In case a sexual content warning is required - I'll go ahead and warn about sexual content here (indeed, sexual content galore).

Over the past year or so, I've had a couple scattered dreams (of extremely sexually explicit nature) in which I've had a penis. In some I've still been a female, despite the genitalia, but in some I've been quite fully a male. In the past I want to say four months, I've had -several- of these dreams, with almost alarming frequency. For a bit it wasn't alarming at all - the dreams were enjoyable (what teenager doesn't like dreaming about sex, genitalia be damned?) and I assumed that my phallus might be explained away by the fact that I'm bisexual. I suppose it made sense that someone who's attracted to both genders would in dreams take on roles as both genders as well (though it occurs to me now, I can only recall a small handful of sexual dreams in which I was fully woman, where as I have sexual dreams in which I bore a penis a-plenty)

But in the past roughly four months, it seems like somewhere along the way... something stopped functioning correctly, which has me a little confused, and more than a little frustsrated.

See, I role-play. Some perfectly normal dorky Dungeons-and-Dragons-type stuff, some explicit, basically writing-our-own-porn-type stuff (we do this over instant messenger). In the porn-writing, my primary partner and I enjoy switching up pairings and whatnot (she's also bi), so we've both written men and women plenty. Then, all of a sudden (why yes, about four months ago), I stopped being able to write women. It wasn't that I didn't want to, it was just that, for whatever reason, some impenetrable writers' block would come over me as soon as my character's clothes started coming off.
I could role-play females up to that point just fine, but I could role-play males all the way through just fine, and it didn't matter what gender my partner chose to play. Luckily, she had no qualms with me playing a male, so I've just given up on writing women for the time being.
The other day, though, a male partner of mine really wanted to role-play, and he, being straight, really would prefer I play a female. Unfortunately, I just couldn't bring myself to write anything past de-clothing, and it was very frustrating to me, to have to tell a role-playing partner, "I'm sorry, but I can't."

Since the frequent penis-endowed dreams and the female writers' block both kicked in at around the same time, I figure surely there's a connection. Can't for the life of me figure out what it is, though. But it would be nice to figure out, especially if it can help me get past the writers' block, because really, not being able to write something is just annoying.

Now, since I imagine specific dreams might be helpful, I'll try to recall a few (though, I regret that I never bothered recording these before, so the memories may be a bit choppy).

The most recent one that I can really remember (I know there have been more recent ones, but I can't recall much past 'I had a penis, but it was sexy').

I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I'm a slave of some sort. Certainly, my freedom's been taken away. I've been brought out (from where I don't know), my wrists bound with brown leather straps behind my back. That leather is the only semblance of clothing about me. I'm humiliated. I stand there, in a small circle of adults. I can't recall anything about them; they're just figures, looking at me. I'm young, a little too young for sex, no pubic hair to speak of, very small breasts, and, of course, a penis, but I'm most definitely a girl. The adults seem close together, presumably chattering amongst themselves, but though there are only a few of them forming the circle around me, they seem very far away, the circle large, so that in a way, I feel very alone. Then one of them reaches towards me, I think with a pole or a stick, though there is a hand at the end of it, and it touches my penis, and I become aroused. I protest of course, but become aroused nonetheless. My penis gets abnormally long. I don't think it seemed strange in the dream, but in my memory now its length seems ridiculous. I remember a whip, too; but I can't remember if it was used or just present. The hand on the pole touches me and I protest for a few moments, and that's all I remember of the dream.

My most vivid penis-endowed sex dream is at lest a year old (I really should start taking better documentation of these things). I remember typing this one out just after I had it, but unfortunately, I can't find that file now. So, retype from scratch we go.

