Ep 6 - Sultry Stories, Sweat, and Sapphic Snacks with Jo Del Carmen
Timestamps:
Rolling R's and a Very Sexy Name — 0:00
Meet Jo Del Carmen — 3:04
Women in Papercuts — The Stories Behind the Stories — 4:13
Being Outed, Coming Out, and Mind Your Business — 11:28
Youth Group Was Always a Gay Pipeline — 18:40
Sapphic Books, Movies, and the Aubrey Plaza Situation — 24:00
Polyamory, Trifectas, and How It Happened — 30:53
Demisexual, TikTok Connections, and Shooting Your Shot — 45:00
Second Puberty, Parenting, and Reparenting Yourself — 32:07
New Orleans, Beer Pong, and Seven Minutes in Heaven — 53:05
The Sapphic Slow Burn and Why Safety Equals Great Sex — 55:36
Jo Reads from Irresistible — 1:15:32
Sultry Stories, Sweat, and Sapphic Snacks with Jo Del Carmen
Some guests walk into the room and immediately make it feel different. Jo Del Carmen is one of those guests.
Jo is a queer Latinx author, TikTok storyteller, and the woman behind Women in Papercuts — a series of true sapphic short stories written with the kind of tension that makes you want to turn down the brightness, light a candle, and get in touch with yourself. She grew up in South Florida, spent seven years writing and performing music, got shoved out of the closet by her brother, and has since been turning twenty four real experiences into some of the most honest sapphic short fiction on the internet.
She fits right in.
Coming Out, Being Outed, and Mind Your Business
The conversation starts where a lot of queer conversations start — with coming out stories. But Jo's isn't a gentle unfolding. She was outed by her brother, which leads to a conversation about what it costs to have that choice taken away from you, and why outing someone is never okay no matter how the story ends.
Siren and Wendy share their own coming out moments, and the three of them land somewhere honest: coming out isn't a single moment. It's something queer people do over and over again, in every new room, for the rest of their lives.
Also covered: why youth group has always been a gay pipeline, and why that tracks completely.
The Books, the Movies, and the Aubrey Plaza Situation
Every sapphic has a list. Foxfire. Gia. Imagine Me and You. Blue is the Warmest Colour. The conversation about sapphic media turns into a passionate, slightly chaotic breakdown of the films and books that cracked people open before they had the language for why.
And then there is a very spirited defense of Aubrey Plaza that we will not be summarizing here. You need to hear it for yourself.
Polyamory, Trifectas, and How It All Started
Jo opens up about her own relationship — her wife, her non-monogamous partner, and how their dynamic evolved through honest conversation and consent first. It's one of the clearest, most grounded descriptions of ethical non-monogamy the show has featured so far.
Siren talks about her trifecta and how it formed after New Orleans. And Wendy — in what might be a first for the show — reveals that she is demisexual, and what that actually means for how she experiences attraction and connection.
It's a genuinely important conversation, handled with the mix of honesty and chaos that Tongue First does best.
The Sapphic Slow Burn
This is where the episode earns its title.
Jo has a thesis: queer women connect through yearning. Through safety. Through the slow accumulation of trust that makes desire feel different than it does anywhere else. The conversation about the sapphic slow burn — what it is, why it exists, why it hits the way it does — is one of the most thoughtful things the show has produced so far.
And then Jo reads an excerpt from her story Irresistible, and the room goes quiet in the best possible way. It's the kind of writing that makes you want to sit very still for a moment after it's done.
The Rest of It
Because it is still Tongue First: second puberty, beer pong in the oldest gay bar in the country, the question of whether men can have sapphic relationships, consent and what it actually looks like in practice, and sapphic snacks as a complete life philosophy.
Jo Del Carmen is the real deal. Go find her on TikTok at @jo_author and pick up her merch and links at linktr.ee/womeninpaperperks.
Tongue First is a sapphic and queer podcast hosted by Aubrey "Siren" Jones and Wendy Reeves. New episodes every Monday. Find us at tonguefirstpodcast.com and support the show on Patreon at Tongue First: After Hours.
Follow the chaos on TikTok: @Sirenegade_440 @Wendy6181981
Until next time — stay curious, stay queer, and don't forget to lick responsibly.
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