You may have seen this or something like this in an improv class: Alex and Beth get on stage. Alex pulls out a chair, sits down, and says to Beth “Give me a lap dance.” Beth, visibly uncomfortable, does a bit of a half-hearted dance and, at some points, side-eyes the teacher.

Or she doesn’t, she makes some other bold choice, and afterwards Alex complains to the teacher that Beth didn’t “Yes-And” him.

There are a few angles to this problem and I’m going to do my best as a dude to talk about them.

I begin by saying that I am sad that Yes-And is abused by people in order to hurt, harass, or otherwise make uncomfortable their fellow players. I am also sad that Yes-And is unable to give those harassed students the tools to deal with those situations. Yes-And is not a license to be a gross human being and order other people around. Yes-And is not an unassailable command to do anything and everything your scene partner tells you to do.

Yes-And is simply the contract by which we create a shared fiction. That’s it.

It is important to say: This scene is not Beth’s fault. There are things she can do in response that can help her reclaim power, but she is not to blame for having this uncomfortable scenario placed upon her. From what I understand of Chicago in the 90s, it was often the tactic of many a female improviser to make some smart choice of their own in response to the toxic behavior of their male counterparts. But, while that is certainly an option in the moment, it is not a scalable response to the wider, systemic issue, nor is it the responsibility of the Beths of the world to fix or salvage the Alexes of the world.

I’m not an expert on how to deal with harassment issues and, from what I understand not every school, class, or theater has the best machinery in place to deal with such problems anyway. But I believe in being open about it in order to demystify the problem. The more we can talk about it, the better we can understand it and work towards a solution.

Just a problem waiting to happen.

To Alex: Rethink your choices on stage. Ask yourself why you thought such a scene would be interesting or funny. What kind of scene did you hope to accomplish by doing this? Why did you specifically initiate this scene with the woman scene partner, but you initiated a wide variety of scenes with male scene partners?

I’m not saying that you can’t create challenging, deep, truthful, and genuine comedic work out of a lap dance set up, I’m saying I doubt that you, at this level of development, were thinking about that going in.

If you truly feel you must do this lap dance scene, seek out ways to play with it in a safe manner — begin by showing the moments after the lap dance has ended, perhaps. Or re-state your initiation as a desire — something you want — thus giving your scene partner the ability to emotionally react. Or by taking it on yourself and being the thing you want to see in the scene — be the lap dancer. (In this particular instance, I would suggest lap dancing to an empty chair, allowing your scene partner the choice of the seat or supporting in some other way.) “Be the thing you want to see” is, in general, good advice for a lot of scene ideas. It allows you to have your idea and own it while giving your fellow players the freedom to play with it in their own way.

To Beth: I assume that you’re in a stage performance situation, where the luxury to stop the scene isn’t as readily available to you. Here, you are well within your rights to do the lap dance if you so choose. “If you so choose” being the operative phrase. You can choose to dance in any manner you wish — seriously attempt a lap dance, do a funny version of one, whatever. You are also free to not lap dance at all. You can make any character choice you want to in this moment. It must be made clear that “Yes-And” does not force anyone to do anything at all.

“Yes” is merely an acknowledgment that what has happened is real and true. People ask me to do things all the time and I understand that it’s true that they asked me. “And” is what you add to it, and sometimes you add a refusal or something even more clever. “I can’t believe you would ask your drill sergeant to give you a lap dance, Private.” “I don’t know why you wanted a lap dance from a mutant crocodile, but here goes.” “Your honor, I’d rather plead guilty if it’s all the same to you.”

In a class situation, you are also free to stop the scene and ask the teacher for help. Express your discomfort in simple, plain terms. Harassment is often the culmination of a series of behaviors, and on a good day this scene might simply be the product of ignorance. After all, a clueless male improviser may think they are just doing a good job of establishing a who/what/where. Which means that, when possible, it’s best to nip it in the bud. If stopping the scene doesn’t feel right, at the very least approach your teacher in private. Talk to them about boundaries and ask them to address the class broadly about mindfulness and inclusion at the first opportunity. At this point, of course, I need to talk to the teachers and ask them to do their best to raise their awareness of this kind of behavior.

Oh, man, I’ve seen this scene.

Teachers and facilitators: We have the responsibility to watch for these misogynistic scene starts (as well as any bigoted or hateful initiations) and course correct them as soon as possible. When you see something particularly egregious, freeze the scene. Ask them if there’s any other way to explore their idea. Ask them what scene they hoped to see from this idea. If they respond with “She would give me a lap dance,” ask “And? What then?” Odds are they did not have anything to say about lap dances, no commentary to share, no interesting take on the phenomenon. They just wanted to tell that one woman in the class what to do. Challenge them to come up with scene starts that are not gender-specific, and to see if they can re-phrase their initiation in a way that gives the scene partner more of a choice in how they respond.

I also want to expand on this to say that it’s not just lap dances or similarly sexually-charged scenarios that are artifacts of misogyny. It’s also a woman entering a scene with an idea only to be immediately labeled as a secretary. It’s in a group scene where everyone seems to be playing in a traditionally all-male space (frat boys, monks, old British boarding schools perhaps), but then the one woman in the group gets labeled as someone’s girlfriend. It’s any time Beth is not seen as anything other than Beth.

Of course, women are mothers and daughters and girlfriends and wives. The labels are not inherently a problem in and of themselves. The problem is a matter of degrees — when only those stereotypical labels are ever applied. You can easily mitigate this problem by simply allowing a woman to endow themselves. Wait that extra moment to see and hear what their idea is. And try seeing them as more than just gender-defined labels. Like I said to our hypothetical Alex: We dudes need to rethink our choices.

I’ll end this discussion of boundaries by talking about a scene I was in once with a very talented woman. In it, we were both having fun playing a bunch of pervs. And it’s probably because both of us were doing it that, suddenly, halfway through the scene, she grabbed my hand and sucked on my finger. At the time of this writing, I now know this woman, I trust her, and I know this was an aberration in terms of her overall behavior and today I’d be fine with that move. But then, in the moment, I froze, taken out of the scene by this physical crossing of boundaries. Everyone has a line, which means everyone should do their best to be aware of how their behavior affects others and should avoid taking liberties with people’s bodies. But of course, this is one time that this sort of thing has happened to me. One time. I can only imagine how often women go through it.

This ended up being longer than I expected, and I think I only just scratched the surface. I want people to feel safe, because it is only when we feel safe that we feel truly free to cut loose and play. So do your best to contribute to that feeling.

Many thanks to the women who took the time to read the first draft of this piece and offer feedback. I’m, of course, open to more ideas on how we can improv.