In Conversation with Rose Caraway

In my last post, I shared that I was a new Twitter Spaces Host. This blog post marks my third event.

I created a mission statement for my space. My plan is to talk with lots of different people in the world of sexuality.

I’m really excited about the new features Twitter has added to Twitter Spaces.

When you are on my Twitter feed you can click on the event, see details, to get more information. This is where the scheduling function resides so you can get a thirty-minute reminder before the event starts. You’ll also get a reminder when the event goes live. You don’t have to miss a thing.

My first hosted event was a technical event. I had planned on chatting and sharing my plans with listeners. Android users had issues all day long and I ended up providing a monologue because I couldn’t access the dashboard to acknowledge the listeners and get their questions.

For the second event, I interviewed Angel Russell, a local sexuality education, colleague, and friend. Everything worked well and I celebrated.

As I continued to join spaces to see how other hosts were running their spaces, I’ve met new people. We have been sharing information.

One new aspect of spaces was to figure out how to record since the event was only on mobile apps. One host shared Otter.ai as a possibility for making transcripts. In the next Twitter Space, I tried it out. Here is the outcome. It is all about a learning curve.

Hope you enjoy!

Transcript of Conversation with Rose Caraway.

Dr. J.  Welcome everyone to my third Twitter spaces event in The Sexuality Space™. I am so delighted to have as my guest the awe-inspiring Rose Caraway. Rose, I wanted to tell people a little bit about what this space has to do with. You and I talked about that earlier. We know in this world, it’s hard to find a place where you have permission to talk about sexuality. As you can see up in the pinned tweet area. I have listed what my mission statement is. Mainly it’s to create an education space that’s based on the model I’ve used throughout my career. It’s called The PLISSIT model where we actually set up permission space. We provide limited information which is getting rid of myths and getting rid of misinformation and replacing them with facts. It is also giving specific suggestions on whatever the topic happens to be for the day. And today, I’m excited to have Rose here with us. Rose and I have done some interesting things together. I have some questions I want to ask her about her work. I like to start this sexuality process with this question. How did you land with sexuality being a component of your professional life?

Rose Caraway 

It’s such a great question. How long do we have? (laughing)

Dr. J. 

I relate to that when people ask me that question.

Rose Caraway 

I think I would just open up to say that I started in it. Honestly, you know, I’ve always written my fantasies down. And so, I grew up, just FYI for all the listeners, I grew up in a very sexually repressed home. Sex was a private thing. It was very scary. I was terrified of boys and men and I was afraid of what sex meant. You know I was just meant to squeeze out babies. Oh my God, men would just be able to have their way and we would have to actually get it, it never sat right. So, I wrote all these crazy weird, but exciting very sexy fantasies down to sort of, I guess to comfort myself. Then you know, 19 years later I graduate high school and my husband and oh it was a different world. Like, Oh, boys are nice, men are cool. It just happened that I became more comfortable with sex and my husband was the recipient of many of my written down, sexy fantasies. One day, he said, hey, we should do a podcast. That was back in 2011, I think. And from then on it was this is what we were meant to do, we have to do this. There are so many other people like us. We have to help them get started.

Dr. J. 

Oh, that’s great. So, the process was, let’s do this through the podcast. That’s where you jumped in the professional world of sexy, erotic words. Okay, so, I know my process has continued over a long period of time and changed from one thing to the other. How did you get into publishing?

Rose Caraway 

It’s from people saying you can’t do that. And then I go on a bat. I’m just writing all these stories and reading. Eventually with some erotica for myself I thought, you know, with a really good editor, I could do this. I could help other people publish stories because one of the things we do on our show is encourage our Lurid Listeners to just write down your fantasy. It doesn’t matter how crappy the words, the sentences are just get it down. Put it some place, because that’s what I had been doing. And then, you know, through trial and error, you just, you get there. What if you really like writing and you know that just kind of ended up being my way. I thought, well I can do this. I can publish something too especially when Amazon gives you the opportunity to self-publish. I mean, you know as painstaking as they may get, it’s still relatively easy to do and ebooks are nice private ways for individuals and couples to explore their sexuality and erotica.