I'm a boy, or a young man. Late teens, in either case; certainly, I could be called either (rather similar to how I could, right now, be called either a girl or a young woman). But I think I feel more like a boy than a young man. I got a speeding ticket, or some similar minor offense (which I didn't even mean to commit), but I was put in jail for it, I don't know for how long. My first night in jail, I'm very upset. In the cell next to me is a woman. She's very well-endowed, she has dark, sensuous hair, and she wears a skanty, sexy, short red dress, and black high-heels. Very, very sensuous. I think she was hispanic; I don't know if that has any significance or not.
I don't notice her at first - I'm too busy being stressed out and worried and upset because I'm in jail and I've never been a person who delights in getting in trouble (moreover, I knew I didn't deserve to be there). I'm sitting on a bench by the bars between our two cells, my back to her, as she comes towards me. Of course, as I tell this now, I realize in a way I'm not the boy, because I see the woman before the boy does - but at the same time, I _am_ the boy. My thoughts are his and my worries are his; I'm tempted to say that the image of the woman coming towards me was a later fabrication. The first I, the boy, notice of the woman is when she laces her arms through the bars and reaches around my hips to press against my groin. I stand up, alarmed, embarrassed, and back away from her. She stands, for she'd been crouching, slowly, seductively, using the bars of the cell like she knows they make her more attractive. I'm very flustered. I seem to blink, and I'm standing by the bars of the cell, and she's on her knees, and she licks the groin of my pants. I protest, still flustered and embarrassed and alarmed, but I can't back away - her arms are around my legs. Then I seem to blink again, and I'm seated on the bench I sat upon earlier, only she is now in my cell, kneeling in from of me, with my legs spread, and my penis in her mouth. Despite all my protest (I do protest the whole way through), I orgasm fantastically. In fact, rarely in my sex dreams do I actually reach orgasm - usually my alarm blares before we get that far (curse you, 7:30 classes for school!)

To this day, the blow job in jail I consider my hottest dream.
I do feel the need to note, I am in every fantasy and encounter I've had a submissive-type person, and quite a masochist, too. I absolutely delight in rape, torture, and humiliation fantasies. Encounters (all two of them) have been more subdued in 'kink,' but I was still definitely the submissive role. So, though in these dreams (as in most of my dreams), I was protesting, and I'm sure feeling negative emotions in the dream, the memories of them are exquisite.

I would take delight in these dreams and hardly mind them at all, if only there didn't seem to be a connection to a rather profound sort of writers' block, which has me very frustrated.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 17, USA

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? no

So, having written all that up, now I'm in the mood to talk about more dreams.

About three months ago (so, about a month after I started dreaming that I had a penis) I had one especially disturbing (non-sexual) dream, which still gets to me at times when I take a moment to recall it. Really, it's the first nightmare I've had since I was, like, five.

It involves a boy, Philip, whom I had a small crush on in school. Another boy, Eric, I also had a crush on, another boy, Andrew, who's a good friend of mine (my best male friend, essentially), and Charlie and Sawyer, two characters from LOST, which is a show I've only seen a few episodes of, and had neither watched nor thought about in ages.
I am, by the way, fully female in this dream. Even look like my normal real-life self.

It starts out decently enough. Philip, the gentleman he is, drives me home from school, and we get to talking, and we hang out for a long time at my house, just talking. I don't remember what about, but it was a really good talk. Not especially intense or dramatic or profound or impactful, but good. But then, I mention having a crush on Eric, and Philip starts crying. I ask him what's wrong, and he tells me that Eric is gay and immediately starts trying to comfort me, because he's worried I'll be upset. I'm not; it was just a crush, and anyway, I tell him, Eric's not there; he is. And, aw, romantic warm-fuzzy moment.
Then my mom comes home. She's absolutely enraged about something. She slams the school paper down on the table. Andrew's written something terrible about me. I think it had some grain of truth, but he stated it harshly, and cruelly, and I feel very betrayed. Philip and I go to another room, and he proceeds to comfort me. He's a very comforting person.

Then, all of a sudden, the scene completely switches. I'd be tempted to call it a completely new dream, were there not a connection later. But in any case, the scene is switched. I'm in the jungle, I have no idea why. All I can see is the character Charlie from LOST - specifically, I just see his face, and he's peacefully asleep on the jungle floor. But there's a knife softly tracing a circle on his cheek. It's... creepy. I don't know who's tracing the knife; it might be Charlie in his sleep, or it might be someone else. All I know is it's not me, and I wish the knife weren't there. I'm worried for Charlie, and rightly so; it nicks his cheek, and he winces, but still doesn't wake up. I try to wake him up somehow, I think by calling his name, but he's still sound asleep. Then the knife stabs into the side of his neck, and pulls down. Charlie only wakes up for a split second from the pain of the stab, his eyes wide open in shock, but not looking at me or anything in particular, and then I'm back in the dining room with Philip.
I'm crying, and he tries to comfort me. He asks me what's wrong; he's very concerned for me. All I can say is "fucking LOST," through tears. It's a little bit like I'd somehow fallen asleep and had a nightmare while I was with him, but very suddenly. And then the scene switches again. Back in the jungle; Charlie's asleep. All I can see is his face, and the knife, slowly, gently, eerily and unsettlingly tracing the circle on Charlie's cheek. Again, then, it stabs sharply into his neck, and cuts a gash down. Very briefly, though, this time, my sight pans out, and I see Saywer with a bloody knife, and somehow I feel deeply betrayed - a bit like how I'd felt that Andrew had written so badly about me in the student paper, but this is a more intense feeling. This feeling is a little bit of fear, too.
But I don't have time to fear Sawyer. I only see him for an instant, and then I'm in the dark, laying down in my bed. My first thought is of another betrayal - why did Philip leave without saying goodbye? Then I realize I'm awake. And I am, actually, awake. I spend a few moments composing myself, wiping off my cheeks.
I try to go back to sleep.
All I see is a torso - no one's in particular - cut open like an autopsy, and a pair of pliers are pulling out its intestines.
I'm instantly awake again, crying again, and I can't sleep for the rest of the night.
I've never done well with blood or guts or the like; I usually faint as soon as I get on the subject (I'm a bit dizzy right now, in fact, and already tear-strewn just recalling the dream), it was incredibly disconcerting to be seeing those things in my sleep, when I can't pass out. And the feeling of betrayal was the most intense emotion I'd dreamt in a very long time. I'm used to silly, funny dreams that are amusing to recount - or sexy dreams, which are still fun and not especially disconcerting.

