BEHIND THE SCENES of an April Script™: "Catholic Kink"

Hi, all. I thought I'd offer you April's_Court members a glimpse into the writing of one of my recent scripts: Catholic Kink.

This was an exceedingly difficult script to get right, and it took about a month--that's a little longer than usual for me, but not unheard of. A couple of my scripts have taken multiple months to write. It started as a challenge to myself to write something specifically for r/GWASapphic. I don't know why, but sometimes I get a bug up my butt to do something outside my normal zone of darkness, just to make sure people know I can do it. :) Catholic kink was the result of one of those moods.

Back in college, I knew a fair number of religious people--close friends of mine who I loved very much. Though I wasn't religious myself, I certainly related to some of the challenges these folks faced, both reconciling their own beliefs with the melting pot of humanity in college, and also their plight of coming of age and stepping out of the shadow of their parents. Catholic Kink is a completely fictional tale that I wrote as an homage both to some of my friends plights, AND my predilection for kink. I wanted to say something about growing up, being who you are, and finding your place in the world in the context of one's sexuality. So I created this character to say it for me.

The challenge of writing this script was partly in expressing a very complex story in a single scene of less than 25 minutes. Finding just the right combination of elements to add (housemates in college, strict religious parents, a sexually liberated, bi-sexual roommate, etc.) took no small amount of effort and thought. More than that, this script is not only tangential to sex, it's ABOUT sex. I'm a kinky person--kink is a huge part of my fantasy sexual life, and I wanted that to be a part of the script. I wanted to combine all those elements into a believable slice of life of a lovely and vulnerable character who's just trying to figure out how to live her life.

When I FINALLY finished a first draft, I was dis-satisifed. I felt like I was shoe-horning the kink aspect into an otherwise sweet and affecting story and it didn't feel properly integrated. At this point, I ALMOST took out all the kink in this story. I ALMOST made it a more vanilla encounter. I thought I might be trying TOO hard to make it about sex, when I should have, instead been making it about these characters and their awakening together. But when I attempted to take it out, I realized I was making a huge mistake. The kink... that exploration of degradation was INTEGRAL to the story from the very beginning. It turns out there's a reason my instinct was to write it that way to begin with, and sometimes we just need to let our own brains get out of our way, and let our initial instincts win the day. It's a lesson a lot of us (even the most experienced writers among us) have to continually learn.

It's okay. It's all part of the process.

That's what I did here. I put that kink exploration back in with a few gentle tweaks and a moment when she checks in with her roommate to make sure everything's okay. In a way she's making sure SHE HERSELF is okay, and she realizes she is. She's more than okay... and suddenly the story flew off the page and became unique and real to me. She became a real person.

Sex is messy, especially at that age. Arousal and kink are an inherent PART of many of us, and religion in general can fan that flame inadvertently whether we like it or not. Leaving it in was the right decision. I'm sure of that now, because it all pays off in this moment:

"What a gift. What a gift that was." -- I can't describe to you what that feeling is like--when an orgasm is more than an orgasm. When it reinforces who you are, who you're with, and empowers you in a way that's indescribable, but I'm CERTAIN many of you can relate to that feeling she has.

When I read it (or hear u/Delightful_Dork's AMAZING fill--linked below), I feel ALL these coming of age emotions... all the trouble and the struggle, and the confusion and the joy of actually finding yourself. That moment of revelation when things start to change, and the decision she makes to take a stand, even if it's a small one, is a powerful moment in her life when she begins to become her own person.

I am SOOOO happy for her. I'm enthralled by this amazing private moment between her and her friend. A moment that she, and I, will never forget. At some point, this story and this script grew beyond the role I played in writing it. This character lives in me now. I'm honored she introduced herself to me, and allowed me to tell her story.

Thank you all for reading, and sharing this reminiscence with me.

The Script for Catholic Kink

u/Delightful_Dork's BEAUTIFUL script fill of Catholic Kink.