E. Jean Carroll, the longtime Elle magazine advice columnist who on Friday accused President Trump of raping her 23 or 24 years ago, has a new book coming out next week. What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal will “shock men and delight women,” according to the book’s promotional materials. Whatever the book’s precise theme — it’s still under wraps — it seems likely to represent a significant evolution from Carroll’s 2004 Man Catching Made Easy: Mr. Right, Right Now!, a how-to guide that promised to reveal “How to land a guy in 6 days!”
As part of the promotional campaign for the new book, Carroll is on the cover of New York magazine with the allegation that Trump raped her in a dressing room in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in either 1995 or 1996. Her article is entitled “Hideous Men” and covers not only Trump but disgraced former CBS chief Les Moonves. Carroll, in characteristically colorful style, said Moonves once set upon her in an elevator, “his pants bursting with demands … his arms squirming and poking and goosing and scooping and pricking and prodding and jabbing [and] looking for fissures I don’t even know I own.” She also described ugly scenes with young men she says mistreated or abused her growing up.
Carroll has appeared in lengthy interviews on CNN and MSNBC to discuss her allegation. She also conducts something she calls “The Most Hideous Men in NYC Walking Tour,” in which she leads a tour group on a 90-minute walk around some of New York’s #MeToo landmarks. The tour includes Trump Tower and begins where Carroll says Trump raped her. “We will meet in front of Bergdorf’s 58th Street entrance,” an ad for the tour says.
The book, the magazine feature, the TV appearances, the walking tour — it appears Carroll has gotten into the Hideous Men business. She downplays the prominence of Trump on her Hideous Men list. But of course, there would be no Hideous Men business without the president of the United States and what Carroll says he did to her long ago.
The encounter began, Carroll wrote in the book excerpt, when the two happened to run into each other at Bergdorf’s. Trump, she said, was looking to buy a present for an unidentified woman, and asked Carroll for advice. “I am surprised at how good-looking he is,” Carroll wrote. The two began flirtatiously discussing which lingerie Trump might buy. With no one else around in that area of the store, they somehow ended up in a dressing room. “The moment the dressing-room door is closed, he lunges at me,” Carroll wrote. Trump, she said, pushed her against a wall and put his mouth against her lips. Shocked, she shoved him back and began laughing. Carroll said Trump then pushed her against the wall and, “still wearing correct business attire, shirt, tie, suit jacket, overcoat, he opens the overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me.” Carroll said she then managed to push Trump away and run out of the dressing room. “The whole episode lasts no more than three minutes,” she wrote. “I do not believe he ejaculates.”
Carroll’s story has been welcomed by anti-Trump cable TV hosts. But the way she described her alleged encounter with Trump has made for some awkward moments. Specifically, Carroll has refused to use the word “rape” to describe what she says Trump did to her. Her decidedly un-woke discussion of the issue can seem out of place in the #MeToo era.
The act Carroll attributed to Trump fits the textbook definition of rape; there’s no question about that. But Carroll told MSNBC she would not use the word about her experience because, “I would find it disrespectful to the women who are down on the border who are being raped around the clock down there without any protection.”
That seemed somewhat odd, but appeared to make more sense when, on CNN, the 76-year-old Carroll’s words suggested she defines rape in a way that seems to come from an earlier era. “I was not thrown on the ground and ravished,” she said. “The word ‘rape’ carries so many sexual connotations. This was not sexual. It just hurt.”
Of course, contemporary thinking on rape sees it as an act of violence and power, not sex. “I think most people think of rape as a — I mean, it is a violent assault,” said host Anderson Cooper.
“I think most people think of rape as being sexy,” Carroll countered. “They think of the fantasies.”
That is a view of the subject straight from an earlier world of bodice-rippers and racy novels, not just a pre-#MeToo time, but a pre-feminist time.
“I don’t use the word. I have difficulty with the word … ” Carroll said during an earlier appearance on CNN.
“But yours actually goes further in terms of being legally rape,” responded host Alisyn Camerota.
Carroll was silent.
“That’s what it was,” said Camerota.
More silence from Carroll. There was clearly a gap between Carroll and her much younger questioner.
