to the next level. Besides, what else are two people stuck in the back of a Chinese restaurant going to do? I won't say I'm not complicit in the sexualization of that scene. I do believe I made some sort of enema comment... hey, if you give me something, I'll run with it.

MEANWHILE, as this one somewhat sexual plotline is developing, the main plotline is about two best friends, one of whom is still in love with his ex, Carol, and the other of whom is having sex with Carol. So they decided to make me Carol. OK. But when our two plotlines came together, the three guys in the scene with me spent pretty much the whole time naming sexual positions and moves they'd tried with my character (including "space docking"--look it up, it's gross). I stayed in character and was playing along, but I was really uncomfortable the whole time. I'm perfectly happy to "go blue" if I'm playing a sexually empowered character, but I felt a little like I was being subjected to improv-bukkake.

I'm a talented improvisor. I can be so much more than a mother or a whore. Maybe it's my own fault; maybe I allowed the scenes to go the way they did. I should have stood up in the middle of the crazy sex position scene and asserted myself. But it all left me thinking that those guys don't see me as an equal. Or maybe they think I'm a good improvisor, but they mostly see female characters in relation to the male characters, and not as protagonists in their own right. Meh.

Apparently, the only exchanges my groupmates have had with women have involved either coming in or coming out of a vagina.