Well, if you didn’t immediately report it to authorities, I certainly hope you at least had the good sense to document them in your daily journal for posterity. 20 years hence, someone will demand detailed proof and witness accounts, and they’ll want to avoid a lengthy search.
Again we have to through this date crap?
People don’t recall the exact date something traumatic happened because the date, itself is not relevant to the experience. When people DO recall the date, it’s almost invariably only because they can connect that experience to something else or if they’ve seen and heard the date repeatedly.
Example: Most people who were alive when JFK was assassinated can recall exactly what they were doing when they heard the news, but very few can recall the date from the experience, itself. If they can tell you the date, it’s because A) they’ve read “November 22, 1963” so many times, the date is affixed in their memories or B) they connect it to some other event: “I remember it was November 22nd, 1963 because it was my tenth birthday.”
One more time for those in the back: not recalling the date is indicative of nothing.
I am so sorry this happened to you. You are not alone.
Just tossing in my $0.02 for posterity:
I believe E. Jean Carroll.
I also wonder why now? #MeToo has been going a long time. There is a long list of women accusing Trump. Why wait till now to spill the beans? Seems very self-serving to me.
But, like Colbert said, if you claim one person pooped in your sink it may be dismissed but when it is 22 people…not so easy to dismiss.
Trump being all rapey is not a hard sell. We have him tape bragging about sexual assault.
My conundrum here isn’t believing this woman but trying to separate what seems an intensely self-serving revelation on her part with yet more evidence we have that a rapist is in the White House.
They are two separate things I guess. She is using this for her own benefit and he is a rapist…again.
One reason is the unconscionable backlog in the processing of rape kits. This is a California story, but Washington Post also ran a story (link came up in Google, but clicking though gave me a 404). Even when women come forward promptly and get a rape kit done, the kit often then sits gathering dust for years.
People do not come forward at the time for many reasons: they do not feel string enough, they do not have the support they need, they know they won’t be believed.
And as far as being assaulted by “so many men” - I hate to use a cliché, but #MeToo. Honestly, some times it does start to feel like maybe I have put out some kind of beacon that calls to sexual predators (actually trauma can cause you to become numb to ‘warning signs’ that others may notice).
As far as her not remembering the date, I don’t remember the date one of my military instructors physically would not let me leave the room, even after I told him I did not want to, and I was on my period. He finally relented, after forcefully putting his fingers inside of me to confirm the presence of blood.
I could not remember the date, or even his name (even though he had been my instructor for weeks).
But I remember exactly what it felt like to have him inside me. And others, ones that grabbed my breasts or stuck their tongues down my throat while others laughed, or raped me.
Coming forward sucks. It really does. People call you a liar, a slut, a whore, or worse. If they do believe you, it changes how they look at you.
But I still talk about it, because other people out there, suffering, because they don’t have the support or feel they have the strength, they need to hear it. They need to hear that you can heal, you can live with it. That being sexually assaulted is a terrible thing, but it does not have the define you.
So, yes, I believe her.
Thanks for sharing, Poysyn, and very sorry that you had to go through that.
People handle trauma in different ways, even many years later. It’s wrong to try and find an excuse to dismiss and denigrate a woman when she comes forward just because her story might reflect poorly on someone in your preferred political party. Some of the posters in this thread are doing this, and it’s absolutely terrible.
I’m sorry, and I think it’s great that you tell people about your experiences. People don’t like to talk about this stuff, and it’s so common.
Oh god, that’s awful. Thank you for sharing that.
What it means is if one wants their allegations of a crime to be either taken seriously or to be acted on, waiting 20 years to report it isn’t the answer. Reporting in a book that you’re trying to sell doesn’t help either.
I understand all of the arguments about reporting and discussing rape. But this is an educated, intelligent woman with some means who swam in some pretty big ponds in her day. At some point you have to take responsibility for your own life and concerns. She wasn’t a poor, uneducated 16 year old in a factory in 1800.
This dooms huge numbers of women to be dismissed and denigrated, because they happened to be raped at a time in which to report them could be life-alteringly horrible.
Irrelevant. Unless you have evidence she’s lying.
What does this have to do with her credibility? Trump bragged about sexual assault and violating women’s consent on multiple occasions, and he’s been accused of sexual assault and rape by over 20 women. And every time a woman comes forward, they get death threats and worse, in addition to strangers like you dismissing and denigrating them for speaking out about their experiences.
It’s not a shock women don’t come forward sooner – it’s a shock that they come forward at all, thanks to reactions like yours.