Dr. J. 

Interesting, interesting. Let me just pause for a second. I see a couple of new people have come in Rose. I’m doing an interview with Rose that’s being recorded and I’ll be opening to questions when we’re finished here. I was looking at your submission call. You have been so funny with the things that you have posted about the latest submission. I put this up for everybody to see because I thought this was the coolest thing to talk about enticing writers to look at what your submission is about. You’ve been doing these interesting PLOT BUNNY things. Why don’t you tell us about the submission call? Here’s the link: Erotica for Men and the Women Who Love Them Volume 2.

Rose Caraway 

Well, I’ve been doing some reading on male fantasies. I just finished actually day before yesterday, Nancy Friday’s book, Men in Love. It’s about male sexual fantasies and the triumph of love over rage. Because I’m a girl, I only know so much about male fantasy and I’m married to a man. He has given me some information, but that’s only one guy. So, I really want to know what lives in the realm of male fantasies. And so, when we put this call together, I have the perfect pool to pull from. These emails that I get from my Lurid Listeners just them sending me their fantasies and stories that they would like me to read or do I know of any that would fit this bill. I went through all my emails, and just pile them all together. And so that is where between this book and a couple of other books, and those emails, that’s where I’m pulling all these ideas from, you know. I don’t ever want to be the person to tell somebody what they can or cannot write. I know that publishers have their limitations because they don’t want to be sued and they don’t want to get terrible bad reviews, and neither do I. But I am opening this door of male fantasy that a lot of people are afraid of, even men themselves. They’re like are you sure you want to know what’s in my head because it makes me even a little bit nervous. Yes, I want to know and then between the two of us, we’ll work out a good story that will suit our audience who is also seeking the same thing.

Dr. J. 

Excellent. Well, you know, folks aren’t gonna know this, but this is actually how you and I met. Do you remember? Your anthology.

Rose Caraway 

Yes, back in…

Dr. J. 

Back in 2017, I was a very newbie writer. I submitted for a call and you wrote the nicest rejection letter I have ever had. (laughing) But you know it’s interesting, I think about this probably differently than most people in terms of writing because I’m working with the holistic person. I’m thinking about all the things that we know about the brain and how sexuality works from that direction. What causes arousal and how does that change. You know everything like the part of the brain that’s the psychological part and how that ties into the biological part. I’ve worked, Justin Lehmiller’s book like crazy. It’s all about the research on what fantasies are and what people have going on in their mind. I use this info and look at how those play into the ideas that I come up with for the stories that I’m writing.

Rose Caraway 

That’s great fodder. Yes, I’ve got that book. It’s in my stack as well.

Dr. J. 

He’s fun to listen to and I love that he’s such a researcher. He goes into detail about what we know and that part is interesting. But, Rose, I’m curious if somebody has never written before, what are you looking for when they submit to you?

Rose Caraway 

They’ve got a good fantasy that we can have. My job is not to write their story for them. But if their voice is so compelling, if their fantasy is so compelling. Maybe there’s some rawness, there are some emotions that the characters are feeling. To me that’s worth investigating and working towards. And we both have to be willing to work on it. I’ve done that a few times with new writers that I’ve published because they’re worth it. Their stories are worth it and I know that they’re, you know, not the only one with these inklings or feelings. So, I am willing, you know to help people get published, but that’s not maybe their end goal. Ultimately, maybe they just want to get it out and get through that editing process so that they can learn from that and develop something greater than that.

Dr. J. 

Well, Rose, you tapped into something that I hear a lot. In fact, I’ve been working with a company who believes that if we can put what’s in our head down on paper, we create a feedback loop for how we can grow and learn and change and explore our own sexuality and the things that make us happy. It’s putting pleasure in the front seat. I like the idea that it may be nothing about publishing. It may be how can I use this as a tool to learn more about who I am as a person.

