Just wanted to make sure this accusation, in all its absurdity, bad faith, and sheer stupidity, was set out in all its glory.
I am totally with you on this. If she were to make up a date, it would just prompt the right-wing Fox News crowd to find that Trump could not have been there on that date.
Wait, what?!?
You’re saying that she can’t give us a specific date because she’s lying? What weird world do you live in, where people have to know the specific date of something that happened more than 20 years ago? You think everyone keeps a diary or something?
It’s obvious that she listened to the one friend that advised her to stay quiet about it, out of concern that Trump would try to destroy her.
Just like he’s doing right now.
You’ve never experienced an event in your life that you’d want to put behind you but couldn’t, and the only thing you could manage is to forget the exact date?
Clearly. Never too late to start.
Well…
A guy walks up to you in a clothing store and suggests you model lingerie for him (literally the creepiest pick up line ever, but it’s Trump, so ok.)
You respond positively to this and pick out a transparent piece of lingerie and go with him into the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman. He then aggressively tries to have sex with you. You push him away laughing (this is her story, mind you). Then he engages in intercourse. You never say “no” “stop” or scream for help, though it is a small dressing room in a crowded store in a public place. It’s not really clear from your own story that you ever withdrew consent You don’t describe the aftermath. You don’t go to the police. You don’t tell anyone except two close friends. You don’t mention in your columns or public forums though you have a platform and a voice that would let you do so. You don’t come out and mention during the 2016 elections when many other credible allegations against Trump and his bad behavior come out.
In fact, you don’t mention it until you are writing a book and making your tour to sell books. A strong argument made with many of these types of allegations is that the women coming forward have nothing to gain. You, trying to sell a book have a lot to gain.
You refuse to press charges or let the police investigate though there is not a statute of limitations on rape in NYC. You model the coat that you were raped in, but refuse to let it be examined forensically. In fact, you refuse to do anything that will subject your account to verification beyond a he said/she said. You say that your reason for this is that you don’t want to distract from the migrant workers being raped 24/7. Never mind that going on TV and talking about might be distracting. You don’t appear to be handling this allegation you are making very seriously, beyond the selling books. You go on TV and you say very odd non sequiturs like most people think rape is sexy.
So you are right. There are no red flags here. Nothing at all to detract from credibility.
Wanna buy a bridge?
How dare you talk about your experiences in a way that seems unusual to me? If you don’t tell your story in exactly the right way that resonates with me personally, you’re a dirty liar!
Carroll herself speaks about her experiences, in addition to the friends she told afterwards, in the link above. Hopefully anyone actually interested in opposing sexual assault and rape will give that a listen rather than resort to knee-jerk victim-bashing and denigration for political reasons.
You are directly contradicting her account:
And yet she’s willing to say it now. In a book. To take money.
You mention that it’s hard to tell authorities about it. But you know what? In my business we have an adage when people say something is hard. “Hard is fucking authorized.”
Yeah, it’s Trump. And as you note, the creepiness is not out of character for him. It is his character.
But you think him committing rape is just a bridge too far?
I will ask you what I asked Shodan. What would it take for you to believe a woman claiming Trump raped her? Is there any scenario that would not make you say it’s a lie? What would that scenario look like?
So I have a couple questions:
- Your review of the facts leading up to the incident omits details in what seems to be an intentional effort to discredit Ms. Carroll. For example you claim that ZTrump “walked up to her in a clothing store and suggested she model lingerie for him” and that she “responded positively to this.” But her account details a number of efforts she made to recommend a more innocent gift before Trump even suggested lingerie, recounts repeated efforts to deflect Trump’s suggestion that she model it (she kept throwing in back in his face and telling him to model it), and offers an explanation as to why she ultimately consented to shopping for and modeling it (she thought it would be funny- an explanation she acknowledges was foolish in hindsight).
Why did you leave these details out of your account? Don’t they suggest that you are, at best, mischaracterizing her willingness to go along with Trump’s lingerie-based flirtation?
- Carroll’s account suggests far more resistance to Trump’s physical advances than you give her credit for when you say she simply “pushed him away laughing.” She recalls stomping his foot and describes a “colossal struggle,” one that ultimately leads to her "getting a knee up high enough to push him out and off,’ after which she flees.
Why did you leave this information out of your paraphrased account of her resistance? Why not accurately recount her story? You claimed you were offering “her story,” but do you really think you did so?
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You say that she “didn’t tell anyone except two close friends.” So she told two people. They corroborated her story. How many people does a rape victim need to tell in order for her story to be believable?
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Carroll provided extensive explanations for most of the post-incident “red flags” you identify here regarding coming forward publicly. You may not find those explanations adequate, but why are you pretending they don’t exist?
I (a straight man) was sexually assaulted by a man as a young adult, a bit over twenty years ago as it happens, and the only times I’ve even mentioned it have been in semi-anonymous online forums like this one. I haven’t even talked about it with my long-term girlfriend. I’ve never told the whole story to anyone. I couldn’t, at this point.
I just tried to forget it. Mostly, I have. I don’t remember his name, or even what year it happened. But I remember lots of other details: where we met, what he said to get me to his house, what his house looked like, and so on.
So I don’t find it hard to understand why women, and all people, don’t report this stuff when it happens. I’m not sure I want to post this, frankly, but fuck it, I will, because maybe it will change some other man’s thinking about this stuff.
Big fucking deal. This doesn’t make it a lie.
If I become famous enough to publish a memoir, you better believe it will describe personal experiences that few people know about it. Some of those experiences actually might involve minor celebrities*. And? They are still true experiences.
*No sexual impropriety involved, just rudeness.
Thanks for sharing. You are not alone.
Thanks, it was really hard to say that
The thing with Jussie Smollett is, when he made his allegations, they were taken seriously. Because they were taken seriously, they were investigated. And because of the investigation, it came out that he was a liar who made the whole thing up, and so he suffered the consequences that he deserved. So, yes, his example illustrates very well that we should take allegations seriously.
If we take Carroll seriously, then we should investigate her claims. Maybe we’ll find hard evidence one way or the other, and can take appropriate action based on that. Maybe we’ll find soft evidence, that’s not good enough for a criminal conviction, but still enough for things like deciding who not to vote for. And maybe we won’t find much of anything, in which case we’re no worse off than we are now. But in any event, we have to take it seriously.
And yes, spifflog, we really do need to ask why she sat on this for twenty years, because the answer says very important things about us as a society, and what we need to change. With the MeToo movement, we’re starting to make those changes. Starting. We still have a heck of a lot of work to do.
*Slate *(yeah, I know, liberal trash) has a long examination of the way Carroll framed her New York essay that’s worth reading. It might give some insight into why women have never told their stories until recently.
In addition, the failing New York Times, which has done an amazing amount of first-rate, critically important journalism during its prolonged descent without landing, has confirmed with the friends that Carroll told her story to that she revealed it at the time it happened.
Our society is broken if reporting sexual assault and rape is so difficult and risky that relativelyvery few women do it. I’m not content with this; apparently you are.
I’m surprised no one has called out this comment yet. Are you aware of how common sexual assault is?
Good grief. I’ve been sexually assaulted three times (or rather, by three men - one of them more than once) and I think I’ve led quite a sheltered and lucky life.
Tell me, spifflog, how many times can a woman claim she’s been assaulted and still remain credible in your book? If she’s been assaulted three times you’ll believe her, but four times and you won’t?
Exactly how does this apply to determining a fact? Walk me through it. Either something happened or it didn’t. What is the relevance of whether reporting that it happened was “authorized,” whatever that’s supposed to mean?