But for about a month after that dream, I had several others. I don't remember anything about them, except that they involved fiery, intense emotions, which had me wanting to cry when I awoke. I felt very... disconcerted, throughout that whole month

Those have since passed, and I'm back to light/amusing or entertaining/sexy dreams, but I never did figure out what those nightmares were about, and sometimes (especially when I'm on my period, heh) they steal into my thoughts and really upset me again.

I have, by the way, since gone to a dance with Philip, and a few 'dates' (which consisted of playing Super Smash Brothers, haha), and I think there's a great friendship there, but not much romance. I'm not sure if that affects the dream at all, though, since it went on afterwards. I had the dream when Philip was still something of a mystery.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 17, USA

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} female

Hi Emily,

Thank you for sharing the dream. I have a pretty good idea what is happening, but I don't think you are old enough to appreciate the complexities of what the dream is commenting upon.

My advice to you is to fill you day with the normal day to day activities for a while. Going to the mall, cleaning the house, making meals, going for walks in the park, visit friends etc.

It is going to take a sacrifice on your part to ignore the aspect of your online/fantasy life. For how long I don't know. Only you will know when it is time to take it up again.

Of course you can ignore the comments coming out of the dream and just continue doing what you are doing. That is your choice. But know that your writer's block has happened for a reason. It's one thing to write fiction and something altogether different to role-play.

Stephen

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 49 Sydney Australia

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Male

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

sigh, but I've been role-playing since I can remember. I mean, before role-playing was, like, barbies. Not the sexual stuff until years later, but still, the act of creating stories with other people.

And the thing that gets me, is that I can still write sex scenes as a male just fine. It seems... confounding, to me, to be more interested in writing as though I were the gender I'm not. And I'm a person that hates being confounded (or, rather, I simply can't just content myself with being confounded for long).

Something did occur to me though, in trying to think of other ways to fill my time - there are few. Because to be frank my friends are boring, and when I'm hanging out with them, I often find myself thinking 'well, this is nice and all, but I'd rather be role-playing.' Partly just because my role-playing buddies are more interesting than friends are - even if we're not role-playing, I'd rather be -talking- to my role-playing buddies than hanging out with my offline friends.
Would that have anything to do with it?
I did just realize, about four months ago was the start of the second semester of my senior year - it might have been a sort of milestone, my last semester of highschool, and I know I've been holding my breath for when I get to move out and ship off to college and all that. Hopefully make some offline friends a bit more stimulating than the ones I have now.

Suppose, for a moment, that I am older. I can't content myself with the thought of moving past this without knowing why, what it means, or in the very least being given the chance to try to know. I did some searching, reading, before I happened upon this place. I recognized a few things about the mutilation in the nightmare, but I couldn't find anything about the role one's gender plays in sex dreams. I find myself very driven to grasp the symbolism there, because I know it must mean something. I know there's a reason my brain put a penis in there, and I yearn to know what it is. I could even cast the role-playing aside, take it on faith that perhaps it isn't the most wholesome thing for me at this juncture of my life, but I would still long desperately to know why.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 17, USA

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} female

Hi Emily,

Well, I did say it was going to be sacrifice on your part.

In my humble opinion, I think the feelings of being dumbfounded are important. It is your reaction to the dream. The process of not knowing, and lets face it, at the age of 17 there's a whole lot of nothing that you don't know.

