Improv and Sex: Best Thing Ever

I've always suspected that people who have the skills to be very good at improv also share the skills required to be very good at sex.

First, what is improv, and how will developing improv skills improve your sex life?

Improv is the creation of organic scenes between different actors who have no previous ideas about where their interactions will take them.

While creating improv, it's foolhardy to think of a singular idea for a scene and then rule out any other ideas before you begin, because your relationship with the other character(s) will always determine the scene for you. Sticking to a preconceived plan in improv is almost always a bad idea.

In improv, listening to the other people in your scene and leaving yourself ready for adjustments is critical. The first and most important rule of improv is "always accept". You can't accept the ideas of other people if you aren't actively listening.

The best and most fun scenes in improv usually happen when the performers use their characters' relationships to riff off of each others' actions and collaboratively build adventures greater than the words or deeds that any individual performer could compose.

The best improv is sensitive to the needs of other people, completely unpredictable, and functions best as a collaborative exercise between equally and actively invested parties who give their full effort and consent to their scenes. Sound familiar?

Sex and improv are not very different. If you're not ready to agree with me that improv will help you markedly improve the quality of your sex life, at least you can agree that improv is one of the most fun things you can ever do with your pants on.

To demonstrate once and for all that improv and sex are fantastic bedfellows, let's bring this analogy to another level (even, to a climax): really awful sex can be quite similar to very bad improv.

When people talk over each other and none of the characters are able to agree on what direction their scene should travel...it's like two people who can't communicate effectively having bad to mediocre sex, with neither person getting what he or she really wants.

When one character makes all the decisions and takes all the initiative -- robbing the scene of any intrigue or comedic possibility whatsoever, because there's no elaboration in the relationships of the characters...it's like one-dimensional sex that may feel mechanical when at least one of the people having sex has no reason for enthusiasm or attachment.

When performers aren't willing to accept their instincts and overthink their interactions, denying the vitality and flexibility inherent to improv...it's like people who aren't willing to explore their sexual boundaries, and therefore keep doing the same things over and over again, and refuse to consider spicing up their sex life -- to the detriment of their partner and to their own satisfaction. (I should add here that respecting the appropriate boundaries of other people is also vital in improv - and listening to and observing the other people in your scene is the best way to know and respect those boundaries. Learning improv is an excellent way to discover how to safely explore your boundaries with people who will respect your decisions. The parallel to sex proclaims itself here.)

Practicing improv is a tremendous way to gain skills that also apply quite well to sex. Listening, consent, communication, flexibility, collaboration...improv will help you improv(e) each of those abilities dramatically, and developing all of those traits will help you gain more confidence and will make you a better, more caring partner...not only during sex, but in all phases of your life.

By the way, have I mentioned that I've been performing improv for over three years?

Reflections From Leaving College

I became an entirely different person during college. I lost faith in the religion of my childhood (and became an atheist). I acted in a theater group for the first time. I started performing improv comedy. I started drinking (shortly after the theater and improv). I had (and ended) my first relationship (also after the theater and improv).

I thought honestly about my history with Asperger's Syndrome, and I met other people who shared some of the same stories. I had no close friends my entire freshmen year of college. During my sophomore year, I began to have more friends, but doubts and insecurities about the reliability of my friends plagued me constantly (shortly after the theater and improv). In that same year, I failed my first (and so far only) class (shortly after the theater and improv).

The summer after my sophomore year, I started seeing a therapist and continued doing so until the end of my junior year. Most of the times I went, I felt miserable while I was with a therapist. I didn't know what I should say. It was extremely difficult for me to express my feelings to a stranger...or even to myself. This chance to sort my emotions still helped me immensely, and the lingering impressions of this experience continue to benefit me. It's a strange wonder that I was able to journey through my senior year without any therapy and without paralyzing myself emotionally.

Senior year was rough, but mostly I dealt with my problems better than I had when I was a sophomore. First semester, I was insanely busy. I was struggling with keeping my internship, my classes, and my relationship functioning. I partly succeeded, then I spent the second semester of my senior year trying to save the things I still had left after my first semester. [That was supposed to be funny.]

One of the best and worst moments during college came for me near the very end of my sophomore year. I was at a Cinco de Mayo party with some kids from my theater/improv group, and two of my friends were talking with me - while they were quite buzzed. They told me that they were quite impressed by my ability to do improv, especially since one of them knew me as a freshman when we lived on the same floor of our dorm. She noted that I seemed very shy and not the kind of person who would thrive in improv, but she added that she was pleasantly surprised by the quality of my participation.

I was extremely happy to hear that praise: at that moment, I was very depressed because I had quite recently realized that I was, in fact, about to fail an important class - that I had yet to inform my parents - and that I was moving out and going back home the next morning. It was a dark moment for me, and it was the precise time when I needed to hear some reassuring and uplifting comments. That's one aspect of my life during the past four years for which I am especially thankful: that every time I've felt most alone, least capable of handling my problems, or most lost and vulnerable -- that I've still found some consolation to ease my way through the anguish, and somehow become a stronger, more resilient person.