Rose Caraway 

That’s what I did instinctually for myself and for my husband and it’s developed into the Kiss Me Quick’s Erotica Podcast, So, you just, you never want fear to hold you back from some potential that could be marvelous for yourself, and, make you a better human, and maybe a better parent or something.

Dr. J. 

And it all comes together I mean, the whole part of if it’s holistic it’s you totally and then it’s what you choose to share with someone else. Then if you have children in the mix, how are you going to explain as a role model, all of these different things. It’s all mixed together in a really wonderful and great way. We just have to help people find an avenue that works for them and kind of gives them elbow space to, you know, expand a little bit and say okay, you know, I can deal with this. Which is why for me, I’m hearing you provide permission for anyone who wants to write. To put that out there in the same way that I want to have a space where people can have permission to talk about whatever topic we’re discussing here.

Rose Caraway 

Yeah, and you know, I’m a parent of three kids, my oldest graduated last year, my daughter is graduating this year, my youngest is graduating in two years. It is tough to parent, you know we are loaded with sexuality baggage from our parents, and their parents and society and man we are gonna mess up. And hopefully it’s not too detrimental and hopefully, especially through erotica, if you have a place to put your fantasies and you can look back on them and go okay, I’m not a terrible person. I’m exploring something here, and then you can give your children permission to explore their, their sexuality, their bodies, their minds, especially, they can carry it forward and eventually we’ll be a much better society for it. I mean that is the goal is to balance all of them, whatever our roles are that we choose in life, as parents and individuals as men, women, partners, everything. I think that erotica is one of the greatest tools to help us get there.

Dr. J. 

Oh absolutely, but I’m really gonna put you on the spot, Rose. I know some of the erotica authors that are listening are going to crack up when I ask you this question. What is it like to read the stories of authors that you know?

Rose Caraway

that I know.

Dr. J.

Yes, you the narrator of their words.

Rose Caraway

So, I, I’ve got goose bumps right now. So, whenever I get into the recording studio in my home in my office. I go in there and it’s like I stepped through that door and I’m trying my best to put the character, the author, the body that is this story on and try to put it through the microphone. How can that be best represented and heard by whoever gets to listen to it? It’s a little bit scary, it’s a little bit intimidating. It is so much fun. That this is a place where I feel welcome where I feel accepted and the work, we, all of us have this thing in common. We’re just humans we don’t want to go to our deathbed and not be able to fulfill ourselves as much as possible. When we get to write these stories down, I get to narrate them. I need to put many of them out on my podcasts for free for people to just listen to and get primed for whatever they’ve got planned. Oh, my god, it feels so like, full circle because they respond back and they say, oh my gosh that story was so good and you encouraged me to do that. I’ve never been so fulfilled.

Dr. J. 

Well, the other thing too Rose, you and I talked earlier this morning to actually hear our voices with each other and the excitement of what audio does. I was listening to an audio books expert who said that 50% of audio books are erotica. You have a lot of things to think about it in that direction but a lot of people want to use more sensory components. If you have hands free, boy, you’ve got lots of sensory things that you can work with there. YOUR voice in and of itself adds a layer to the story. People are, you know, drawn to having you read their work. So how do you decide whose work you narrate? 

Rose Caraway 

As I have time. Anybody I want. If they want to write, obviously they have to want it too. It was a tremendous compliment and I don’t want to just breeze over that. Thank you so much. Oh my god. The trick of it is, is again, I come into this place, this narrator life or this editor life, podcast, this erotica life of mine. It’s mine. Honestly, I’ve listened to several other podcasts, and I just felt like they’re putting on too much. I don’t want to overdo it. I don’t want to treat listeners like their children. I want to give them something. I want to give them candy, but also some medicine. And so those stories that I narrate while they can be quite pornographic, they’re also erotic. They’re also erotica which engages the brain and I mean all of your senses. If it’s written well enough. So, yeah, I don’t ever want to stop narrating.