You still have a whole lot of ego developing to go through. Your brain is still developing and will do so for the next 5-7 years.

As I said, it is up to you whether you do the sacrfice or not. I'm not going to talk you into it. The only thing is that your last post made me more convinved that this advice feels right. I mean it is only free advice.

Stephen

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 49 Sydney Australia

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Male

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

Well, the thought... upsets me (more than I'd have expected it would. But then I must confess, perhaps that overreaction means something, too), but I'll give it a try. I mean, I want to know, but at the same time, I have a great loathing for being arrogant, and indeed, there are many things I still don't know. I mean, I'm also in the throes of a rather dramatic string of epiphanies about God and all that (mostly concerning how I -don't- know what's going on there, but that not knowing is okay). So... I'll give this a try.

But, heh, I do feel a little bad for aforementioned role-playing buddies. They're going to feel a bit shunted for this.

I did have another dream last night, though (well, technically thismorning, heh). Might bring about the same thoughts, but I figured, why not? Let's share. Especially since it was a little bit different.

I'm in the theatre - the spitting image of me in real life - where we're soon to put on a play (same one we're putting on next Thursday in real life, Little Shop of Horrors). It's not a rehearsal- or maybe we just finished a rehearsal, because everyone in the play is there (though it's a different cast than in real life), but some of them are slowly filing out, while the rest of us are mingling.

I know there were blips of another dream, it seems like cycling in and out of this one. No connection, really, except that my memory recalls the two dreams in non-sequential order. Maybe it's just my memory, but I dunno. There are blips of a red-haired woman taking a shower (I'm a blonde [well, okay, brunette, but I used to be blonde *sigh*], and she's most definitely in her mid- or late-20's. She's not me; it's like I'm watching her - not there with her, but on a tape which had been recorded earlier). She's getting sexual pleasure from the shower. Not, literally - she's not playing with the shower head or anything. But she's still thoroughly enjoying the shower, though something seems... off, about what I'm seeing. I'm afraid I can't describe the peculiar feeling more accurately than that. Nonetheless, when I finish watching her take the shower, I'm in the same shower, also showering, hoping to enjoy the shower as much as she did. Nail-type things appear around me, just, like, floating. But they're not scary-looking like nails. They're smooth, and rounded at the head, maybe made of plastic. They do prick at me, though, but I enjoy it. And I do, then, enjoy the shower as the woman did, although I don't think to the same extent. But, it's nothing new for me to not reach orgasm in dreams.

Some people interrupt my shower, although I don't really feel interrupted - more like I'm ready to move on to the next thing. They see me in the shower, and they know what I was doing, but I don't really care, and they don't seem to care, either. They are sort of caricature-y; in their fifties, I think, around that stage of life. The man has a top-hat and looks a little bit like Uncle Sam, only a little bit younger, and other than the physical resemblance I don't connect him with the country or with patriotism at all. He's just a person. The woman is plump, -very- plump, but still charismatic. They're both very charismatic, with friendly smiles, and they seem like very friendly people. I know them somehow, but I can't recall our exact relationship. They're just... people, that I know. They start talking to me about prom (which, in real life, is in about seven hours, so that a dream made mention of it really doesn't surprise me), and that's the gist of that particular leg of the dream.

The previous one, in the theatre, continued in blips throughout that. I don't recall the exact order except that they blipped back and forth a lot. But, in mingling with people, I meet up with a good friend of mine, Shelly. I've never thought much about her sexually in real life, although in the good nature of teenager-ism we do a lot of superficial flirting. We start the same routine of playfully telling the other how sexy she is, and Shelly does a running jump into my arms. I catch her, and we laugh all in good fun, and when I set her down we walk towards the stage (we'd been in the aisle by some seats), with her hand around my waist, and my hand on her hip (really, her butt. Tis my favorite curve of a woman's body), and my head is by her shoulder, so that my eyes are even with her neck (even though, in real life, I'm much taller than her). Her neck is slender and absolutely beautiful. I'm becoming aroused, but then flustered, because I don't think she's aroused at all - I think she's still just playing and having fun.

But we reach the stage and head back behind the curtain. There's someone lounging there on the floor - a brooding, fat, disgusting, harsh, unpleasant and unfriendly-looking boy or young man (he looked more like a young man, but I think he may have been a boy). He glares at us for a moment - and for a moment I'm afraid, and want to leave. But Shelly's not afraid. In just a short moment he gets up and leaves, letting us have the backstage to ourselves.
Almost immediately we're on the floor, and Shelly's naked. I still have my clothes on, but -she- has a penis, and it's in my hand, and I'm enjoying stroking it as much as I would enjoy stroking my own.

