Uncomfortable Truths

I've been working freshman orientation for the past few days. We did away with the very popular "Sex Signals" drama this year, due to financial concerns. Anyone who went through orientation at Case in the past few years is familiar with this event--it's some dialogues about issues on a college campus, sexual health, etc.

Because we're orientation leaders and therefore awesome, we elected to replace it with skits of our own. Because we care about our group as well as the incoming freshmen, the actors decided to perform them for us during our training.

The first one was hilarious, incredibly well-done, about drunk driving and what to do with alcohol poisoning people. It doesn't sound funny, but it is.

The second one was a very simple scene: guy and girl, dating for a while, return from party, flirt a bit, he wants to get it on, she's tired--let's just say the issue gets forced.

The way the scenes work is the actors play it out till the very climax of the scene--in the second case, the moment where B (male actor) throws A (female actor) to the floor and begins to climb on top--and a moderator calls stop, the actors freeze for a moment, then face the audience and answer questions in character. In the first scene, all the people at the "off-campus party" grab chairs, sit, and answer the audience's questions in various levels of intoxication, which makes for some humorous results.

In the second scene, B grabs a chair and addresses the audience, while A stays collapsed in the fetal position on the floor until addressed, at which point she crawls upright and hugs her knees, talking to the audience from her position on the floor. It's moving in any case. But in mine...

There are more, but I've never seen them.

I watched the entire skit. I got through the entire question and answer session with my teeth gritted, repeating in my head you will not be the one who cries, you will not be the one who runs out, you will not vomit on the floor. As soon as the skit ended, I was out the door and crammed into a corner by the elevator, face in hands, sobbing.

I'm writing about this to try to discover some sort of middle ground between "completely okay" and "entirely unglued." I do not think it has been a success.

This is not me, but it might as well be.