Dr. J. 

I get you. You’ve got a couple of questions from the audience that I want to go ahead and address. Carlos sent me one, and he has a Part A and Part B question. Number one is writing erotica actually profitable and part two, is it more profitable for men or women authors? What’s your take on that.

Rose Caraway 

Hi Carlos, thank you for your question. Is it profitable? No. No. If you’re talking about money. But if you’re talking about, like yourself, write it down. Just get it out there, put it up there for free. That’s my biggest advice. Put your stuff out there for free, build a fan base, if what you’re writing speaks to people. You have to want to do it. I think that’s got to be your drive. For the money, no, don’t do it for that. Did I answer the second part?

Dr. J. 

The second part of the question: is it more profitable for men or women authors and I guess the big question out there is how many. If we look at a division between men and women, who’s writing the erotica?

Rose Caraway 

There are definitely more women names within erotica. There are many pseudonyms. It might be a surprising number of men, because it just seems that it’s easier to consume. If the erotica is written by a man for a lot of woman, they have a hard time with that. Oh, this is a man telling this story there. Some people are still a little uncomfortable with that. But I would encourage you to please put down a masculine name, identify as male so that all of the men of the world who are listening in who need your story can feel accepted and have a space to play and to feel out their fantasies with you and the rest of us females who are like, hey look this is a good place to be. We can do this together. It doesn’t fit not just for women, you know, I know erotica, in and of itself sounds like it’s just exclusively for women, you know porn for a long time, sounded like it was just for men. A lot of women were like oh no, yeah. A lot of kids who are men and women, including, you know I’ve narrated this series, Rachel Kramer Bussel Best Women’s Erotica series. So many men who listen to my show have gone, this was for women, written by women, and I got turned on. I love to keep doing this.

Dr. J. 

Yeah and you know I think you bring a good point. I mean, probably there are more pen names in the erotica area because I know so many people that have to keep a true separation between what their everyday life is. For whatever reason, jobs, family they don’t want people to know that is what they do. And so, to really gather information about how is erotica for you in terms of profit or who’s doing it it’s really hard to get information like that. I know. I see my buddy Rachel Woe in here she and I were talking last week about the difference between writing erotic romance and writing erotica, in terms of what readers are looking for that. Readers love to be in the universe of your book and your story. They want to be with the people, and they love to have that place continue. That happens more in an erotic romance direction, than it does in an erotica direction so the space is a little narrower. And I think sometimes people are looking for context. I know when I’m writing erotica, that’s one of the things I really focus on— the story has a beginning, a middle and an end. It has people who have wants and needs. We’re looking for what the motivation is and all of those things are there, so I can say this is a literary product in those directions.

Rose Caraway 

Yeah, Hi Rachel Woe. Yes, I agree with you. I would also add that erotica doesn’t have to be literary or romantic. It can be just a theme, and you can still explore on a massive scale, or as finite as you want. The human condition, those characters who are playing those roles can give me goosebumps again, they also explore practically the same things that you can get in a romance right as long as you have characters who are open and there is some sort of a conflict in there to overcome.

Dr. J. 

Yes, and I love that it’s multi-layered. That description was for me. This is how I approach it. But we are so individual in the way we do things. That’s what makes writing different and the ideas be different. Somebody was asking me the other day, what’s the topic you write? What is your niche? I was like, well, it’s sort of all over the board in terms of the different things that I’m writing about. I even wrote up a fetish story about a spoon. How does all this get put together? Our minds work in interesting and different ways to tell stories in different ways.