Although still, no orgasm is reached by either of us. Just suddenly she's clothed again, and we're working on the show, and it's like nothing happened. There's a lot of working on the show business that I can't quite remember - I just recall blips of looking for a prop or fixing someone's costume or helping someone run lines. I think it faded out somewhere during just normal working on the show, and that was the point where it bled into and finished out in the other leg of the dream, in the shower.

The last thing I remember is talking to the man and the woman about prom.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 17, USA

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} female

Tell me Emily, according to you, what is the plot of "Little Shop of Horrors"? What does it symbolize?

Stephen

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 49 Sydney Australia

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Male

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

Plot of Little Shop of Horrors... well, first off, I giggled when I read the question, because the show is very largely a ludicrous sort of comedic musical. Outrageous, is a word that I think applies.

Anyhow, we have a failing flower shop, on the poorest street of the poorest neighborhood of some generic unnamed American city. Its owner is an over-stressed, no-nonsense middle-aged man named Mushnik. Its two employees are both dim-witted and self-esteem-less, although they both think very highly of the other. Seymour is an awkward, nerdy, highly sentimental young man, and Audrey is a kind of ditzy, always skantily-clad young woman (blonde, of course). Seymour loves Audrey with all his heart and soul; she doesn't notice.
One day when Mushnik very nearly decides to close up shop for good, Seymour decides to put a strange and interesting plant he'd found in the shop window. Like magic, customers start flocking. Almost overnight the plant becomes a sensation, Seymour a celebrity, and the shop a success.
But of course there's a catch. The plant needs blood to survive.
So Seymour feeds it his blood for a while, until it grows too big to survive off of him. The plant convinces Seymour (why yes, it talks) to kill Audrey's no-good sadistic creep of a boyfriend. As the play presents it, the audience doesn't really care - he really IS a no-good sadistic creep of a boyfriend, and we're all rooting for Seymour, and the material puts forth no effort whatsoever to make any of its characters multi-dimensional, much less the no-good sadistic creep of a boyfriend.
When Audrey's boyfriend goes missing, Seymour talks to her about her relationship with him. She confesses that he was abusive but that she deserved it. She, in her own eyes, was a low-life who'd done horrible degrading things (i.e. stripping, which is funny to the audience, because she's practically naked every time we see her, anyway), and so she deserved a no-good sadistic creep. Seymour finally woos her, convinces her that she deserves a nice guy who would respect her (like Seymour), and they kiss.
Mushnik figures out (pretty easily; it's not difficult) that Seymour killed Audrey's boyfriend, and he confronts Seymour about it. The plant then convinces Seymour to kill Mushnik - because the plant is hungry again, and because Mushnik could send Seymour to jail and ruin everything.
Business goes on successfully for a while, Seymour and Audrey are happy together (she's gullible, has no idea what's going on, and believes Mushnik is off visiting family). But when the plant asks for more food, Seymour refuses to kill again. So, the plant lures Audrey into a situation where he can attack her. Seymour arrives in time to save her from being eaten alive , but of course, having been attacked, she dies in his arms- after realizing, thanks to some things the plant had said to her, that Seymour had fed people to the plant in order for it to thrive, and then begging Seymour to feed her to the plant, so that he could go on being successful. So, Audrey dead, Seymour feeds her to the plant, obviously feeling shitty.
All this time he's been getting offers left and right for various lecturing tours and TV shows and whatnot. Then someone approaches him asking for cuttings, so that one day every household in America might have such a strange and interesting plant. Seymour realizes that this was the plant's plan all along; as a matter of fact, it's not a plant at all; it's an alien, and why yes, its goal is world conquest.
Seymour then tries to kill the plant, and fails - he gets eaten too. Unable to find Seymour, the businessman who proposed taking cuttings then goes ahead and takes the cuttings, and the show closes with a grande finale song explaining to the audience how the entire world died.

Our theatre teacher explained at the very beginning before we even saw the scripts that it was a commentary on communism. I'm not sure whether I see the parallels or not, but I don't really care. It's a ludicrous plot with poorly-written dialogue between boring, unrealistic, frustratingly idiotic one-dimensional characters, and I really can't say that the show symbolizes much to me. I'm just in it because I wanted to be in a play.