I’m just appalled that people don’t understand this, even if they haven’t experienced this kind of stuff themselves or heard about it from loved ones. I hope that people testifying will make some difference in people’s attitudes.
At no point in time could she have reported this and not been accused of this. As a well-known columnist who has written several books over the decades, the “any publicity, is good publicity” motive could’ve applied just as easily 20 years ago as it does now.
For someone like her who did have a small amount of celebrity to her name, her career could’ve taken a big hit if she’d reported Trump to the police. She, after all, dispensed advice to Elle readership. Knowing good and well her actions would’ve been put under the microscope and torn apart if she’d been outed as the accuser in a rape case against DJT, she had a choice to make. Sacrifice her reputation, her career, and the dreams she been working for by going to the police, or keeping the status quo.
Poysyn and Snoe, I thank you for sharing. You are both incredibly strong for having done so.
As to why Ms. Carroll didn’t report sooner. She has given an explanation. Whether you agree or not, at least give her the benefit of her own words on the issue.
How sad is it that people that are sexually violated don’t come forward, because they don’t think they will be believed?
To me, that is terribly sad.
I am happy she finally feels strong enough to come forward.
That may well be.
I confess to being uncomfortable with anyone being silent about a serious and violent crime, one perpetrated on them, only to pipe up about it decades later. It leaves the accused in a distinctly bad position to defend themself.
I get there are reasons why a woman may not have come forward at the time it happened but it remains deeply problematic.
In this case we have someone coming forward waaaaay after other women have done so publicly. Waaaaaay after it matters for an election. Waaaaaay after society has been accommodating to such revelations.
Yet someone who puts forward these revelations at the same time she is promoting a book she just wrote.
I am not questioning her veracity so much as her timing. I think she can be telling the truth and still be a shithead on the self-serving timing.
If you think Trump did it (and has zero remorse for doing so), then why care about him being in a bad position? I believe in saving concern for all the people he’s hurt.
Not at all. I am not going to judge the allegation by my opinion of Trump’s character (which is very negative with regards to how he treats women) but by the merits of the accusation.
Your question is insulting
- I didn’t quite call this women a liar. I responded to Rickjay who said that there was nothing that was hard to believe about her story. There are in fact some things that make it hard to believe. But I guess that is close enough to me calling her a liar, so ok. The point is that Trump doesn’t have anything to do with it. I seek to be objective and apply an objective standard. I’d like to think I would apply the same standards to Hitler as to Ghandi.
Your question then is really what constitutes a “good “ accusation. By good, I mean one that is actionable, demands my attention and support, i.e take it seriously. By contrast the less “good” it is, the less I take it seriously. So, I’m an attempt to be objective and fair here in order of importance are the components of accusations:
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The accuser needs to make their accusation seriously. They have to appeal to the authorities in place to deal with this. If you are accusing somebody of a crime you have to report it to the police, and be willing to prosecute. If it’s not a crime you should be reporting it to the highest authority pertinent. If you are not willing to make an official complaint, I don’t think you are taking your accusation seriously, so neither should I. You have to seek justice through the process and you have to cooperate with the process.
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The more proof and evidence you have of your accusation the more credible it is and the more seriously I take it. Not just quantity of evidence but quality too. A story is just a story. What elevates what you are saying beyond a story. Do you have physical evidence, witnesses what can you show to document your story?
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Is the accusation contemporaneous? Contemporaneous is better. Memories change. It’s harder to prove something that happened 20 years ago. I know that sucks and it’s not fair, but it is also true.
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Are there possible ulterior motives? Is there something to be gained by making the accusation or something to be lost?
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How “pat” is the story? I distrust accusations that fit a narrative everybody “knows”
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How credible is the accuser personally?
That’s it. I’m a big believer in innocent until proven guilty. I think somebody being falsely punished for a crime is worse than letting s crime go unpunished.
The unfortunate fact is that false accusations are commonplace. I don’t believe stories. I believe facts.
Scylla, I love you. You are one of my absolute favourite posters. I vehemently disagree with some of what you are saying - mostly because I actually know how hard it is to report to the police.
But - this is actually factually wrong. False accusations are NOT commonplace. Actually, the percentage of false accusations for sexual assault are lower than for other crimes - such as car theft.
Here is one cite:
It is also one of, if not the only, crime you have to prove you were a victim of - generally you don’t have to prove you were mugged, instead of just loaning the money.
Ever hear of that holiday called Christmas? All department stores decorate their show floors for the holiday and play Christmas music. Surely, Carroll could have remembered those details and narrowed down the dates when it could have happened.