Rose Caraway 

There’s so much spontaneity that can happen I mean, it’s pretty magical. When you get to a place where you can be open to just sexuality in general, no matter what the gender, that world is wide open for you, anything can become an erotic. An eroticized thing, a person, anything. I tend to write some action-adventure kind of edgy, dangerous stuff. That’s always been kind of what’s in my head and I understand is not, you know, the general appeal. But people like to find their little niche, and boy, can they fill it well. It’s really fun. It’s fun to find all these authors who can write like just the most powerful BDSM scene, or to be think about it just those seeds where characters are giving one another the permission to do something to accept something action. Oh my gosh, I mean it just, it’s so moving and so powerful.

Dr. J. 

I know from a reader perspective and a writer perspective, and from my teaching, that since in the United States we don’t have comprehensive sex ed a lot of people say that the way they learn about anything related to sexuality is through reading. And so, whether we know it or not, we’re actually in a teaching mode that we may not have even taken up or, you know, planned to be in. But the interesting part is that when we look at it that way, we think about how, as a writer, can we be sex positive? How can we portray consent because we really want that to be a sexy component using condoms, or any of those things that relate to sex toys lubrication, All of those things come into play. The model that I started out with, what’s permission, what’s limited information. That stuff sits in a story whether we plan for it to be there.

Rose Caraway 

It’s pretty wonderful. It humanizes what it makes you have to be able to do. Though I would say, separate what is real life, and what is fantasy. I don’t necessarily focus too much on, you know, bringing in condoms. I’ll throw them in there. Definitely play with the permission stuff. Some stories, you know, they like to play with rape fantasy. And so how do you do that? How do you show consent between your characters and still play with that fantasy? It’s an interesting little dichotomy that a lot of a few, a few good authors they can manage that like, nobody wants just this mindless rage scene. That’s what I indicated in my call for submissions. We’re, we’re living in an angry world right, like everybody’s like, hey hi I love you but inside, we’re, we’re angry at something or other. So, when it comes to sex, there’s a lot of pent-up frustration and anger. We have to be careful with how good it is, but, like we’ve got to be open to letting fantasies be what they are.

Dr. J. 

You made a good point too, because sometimes fantasies are truly to stay in your head. That was one of the interesting things I heard when Justin Lehmiller was talking. Just because you have a fantasy does not mean that that’s something that you then go out and act on. We need to have some clarity about, you know what is the turning us on factor versus the, is this a good thing for me to do with the people in my life, you know, out there in the world. It takes a lot of self-reflection and understanding about what you’re doing for yourself in order to decide to jump in, in that direction. So, it’s, again, it’s another one of those learning components.

Rose Caraway 

You know if you have, like if you have a partner, and you’re afraid to discuss maybe a fantasy that just really hit pushes your buttons, you’ve got to figure out how you want to. First of all, if you want to disclose this fantasy to them. I mean there’s so many, there’s so many fears and anxieties that go with it you know and guilt and all of these things, shame, hopefully got a trust worthy heart this information, patient, and then discuss and analyze and if you know okay, maybe with this within between just the two of us. This is our safe topic, our safe space to explore. And we’re not on it. We’ll talk about things a bit awkward you know. And like, you can learn to grow, exploring something new to them. I would encourage people to try first. Right. Okay. And then, I mean, a way to share maybe. So, I don’t have the words, but I have this story right here. Got me, can you read it and then can you have questions?

Dr. J. 

And you’re talking about it, it becomes a tool. It’s a tool that you can use with partner, partners in your life to explain further where you are in the world. You know the other thing in terms of a tool is that research has shown us that for women erotica assists in more lubrication, more arousal, more desire, and orgasm. And when we can have science backing up, what it is that we’re doing and we’re the people creating the tools that is a really powerful position to be in.

Rose Caraway 

It just feels so validating that science, agree.

Dr. J. 

Well, you know, I like the idea that pleasure is an important topic for us to be able to address. I mean, I’ve always said life would be a lot better and have less violence if people were enjoying themselves more in the pleasure world.