More than the play itself, if anything has significance, it's the circumstances surrounding the play.
I can't quite explain them in full. I mean, not without writing a freaking novel. There's grudges I hold against every performing arts department in the school - band, choir, theatre - in how they think more about the quality of the performance that they're going to present to the audience, than the quality of education that the kids are receiving for putting on a performance. There's baggage handed down to me by my mom, since she's worked with my theatre teacher for the past six years, and since the third person on their team switched three years ago, drama has ensued. There's drama between kids in the class - namely, between the singers and the actors - and that's been... intense. There's stress because we open on Thursday and people still don't have lines memorized.

I can't say for sure what the play symbolizes, because there's far too many things. In talking about the play I can go off onto any of the tangents listed above, and probably more. If any of the above tangents sound interesting, I'll be glad to expand upon them, but for now, it's 6:40 in the morning, and I don't quite have the stamina for writing that novel out.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 17, USA

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Hi Emily,

Very good synopsis. Now imagine that the characters in the play are parts of yourself and are a metaphore for your role-playing on the Internet. Isn't it intersting that the plant's name is Audrey 2, as homage to the feminine, yet its voice is decidedly masculine. Sort of like a woman with male genitalia!!!

I understand what you think of the play. I consider the storyline is more important to you than you think.

Stephen

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 49 Sydney Australia

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Male

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

Actually, my eyes did bug just then.

If my theatre class could have looked past tradition, I would have -loved- to play the voice of the plant (his songs are absolutely my favorite to sing). As it was, I ended up playing Crystal, essentially because I didn't want to play Audrey and the three narrator girls are the next-biggest singing roles for females.

Also, in connecting back to role-playing, I do seem to have a fetish for giving characters gender-inappropriate names. I have a grumpy, rather non-girlie young woman named Terry, another even grumpier, rather non-girlie young woman who goes so far as to cross-dress named Blake, a perfectly masculine-acting but long-haired young man named Ren, and one of my favorite characters is an eccentric (arguably psychotic) young man named Courtney.
Some of those names, when looked up on babynames.com, are listed as androgynous, but my role-playing friends complain sometimes when they accidentally call Courtney "she." I largely just thought it was funny.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 17, USA

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? yes

... after contemplating a bit longer, and thinking of my role-playing characters in a sexual context, since that's where this conversation started, I've never used Courtney, Terry or Blake in sexual situations. Largely, I just don't think of them sexually - it's difficult for me to even think what a sexual encounter with any of them would be like.

While, on the other hand, Ren is one of my favorites, sexually speaking (well, and non-sexually speaking. He's all-around fun to play). He's pretty much my most masculine character, although Blake likes to think she might rival him in terms of metaphorical testosterone. Ren's also my most sexually dominant character, at least that I've actually written out. There are woman of mine who tell me that, should I play them in a sexual situation, they'd be the dominant player. In fact, one woman tells me that she did have sex with Ren once, and she ended up on top, though I've never written out anything of the sort.

It did occur to me that part of why I might prefer writing men is that, for whatever reason, I have more submissive male characters than female- and, being submissive myself, I'm much more comfortable writing the submissive role than the dominant one. Ren's the only sexually dominant character I've ever successfully written (in a sexual context, that is. Up until sex becomes an issue, it doesn't really matter).

Just now when I asked my repertoire who preferred being 'on top,' Ren and four other men raised their hands (a couple of them hesitatingly), while nine women raised their hands. (... pardon if I sound a little bit schizophrenic when I talk about my characters. There's just no easier way to articulate this).

When I asked who would prefer to play 'bottom,' though, several women raised their hands, while only two men. The women who didn't raise their hand for either said that they just didn't like to think about sex; they had no idea which they would prefer. The remaining men, however, said that they liked sex just fine; it wasn't that they didn't know which they preferred, but rather that they were quite happy to play either top or bottom, whichever their partner would call for.

On... another sort of character-related note... how I first heard of Carl Jung is sort of an interesting story.
I was really bored one day, and decided to take an online myers-briggs personality test (personality tests are always fun to take when one is bored, haha). Obviously, I wasn't going to put all that much stock in it, because it's an online, impersonal personality test. It was really just for fun, to cure my boredom. Plus, it's already pretty well-established that I'm an ENFP (well, except that my E's only barely pronounced- sometimes I take the test and get INFP, but always -NFP), so the test wouldn't really tell me anything I didn't already know.

Except, this particular test listed relationships between different personality types. Like, as an ENFP, ENTP is my "companion," and ESTP is my "enigma." Those words made sense - most of them did.

