mental sex brain teaser

June 2, 2005

Which one of the following questions can you relate to?

• “Would you rather be able to do something you need to do?” or
• “Would you want to do something that you should do?”

One of these questions should make sense. The other one should seem really wonky to you - as if you can almost quite understand it, but then at the same time it seems like a complete mystery.

Chris pulled this question on me and my brain instantly froze. The first question made sense to me. As an animator there are certain abilities I wish I had that other animators have - a good sense of timing, the ability to make anyone laugh with their scenes, being able to portray characters with a good sense of weight and balance. Since I’ve made it my career, I know that in order to keep my job, I need to be able to do these things. So that first question made perfect sense to me.

That second one still dumbfounds me. I mean, I can sort of make it out. But really, I don’t understand being able to control my emotions. Turns out this is because I’m Male Mental Sexed.

If you related to the second question (as my wife did) then you are Female Mental Sexed. If you return to my last post about Can, Want, Need and Should you’ll recognize how the questions above are set up.

“Would you rather be able (Can) to do something you need (Need) to do?”

“Would you want (Want) to do something that you should (Should) do?”

Using the familiar Dramatica quad (K, T, A, D), the Male Mental Sex companion pair for the Can, Need, Want, Should quad is A(Can) and K(Need). The Female Mental Sex companion pair is D(Want) and T(Should).

You could probably use these questions in helping to answer the Mental Sex question of the 12 Essential Questions or if you’re having trouble writing a character of a certain Mental Sex. For me, I have difficulty sometimes wrapping my head around a Female Mental Sex character. I can understand it from a certain viewpoint, but it doesn’t come as naturally as say a Male Mental Sex character would.

Lucky for us, Dramatica gives us some tools to help out.