Rose Caraway 

Yes, please, just a little bit if we could. You know, I want to touch back on, you know, the shame and the guilt and the fear of sharing a fantasy with your partner. I remember years ago in the first broadcast. We had a gentleman email us. Do you have any cuckolding stories? And my response back was, what is that? I don’t know. I made it learning all of the things, sexual, and all. I was just so naive and I didn’t know anything. So I’m still learning to this day, but the gentleman emailed us, and then some discussion happened. We researched. He asked if he could send me a couple of porn clips and I said sure. Tell me what they are so that I’m not like just shocked. Because back then I was still a little like sketchy about porn because it can be quite aggressive. And, you know he’s got to be in the right mindset to take some of that on, especially I think as a woman. So, he sent me a few clips, and I watched. I had no idea that how many men really loved their wives, so much that they would also find joy in watching them have sex with other men, more than one various races whatever all these different scenarios. And then they, the wives, would come back to them and say, but you are the one on your mind and I am yours and thank you for this gift and, you know, I find value in. A man being able to say, here’s my fantasy, and I know that it’s gonna split some people out but this is who I am and can we, you know, can we talk about it. Can we play with this in our in the privacy of our own bedroom or do we want to open up our marriage? I don’t know about any of the listeners, but I have been married to the same man for 20 years. I can understand that, like, there’s other men out there and you know we are monogamous. I do appreciate and can understand the value of people finding joy in, in ways unheard of before.

Dr. J. 

And you know, Rose, you know, as a therapist, I can tell you that when people choose to investigate their sexual self, and they can go in all these great little nooks and crannies and find out more about themselves, it allows you to be in the space of acceptance. When you can be in acceptance, then you can bring that forward to a partner and talk more about it. You know, it’s hard to tease out all the messages or the negativity or what your culture has given you if you’re sitting in the middle of this is idea what would bring me pleasure. How do I share this with someone else and how are they going to respond when I do that? This is why I think erotica is a great way to share that information with another person. Here are so many different stories and you pick a story and say, let’s read this together. Let’s talk about this together. What came up for you? What did you think about it, you know, as a bridging maneuver to have a real conversation?

Rose Caraway 

Well, I have by no means a how to.

Dr. J. 

That’s right, that’s right. Well, I have to ask you, Carlos has sent me this really neat comment but I want to hold that so he can tell you about that himself. So Carlos you hang on, hang on with that. Um, I’m curious Rose, what, what would you say is the most interesting project you’ve ever worked on in your sexuality world.

Rose Caraway 

From day one, this total ride has been interesting. I am forever learning. Like I have to read and reread. I have so many notes, you will not believe how many notebooks I have. Right now, the most interesting is for the male erotic. I’m curious to see the stories I get. I want to see if they kind of fall in, wow. Stories give me permission to explore my more feminine fantasies. Understanding that, well if we let this part of sexuality and love and openness and vulnerability in, then other people can rise again. I feel like I’m just getting to the most interesting part.

Dr. J. 

You know, I’m with you there. It’s funny because I never in a million years dreamed I’d be doing what I’m doing today with you. Having the world as an audience for you and I to have this conversation is surreal. But I want to ask you one more question and then open it up for folks to have a conversation with you. I want to know, what have we not covered, something that you wanted to make sure we got addressed today.

Rose Caraway 

You know, parting advice. I know we’re not done yet and I don’t have any like parting genuine gems of advice. I would just say, you’ve got, you know, your “love language” and your boundaries, not only your own but also your partners. We have to be active listeners and give space for both to be present. I think we’ll be better humans for it. Plan your date days when you’re not tired. And don’t ever give up because you’re totally entitled to your sexual self. It is part of you. You have to engage it.

Dr. J. 

I’m gonna close this portion right here. Thank you, Rose. Thank you to everyone for joining me today. I want to tell you that up next week in The Sexuality Space is the creative Tabitha Rayne. Artist, writer, editor and the creator of the Ruby glow. So, I hope to see you all then.

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