In increased boredom, I took the test as a couple of my role-playing characters. I enjoyed noting that one character was an ENTP, and it really did fit, in the way I felt about that particular character, that she would be a "companion," of sorts, to me. One character, though, turned up ISTJ, which, according to this site, is ENFP's "anima."

This was about 10 months ago. I'd never heard the term (outside of the name of a summon in a Final Fantasy videogame, which didn't help me much- although now that I have at least a vague notion of the term [it's a difficult term to grasp; I still haven't quite gotten it completely], the naming does make sense). Being the curious person I am, I googled for hours trying to figure out this term. The site referenced a Dr. Beebe, but somehow in my search I brushed over him, and almost immediately focused in on Jung.
I read and I read, and as a role-player who's acknowledged for a while that characters are at least in part extensions of oneself (you can't write what you don't know, yeah?), the concept of archetypes really resonated with me. That was probably the most enlightening day of my life thus far.

Thing is, that character that showed up as ISTJ? A woman. From what I understand of anima/animus, it should be the opposite gender from oneself?

Either the test simply isn't wholly accurate/doesn't perceive enough depth/whatnot (highly likely), or my brain's just all around a little bit gender-oddish? (possible?)

Something that occurred to me in going down this train of thought, is that I would describe Sankera- the female ISTJ in question - as a well-endowed, sensuous woman with dark wavy hair down to her shoulders. She doesn't usually wear red, and I think of her as having pale (near pasty-white) skin, but... dress and skin color aside, her looks are remarkably similar to the woman who seduced young-man/boy-me in jail. Her... manner, too. Quiet but confidant, sensuous but strong, dominant but gentle.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into things? But I figured it wouldn't hurt to spill stuff out (plus, I'm overly fond of rambling, haha).

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Ok Emily, let's go back a step. If Audrey 2 is a part of you, what do you think that symbolizes?

Stephen

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Okay, Audrey 2.

Audrey 2 is the most (arguably only) intelligent character in the whole show, and I hold intelligence in high esteem. -Maybe- one of the businessmen who approaches Seymour about lecturing tours or whatnot rivals the plant in smarts; there's not enough getting to know them to say. But out of Orin, Audrey, Seymour, Mushnik, and the Girls, I'm fairly sure Audrey 2 wins at smarts.
My bet? He actually finished gradeschool.

He also has a different kind of ... spunk, than the rest of the characters. Audrey, Seymour and Mushnik have absolutely no spunk at all- Mishnik's wound too tight while Audrey and Seymour are too spineless. Orin's 'spunk' is really just a side-effect of being a conceited bastard, and the Girls are too... Diva. I am not a Diva in any sense of the word. I've actually had a lot of trouble being Crystal. The other Girls - who are a hispanic girl and a black gay man(why yes, the class was willing to look past gender in order to dress Shane up in glitz) - have spent a lot of effort trying to teach me to walk and to hold myself properly, and it all feels very unnatural. I slouch (no thanks to gigantic boobs), and I'm a lazy walker- I'm slow and I saunter. They've had to harp on me to stick my boobs up and out and to walk decisively across the stage. And then there's just the technical difficulty to functioning in heels. I despise wearing heels with a firey passion, and because of that I have little to no experience walking in the things. Only other time I've ever rented out that little piece of my soul was for dances, and even then the shoes came off as soon as we were inside.

... Anyway, Audrey 2. I just suppose, all the other characters seem to have either a surplus or a deficiency of arrogance. Orin, Mushnik and the Girls all seem wrapped up in themselves a lot of the time, while Audrey and Seymour don't even think they deserve each other. The plant? Sure, he's cocky in that he thinks he deserves to eat people, but he approaches it almost respectfully. He reasons with Seymour- instead of threatening him or putting him down, he shows Seymour how they both can benefit from a murder. No one else even stops to give Seymour's needs or wants a second glance. The Girls flatter him sometimes, but only after he's rich and famous. The hispanic girl is even playing her character as though she's just cozying up to Seymour because he's rich.
Me? I'm -trying- to give a crap about how happy (or unhappy) -he- is, but at the same time, I have to be a unit with the other two girls, you know? And they're being shallow pricks.

Also, as a general statement, I really enjoy likable villains. It just generally makes a more interesting story when you have at least one reason or another to root for the other side (there are exceptions - What Happened to Lani Garver comes to mind [probably because it's my favorite book] - but for the most part, likable villains are just cooler than plain-old bad guys).

What else, what else?