Indeed, what #MeToo-era woman would have written Man Catching Made Easy: Mr. Right, Right Now!, even in 2004? And what #MeToo-era woman would have written a book like the one Carroll wrote in the 1990s, an offbeat biography of the writer Hunter S. Thompson in which Carroll not only told Thompson’s life story but created an alter-ego who is dominated by her subject. “Ms. Carroll has … written a gonzo bodice-ripper,” the Economist wrote of the book, “casting herself in the fictional role of Laetitia Snap, a lover Mr. Thompson has trapped in his basement and forced to write his biography.”
And what #MeToo-era woman would have said what Carroll said in a 1995 appearance on The Charlie Rose Show (long before Rose’s #MeToo problems surfaced) when fellow guest Jimmy Breslin said rules governing relations between the sexes had changed for the better since caveman times. “You can’t walk out of the cave with a club and drag a woman back — ” Breslin said.
“But Jimmy, women love that,” Carroll answered. “When was the last time you — “
“What?” asked Rose.
“You, like, took a big old club — ” Carroll said.
Both men laughed.
“No, but I mean figuratively,” Carroll continued. “Women love that. Just come in with a big old club.”
“You mean the notion of being hunted?” asked Rose.
“Love,” said Carroll.
“You love that?” asked Rose.
“Yes, that’s what women want,” Carroll said. “We need that.”
Breslin mentioned that police precincts are filled with men under arrest for assaulting women.
“We don’t literally want to be clubbed until we’re bruised,” Carroll said.
“But you want to be chased,” said Rose.
“We want to be chased, that’s right,” Carroll said.
Now, in 2019, it’s no wonder there seems to be a disconnect between Carroll and some of her media interviewers.
Still, there is a specific allegation to consider. Is it true? Did Trump attack Carroll? Carroll says he did, and Trump says he did not. There are several factors to weigh.
First are Trump’s repeated and strong denials. “It’s a false accusation,” he says. But Trump has denied things in the past, such as the payoff to Stormy Daniels, that were, in fact, true.
On the other hand, there is a plausibility question, because Carroll’s accusation differs significantly from several others against Trump. Other women have accused him of groping them, or kissing them against their will, but not of rape. (The exception was a now-retracted statement from his first wife Ivana.)
“I have no trouble believing that Trump has improperly and forcefully touched women in the past,” Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff wrote recently. “For one thing he said he has (to Billy Bush). For another, more than a dozen women have accused him of this. Maybe they are all lying, but coupled with his admission, I think some of them are probably telling the truth. But Trump, of course, has never ‘copped’ to rape, and to my knowledge, Carroll is the first woman to accuse him of it. (His ex-wife, Ivana, walked back such an accusation).” As much as Trump’s detractors would like to believe the worst about him, rape is something new.
Then there is the question of witnesses. There aren’t any. Carroll does not cite anyone at Bergdorf’s who saw or heard anything. She didn’t tell the authorities, then or ever. But Carroll says she told two close friends at the time. One was “a journalist, magazine writer, correspondent on the TV morning shows, author of many books, etc.,” and the other was “also a journalist, a New York anchorwoman.” One advised her to tell police, Carroll says, while the other advised silence.
News organizations have reported that both women confirm Carroll’s story. But both demanded anonymity, which will likely have to change if the press seriously pursues the rape allegation. There is also, of course, the question of whether Carroll told her friends the truth at the time.
And then there is the fact that Carroll is telling her story for the first time in the context of a book promotion. It’s a rape allegation with a product tie-in. There will always be critics who believe she is doing it for the publicity or the money, or both.
And finally there is the fact that the alleged incident took place more than 20 years ago. Carroll remained silent as Trump, already famous at the time of the alleged incident, became a TV star in the 2000s, flirted with politics, and then ran for president beginning in 2015. Carroll remained silent as the #MeToo movement, spurred by allegations of rape and sexual assault against some of the very men she features in “The Most Hideous Men in NYC Walking Tour,” got its start. She spoke out only when she had a book to promote.
And now, what is anyone going to do about a 23- or 24-year-old allegation? It can’t be proven. It can’t be disproven. So in the end, the E. Jean Carroll story will likely join a long list of contentious issues that Trump supporters and adversaries fight over and never, ever settle.