Well, this isn't about Audrey 2 directly, but while we were rehearsing Somewhere That's Green today, I realized that sometimes the lyrics to that song make me want to barf. "He's father, he knows best"? guh! Call me liberal, but eww.

Anyway, anything else about Audrey 2? He's smart, and he's not overly (or underly) self-involved. He's evil but likable, and, I don't know, his songs are just the funnest to sing. He's the only character I really -like-. Except maybe Skip Snip. Which seems a little contradictory, because Skip's practically the most arrogant guy in the show - "It's nice to meet me, the pleasure is yours," - but he remains charismatic despite. The word charismatic applies to absolutely no other characters (in my humble opinion), except for Audrey 2, and I guess charisma is also something I hold in high esteem.

I feel like I haven't really answered to what part of me Audrey 2 might symbolize, though - I've just gone on to say that he's my favorite character for various reasons. Which says something, I think, but not a whole lot.

But, I don't know, I can't think of a much better answer. He's... the part of me that wants to be charismatic and intelligent? I'm really not sure. And I'm afraid sleepiness is catching up with me. (Again, curse you, 7:30 classes for school!)

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Hi Emily,

I say this with all humility and respect. Do you notice how you tend to make things more complicated than they need to be? You also provide much more than is required. I get tired just reading your posts.

Symbols are not difficult. For some reason you want to make it difficult. Maybe this is an ego defence so that people don't allow people to know who you are. Maybe you hide behind characters. That way you don't have to put your true self out there and run the risk of getting hurt.

Audrey 2 absorbs (devours) many characters that means in analytical psychology that the object takes on the characteristics of the object that is being devoured. Audrey 2 takes on the traits of the dentist, the shop owner, audrey as a means of getting what it wants. It's a chameleon. It morphs into whatever it can to achieve whatever it wants. But what Audrey 2 ends up doing is devouring everything around it, becoming bigger and bigger until it becomes a threat to the city. Audrey 2 is plant - nature - instinct. Anyone knows that in order for civilization to survive nature and man made objects need to exist in harmony. Too many buildings and the forest dies. To much forest and the buildings are destroyed. It's time to put an end to Audrey 2 before the whole city blows up. And here's the kicker, it takes a fool to do it, the absolute opposite of everything you hold dear about yourself.

But then I admit I can be totally wrong about all this and it is really about myself.

Stephen

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I do make things complicated, and I am overly fond of rambling. On message boards I frequent, I am rather notorious for intimidatingly long posts. You have my humble thanks for reading these, and my apologies for my rambling nature. I suppose I just tends towards the thought that giving out too much information is better than giving out too little.

But, yeah, I suppose I do hide behind role-playing characters a bit. I kind of wanted to say that rather than hiding I use them as sort of euphemisms, but that's just a fancy cop-out semantic argument. Hiding just sounds so much more... deplorable than 'using euphemisms.'

There was one character named Adrianna I almost talked about last post, but then didn't (probably just because of the mentioned sleepiness). To avoid yet another novel, I'll simply state outright that she and Audrey 2 are similar, and that things you said about Audrey 2 apply rather well to her, also. (The one example I just can't bear to skip over, though, is that while Audrey 2 is a carnivorous alien plant, Adrianna most often makes her appearances in stories as a vampire. Devouring, I think, holds the same or at least similar subtleties in both cases).

The big thing to say about Adrianna, is that at one point or another I acknowledged that I admired her so deeply in spite of her apparent moral bankruptcy, I dubbed her "evil me." She is, after all, my favorite villain to play, and I know I consider her 'who I would be, were I a villain.' Basically, the only thing I don't admire is her disregard for the people she 'devours.'

Of course, I consider that about her only after having known her for four years. But perhaps the same does apply to both her and Audrey 2, since my brain's not finding many significant differences (aside from... gender?) between them. I think it's just easier to talk about Adrianna than it is to talk about Audrey 2 because I've only known the plant for a few months (although... about four. We'd watched the movie before then, but four months ago was about when we started really sinking our teeth into working on the show).

I'm not sure how relevant it is - and apologies if it's more overloading of information - but I guess I found it interesting that Adrianna, of all people, was the first character affected by my writers' block. She still does her villain routine just fine (still the best villain I've got), but she was the first character to freeze up on sex. In fact for a short while there, she was the only one.

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Hi Emily,

I will leave it with you then. I think you have more than enough to reflect on. I can't do the work for you.

You seem intelligent and more than capable enough to sort through this. good luck.

Stephen

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Thanks, Stephen. I really have appreciated the conversation, and indeed, I have collected some things to reflect upon.

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